Monster Hunter Wilds had a great launch earlier this year, setting a first-month sales record for Capcom by surpassing 10 million units. We really enjoyed our time with the game at launch, but it didn’t have the same long-term appeal as Monster Hunter World or even Monster Hunter Rise. As I mentioned in my Monster Hunter Wilds review, performance issues on PC really hurt the experience, and Capcom is still working to address them.
Capcom also seems aware of the gameplay issues, especially since concurrent players on Steam have fallen to fewer than 25,000 for Monster Hunter Wilds. As a result, Version 1.021, which goes live on August 12 at 7:30 PM Pacific (10:30 PM Eastern), will include a host of changes originally scheduled for Title Update 3 in late September. Moving up the new content likely results from the game’s player base dropping off, and here’s hoping the new additions help fix some of the game’s issues.
The biggest addition in Version 1.021 is a set of high-difficulty quests, with 9-star monsters appearing when players are HR 100 or higher. A total of nine Tempered Monsters will begin appearing in locales, and Title Update 3 in late September will add even more 9-star monsters. As a reward for completing 9-star hunts, players will receive a Glowing Stone appraisal item, which will transform into an Appraised Talisman with randomly assigned skills. Unlike other talismans, though, Appraised Talismans cannot be upgraded, but they will randomly grant armor skills, weapon skills, and decoration slots to further expand customization and builds.
The team admitted the endgame at launch wasn’t very difficult and hopes the way they’ve balanced the 9-star hunts will appease longtime Monster Hunter fans. It sure sounds like some of these hunts will take a bit of time compared to the current minute-long blitzes you can do. The duration of meal effects has been lengthened, and the upgrade limit for armor of rarity 5 or above has been raised. The strength of support hunters is also being adjusted to be in line with 9-star monsters.
Many weapons are also seeing balance changes; you can find more details in the full patch notes below. The following weapon types are getting adjustments: Great Sword, Long Sword, Sword & Shield, Dual Blades, Hunting Horn, Lance, Switch Axe, Charge Blade, Insect Glaive, Light Bowgun, and Heavy Bowgun. The Gunlance and Bow will only receive bug fixes.
Monster Hunter Wilds Version 1.021 Patch Notes
Major Additions and Changes
Monsters
- At HR 100 or higher, tempered versions of the following nine monsters will now begin to appear in the field as 9★ quests: Rey Dau, Uth Duna, Nu Udra, Jin Dahaad, Gore Magala, Arkveld, Mizutsune, Lagiacrus, Seregios.
- Regular and tempered versions of Rey Dau and Nu Udra will now appear in the Wounded Hollow at HR 100 or higher.
- Adjusted the appearance rate of monsters at HR 100 and higher.
- The appearance rate of standard monsters has been slightly increased.
Player
- A new appraisal item, Glowing Stone, has been added.
Note: It can be obtained as a reward from 9★ monster quests. The item is appraised upon quest completion, yielding a talisman with random skill attributes. - The upgrade limit has been increased for armor of rarity 5 and above.
System
- Added a feature to hide/show specific ammo and coatings in the Ammo/Coatings Bar. This can be configured from the Ammo Pouch and Coating Pouch.
- Added the new Recoil Aim Assist option.
- You can now set weapons, armor, and talismans as Favorites. Favoriting an item provides the following benefits:
- A star icon will display, making it easier to identify.
- You can sort and rearrange by Favorites.
- A confirmation message will appear if you try to sell or use it as melding material.
- Added an option to sort by Favorites to the Equipment Box, Decoration Box, and Artian Materials Box.
- Improved directional input responsiveness on the World Map, allowing for more intuitive cursor movement.
Bases and Facilities
- Added a new feature related to Appraised Talismans to the Melding Pot.
Bug Fixes and Balance Adjustments
Bases and Facilities
- Increased the duration of meal effects from Portable BBQ Grill meals, Meal Invitations, and Canteen meals.
Monsters
- Fixed an issue where Focus Strikes could fail if a tear was present near an exposed weak point.
- Fixed an issue where it was difficult to cause wounds with attacks while mounted on Blangonga and Ajarakan.
Player
General
- Fixed an issue where using an item via shortcut while recovering from a damage reaction or evading with weapon drawn would not trigger item use. Items will now be used automatically after those actions complete.
- Adjusted the damage scaling during mounts to tone down the amount of damage reduction applied to non-mounted players’ attacks.
- Fixed an issue where the wet status would not be removed when retrying an Arena Quest while the player was wet.
Underwater Hunting
- You can now chain into an evade from ascending/descending movement.
- You can now use items during ascending/descending movement.
