Monster Hunter Wilds news gave World a surprising second wind
Capcom's best-selling game is in the spotlight yet again, thanks to the announcement of a spiritual successor that won't actually be here until 2025.
Somewhat unexpectedly, the recent Monster Hunter Wilds reveal at The Game Awards has sent players back into the arms of Monster Hunter World. Perhaps because Wilds won't be out until sometime in 2025, players itching to hunt some monsters have all flocked to World.
There is, of course, another reason why players have returned to the New World in droves.
Following the Wilds announcement, Capcom kicked off a new Return to Monster Hunter World campaign. This isn't a new update, or really any sort of new content; just a concentrated effort to get players to jump back into the best-selling game.
Crucially, players are encouraged to start new characters, and Capcom's social media teams have been streaming Monster Hunter World regularly, on fresh characters. All that has pushed other Monster Hunter content creators to follow suit, and the results are quite clear.
On Steam, the game reached a 24-hour peak player concurrent that's about one-third of its all-time high, according to SteamDB, at nearly 98,000 concurrent players - enough to get it into the top ten of Steam’s most played games during peak hours.
It helps, of course, that Monster Hunter World is also on sale for 67% off, making its current price a no-brainer for anyone who's always been curious about the action RPG, but never took the plunge.
Although Monster Hunter World does not support cross-play between platforms, it's easy to imagine the player base on each respective platform being healthy. This has always been true, of course, but the recent surge certainly make it easier to find groups of players to hunt with.
If you're thinking of pulling the trigger, you should definitely do it - but not before bookmarking our Monster Hunter World guides hub, which you're certainly going to need.