Capcom, if you're listening: Monster Hunter Wilds needs its hitstop back

GamesRPGMonster Hunter WildsCapcom, if you’re listening: Monster Hunter Wilds needs its hitstop backWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: Capcom)

Monster Hunter Wilds screen - guy with a huge sword about to whack a monster with a huge tongue

Nothing feels like Monster Hunter. You can fight giant lizards in any number of games, but Monster Hunter makes it look believable. When I take on a hunt to go toe-to-toe with a Deviljho, it doesn’t just feel like I’m whittling away at an arbitrary number of health points. Instead, Capcom’s combat, visual, and sound designers sell the fantasy of a hunter who’s made a lifestyle of trading blows with tyrannosaurs. I’m not just dealing damage; when I find the right opening, I’m landing blows that look and feel like they hit hard enough for an elder dragon to feel it.

The Monster Hunter Wilds beta, however, felt like its recipe for visual impact was a little underseasoned.

In Monster Hunter, hitstop is particularly effective. Those few still frames provide a really satisfying sense that your hunter’s attacks are potent enough that even a house-sized theropod would flinch. You can imagine how baffled I was, then, when I jumped into the Wilds beta last weekend and—after working out a settings setup to make itsspotty performancebearable—found that Capcom had removed hitstop from the majority of weapon attacks.

In recent years, I’ve spent most of my hunts using hammers and switch axes. They’re on the slower side of the MonHun weapon spectrum, dealing fewer but meatier hits. In the beta, even their attacks—aside from the heaviest possible blows, like the new offset attacks and focus strikes—lacked the hitstop I know and love, making shots that I’m usually excited to land feel suddenly inconsequential.

If you felt like the combat in the MHWilds beta felt “off,” it’s not just you! As this short comparison video shows, Capcom seems to have reduced hitstop on most (if not all) weapon types in Wilds, leading to some weapons 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 worse than they did in prior games. pic.twitter.com/PRIbkdEFTPNovember 3, 2024

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On theMonster Hunter subreddit, beta players quickly noticed the change. Asone hunterdescribed it, “if you didn’t have sound/damage numbers you literally cannot tell if your attacks are hitting the monster.”

Luckily, because hitstop is in there already, I’d expect reseeding it across the various weapon attacks would be an easier adjustment for Capcom to make than, say, sweeping performance optimizations. If you’re a Wilds beta player who wants to make your own request for hitstop’s triumphant return, theWilds beta feedback formis the place to do it.

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