- Fixed an issue where items could not be used while in Focus Mode underwater.
Great Sword
- Made it easier to chain into Tackle from combos such as Strong Wide Slash to True Charged Slash, Tackle to True Charged Slash, and Side Blow to Strong Charged Slash.
- Leaping Wide Slash now chains faster into Side Blow.
- Strong Wide Slash now chains faster into True Charged Slash.
- Raw damage for Charged Slash, Jumping Charged Slash, Strong Charged Slash, True Charged Slash, and Strong Wide Slash has been slightly increased.
- Element scaling for Strong Charged Slash, True Charged Slash, and Strong Wide Slash have been increased.
Long Sword
- Reduced the delay between input and action when chaining into Iai Spirit Slash from Special Sheathe. Additionally, slightly extended the window for performing the Iai Spirit Slash.
Sword & Shield
- Counter Slash raw damage has been increased.
Dual Blades
- Adjusted Focus Strike: Turning Tide so that it can now be chained into Turning Tidedrill, a new finisher action that delivers a multi-hit attack to a targeted wound, by pressing â–³ (PS5) / Y (Xbox) / default Right Click (PC).
- Increased the effect duration triggered by a Perfect Evade while in Demon Boost Mode.
- Movement speed during Demon Mode has been increased.
- The window for a successful Perfect Evade has been extended very slightly.
- Improved the responsiveness of directional changes when using Screw Slicer during Focus Mode.
Hunting Horn
- Added armor properties to Hilt Stab, preventing the user from being knocked back by monster attacks.
- Hilt Stab can now be chained into from Focus Strike: Reverb, Echo Bubble, Special Performance, Encore, or evading.
- Echo Bubble can now be chained into from Offset Melody, Resounding Melody, or Encore.
- Fixed an issue that caused the finisher attack Focus Strike: Reverb to be difficult to connect.
Lance
- Damage taken while in Power Guard has been further reduced.
- Raw damage and elemental scaling for Retribution Thrust following a Perfect Guard have been increased.
- Wide Sweep, Reverse Attack, Finishing Thrust, Finishing Twin Thrust, and Counter Rush raw damage and elemental scaling have been increased.
- Charge Counter can now be chained into after a Perfect Guard or Guards with minimal knockback.
- Elemental scaling for Return Thrust , Mid Thrust I, II, III, and Triple Thrust have been increased.
- Payback Thrust, Grand Retribution Thrust, and High Thrust I, II, III raw damage have been increased.
- The hitbox for Retribution Thrust has been enlarged.
- Extended the distance traveled when inputting a direction with Leaping Thrust, Return Thrust, and Payback Thrust.
- Adjusted the transition from Wide Sweep into Mid Thrust, High Thrust, and Dash Attack to be quicker.
- The amount of weapon sharpness consumed when performing a Focus Strike: Victory Thrust was reduced.
- After winning a Power Clash, you can now follow up with Return Thrust, Payback Thrust, or Retribution Thrust.
- Fixed an issue where certain attacks hitting the opposite direction the player is facing during a Power Guard would not correctly transition into a Stalwart Guard.
- Fixed an issue where guarding while moving would not properly block attacks.
Gunlance
- Fixed an issue where, under certain conditions, performing Burst Fire while the skill Load Shells Lv 2 was active would result in fewer hits than intended.
Switch Axe
- Relaxed the offset detection for Axe: Offset Rising Slash, making it easier to trigger an offset attack.
- The offset buildup for Axe: Offset Rising Slash has been increased.
Charge Blade
- The raw damage for Axe: Element Discharge I and II has been increased.
- The raw damage for multi-hit attacks while in Power Axe Mode has been increased.
- Adjusted Axe: Element Discharge I and II so that, when an enhanced phial is used during Power Axe Mode, the explosion damage properly reflects the enhanced phial’s effect.
Insect Glaive
- Relaxed offset detection, making it easier to trigger offset attacks.
- The invulnerability window when vaulting backwards has been increased.
- Increased the distance when vaulting backwards granted by the skill Evade Extender.
- The raw damage of Strong Reaping Slash and Dodge Slash has been increased.
- The raw damage and elemental scaling of Strong Double Slash and Tornado Slash have been increased.
- Fixed an issue that caused the midair combo to have lower than intended attack power.
- Improved the hit detection of Focus Thrust: Leaping Strike while moving away from the target in the air. This attack will now also retrieve extracts upon a successful hit, as it does when performed on the ground.
- Fixed an issue where certain parts of Rathalos would not yield the intended extract colors.
- Fixed an issue where the amount of mount buildup from Jumping Advancing Slash performed as a drawn attack varied depending on the timing of the hit.
