Capcom's highly anticipated new title, "Monster Hunter Wilds," made a splash on Steam on its release day, attracting a massive player base since its late February launch. However, slow update cycles and quality control issues have since led to a wave of negative reviews.
But yesterday (June 30), the second free update dropped, and it unleashed pure chaos! Players reported widespread crashes, freezes, and game-breaking bugs. The situation was so dire that "Monster Hunter Virus" (モンスターハンターウイルス) quickly shot to the top of Japan's X (formerly Twitter) trends, sparking heated discussions among the community.
The official "Monster Hunter Wilds" X account posted an announcement yesterday, explaining that the Steam version's update addressed stability issues caused by real-time shader compilation leading to high CPU load. Moving forward, shader compilation will automatically complete upon the game's first launch, eliminating the need for players to manually delete cache data.
Despite the official hotfix announcement, player issues continued to pile up. Popular Japanese streamer Mhashi (@Mhashi0801) posted multiple times after the update, detailing how his ¥800,000 (approx. $5,000 USD) high-end PC (equipped with an NVIDIA RTX 4000 series graphics card) suffered frequent crashes, stuttering, and even failed to launch the game. He tried updating drivers, reinstalling the game, and adjusting system settings, but nothing worked.
He took to X in a full-blown meltdown, exclaiming, "Restarting and reinstalling drivers did nothing, my PC seems truly broken!" and "Even my mouse won't move..." He even suggested his entire expensive rig might be bricked, drawing sympathy from his followers.
With the widespread chaos, some players jokingly dubbed the "Monster Hunter Wilds" update the "Monster Hunter Virus" (モンスターハンターウイルス), a term that quickly became a trending topic on X. One netizen quipped, "This isn't 'Monster Hunter Wilds,' it's 'Monster Hunter 4 Virus Edition'!" Another added, "If an ¥800,000 PC can't run it, what's the point of me even playing?"
However, some players remained skeptical, suggesting that the hardware itself might be part of the problem. According to analyses by several tech-savvy netizens, many of the issues are concentrated among users with Intel 13th-gen processors, a CPU series already notorious for being a "time bomb." Many suspect this update "coincidentally" triggered pre-existing hardware instabilities.
Amidst the uproar, the Japanese community has split into two camps:
One side argues that "Monster Hunter Wilds"'s extreme performance demands, coupled with poorly designed in-game shader processing, are the primary culprits behind the widespread issues.
The other camp believes the problems are concentrated in specific hardware combinations (like Intel 13th-gen CPUs paired with certain graphics card drivers), pointing to severe game-hardware compatibility issues.
Adding to the debate, some players reported stable gameplay on their mid-range PCs (valued around ¥200,000, approx. $1,250 USD) with the same update, further suggesting that the disaster isn't a universal problem.
While the "Monster Hunter Virus" might sound like an internet joke, the actual chaos unleashed by this "Monster Hunter Wilds" update is no laughing matter.
This morning, the official team announced yet another patch is on the way. Whether the current situation is isolated incidents or a genuine update catastrophe remains to be seen, pending further player reports and subsequent fixes.
via： togetter