Capcom has revealed when we’ll finally be able to take on our first Elder Dragon in Monster Hunter Wilds. During this week’s State of Play Japan, fans got the exciting news that Gogmazios will be making its return. However, what has me more intrigued are the mysterious performance improvements that the developer promises will arrive alongside this monstrous update.
Gogmazios was first teased back at September’s Tokyo Game Show. This will be the monster’s second ever outing in the series, having last appeared in Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate in 2015. There, Gogmazios served as the ultimate final boss, making its comeback highly anticipated by veteran hunters. It’s been nearly a decade since then, but we’ll finally be able to go bone-crushing when Title Update 4 drops on December 16.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t much else revealed during the State of Play aside from mentions of “additions to the endgame” and “seasonal events.” If you’re particularly jazzed about more Festivals of Accord, then this is something to look forward to. But a follow-up post from the Monster Hunter account on X (formerly Twitter) has me even more excited. It promises “weapon buffs” along with “performance improvements and more!”
Anyone who has tried to put their PC through the rigors of Monster Hunter Wilds knows the game struggles heavily on PC. I’m not running a souped-up rig by any stretch, but Wilds pushed my setup harder than almost any other game in recent memory. It actually compelled me to upgrade my CPU, and even now I’m grinding through the ranks on low settings to avoid frame rate drops at critical moments.
Performance issues haven’t been the only complaints from the community, but they’ve certainly been a major blemish on the PC version. Steam overall reviews have hovered around “Mixed” almost since launch, and recent reviews currently sit at “Mostly Negative.” Optimization problems have played a large role in this, and even after eight months, Capcom has yet to fully address these concerns.
I’m genuinely hoping that changes with Title Update 4. Back in August, director Yuya Tokuda shared in a blog post that the team would be focusing more on CPU optimization in this update, as the CPU load is where many of the issues stem from. He stated:
“In regards to CPU load reduction, we plan to address this issue in the fourth title update scheduled for this winter. Once the initial implementation is complete, we will proceed with a second stage of further mitigation issues.”
While I’m definitely looking forward to bonking a giant tarry dragon on the head with my hunting horn, I’m even more eager to see whether I’ll be able to do it with graphics better than a “janky, blurry, stuttery mess,” or if I’ll be forced to continue hunting through crusty visuals and unstable 30 FPS.
Here’s hoping Capcom finally irons out the performance problems so that the Monster Hunter Wilds experience on PC can be as epic and smooth as it deserves to be. Stay tuned for Title Update 4 on December 16!
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/monster-hunter-wilds-first-elder-dragon-is-finally-landing-in-december-along-with-some-much-needed-optimisation-focused-on-reducing-the-games-ridiculous-load-on-our-poor-cpus/