- Fixed an issue where, when quickly inputting commands after getting up, Leaping Slash or Sidestep Slash would trigger instead of Kinsect: Harvest Extract or Kinsect: Recall.
- Fixed an issue where Descending Slash could not be performed after getting up.
- Fixed an issue where, when performing a Strong Jumping Slash in Focus Mode and the player took damage while the Kinsect was in flight, the Kinsect would continue to repeatedly hit the monster.
Light Bowgun
- Adhesive Ammo and Wyvernblast raw damage have been increased.
- Increased the recovery speed of the Rapid Fire Gauge when using Exhaust Ammo, Poison Ammo, Paralysis Ammo, or Sleep Ammo.
- The reload speed for Adhesive Ammo and Focus Blast: Eagle Strike has been increased.
- The raw damage and elemental scaling for Flaming Ammo, Water Ammo, Thunder Ammo, Freeze Ammo, and Dragon Ammo have been slightly increased.
- The amount of Rapid Fire Gauge consumed while using Dragon Ammo in Rapid Fire Mode has been decreased.
- The amount of Rapid Fire Gauge recovered while using Pierce Ammo has been increased.
- Fixed an issue where only one projectile out of the multiple projectiles fired with the light bowgun’s Spread Ammo would receive the scaling from the Ballistics skill.
Heavy Bowgun
- Wyvernblast Ignition and Wyverncounter Ignition raw damage have been increased.
- The scaling for Wyvernblast Ignition and Wyverncounter Ignition during Ignition Mode ST I and ST II has been increased.
- Increased the recovery speed of the Ignition Gauge when using Exhaust Ammo, Poison Ammo, Paralysis Ammo, or Sleep Ammo.
- Adjusted the hitbox of Focus Blast: Wyvern Howl to make it easier to land.
- Chaining into Guard after firing Spread Ammo is now faster.
- The amount of Ignition Gauge recovered while using Pierce Ammo has been increased.
Bow
- Fixed an issue where the arrows from an Arc Shot would disappear if the attack hit the top of the area.
Skills
- Adjusted the effects of the set bonus skill Bubbly Dance as follows:
Before Adjustment:
Bubbly Dance I: Prevented major bubbleblight and increased evasion while afflicted with bubbleblight.
Bubbly Dance II: In addition to previous effects, it also granted minor bubbleblight after evading several times.
After Adjustment:
Bubbly Dance I: Prevents major bubbleblight and grants minor bubbleblight after evading several times.
Bubbly Dance II: In addition to previous effects, it also increases evasion while afflicted with bubbleblight. This evasion boost has also been increased. - Adjusted the duration of the set bonus skill War Cry. With this change, its effects will now stack with all other effects, allowing for greater flexibility in equipment choices.
- Adjusted the set bonus skill Powerhouse so that it now stacks with all other effects.
- Effects of the set bonus skill Burst Boost have been increased.
- Increased the duration of the set bonus skill Affinity Sliding.
- Adjusted the Shock Absorber skill so that, while active, guarding abilities (blocks) no longer trigger in response to ally attacks.
- Adjusted the Ballistics skill to increase the effective range for Normal, Pierce, and Spread Ammo. Additionally, Normal and Spread Ammo will now be within effective range even at point-blank distance (0m) from Level 2 onward.
Support Hunters
- Adjusted the performance of Alessa and Fabius to reflect the changes made to the Lance.
- Fixed an issue that caused Support Hunters to stop attacking under certain conditions during underwater hunts.
Seikret
- Increased the speed at which you can turn 180 degrees while mounted on Seikret.
- Adjusted the dismount timing window after a successful evasion, allowing players to dismount earlier.
- Adjusted input timing to make it easier to open the map immediately after mounting.
Miscellaneous
System
- Fixed an issue where performing certain actions in the item bar could cause the game to crash.
- Increased the amount of Guild Points awarded from Limited Bounties.
Network
- Fixed an issue where, if a player disconnected just before the animation of gestures like Gou Hadoken or Water Gun hit, the game would crash for other players.
- Fixed an issue that caused the following incorrect message to display when viewing the rankings for a new Challenge Quest or Free Challenge Quest: “This is a repeated quest. You can view the results from when it was last available.”
Locales
- Fixed an issue where shrine fragments that appear during quests in the Dragontorch Shrine would sometimes not activate from direct attacks.
- Fixed an issue in Photo Mode where toggling off the scoutfly effects from the edit menu only hid the glowing effect.
Other
- Fixed an issue where some voice lines would not trigger properly.
- Fixed various text issues.
- Fixed other miscellaneous issues.
