Capcom has revealed a new teaser trailer for Monster Hunter Wilds, and the trailer is nothing else but… more paid pendants. Yes, that’s right! The ‘optional paid DLC items’ were publicized by the official Monster Hunter Twitter account as part of a new Title Update 4, which specifically mentioned the new pendants line. They characterized these pendants as ‘pretty attractive,’ which is one of the ways to describe it. But what was the community’s reaction? It was certainly not a celebration parade, to say it mildly. Rather, it was a growing utterance of discontent that eventually led to a heated argument in the forums. Gamers are mad and they are making it very clear to Capcom what their position is.
Let me clarify the whole thing. The tweet revealed new pendants, among which were the Felyne and Melynx pendants that some players found cute and had a childish appearance. But the majority of the players? It was the last straw for them. Gamers are closely watching this and are questioning the quality of the main content. Title Update 4 is expected to be a big deal, and the main attraction is… extra cosmetic trinkets that you have to pay for? We are not saying, to say the least, that it is a very comfortable situation over here.
The replies to the tweet indicate that the gamers are very frustrated. The account DinobotsSpecOps made a precise and unambiguous statement: ‘Please sell us really good armor. I am not interested in pendants… Capcom must have set the bar so low if pendants are a selling point instead of monsters, weapons, armor, poses, gestures, you know, shit that is actually interesting.’ This attitude is everywhere. User Flamedpanda gave a straightforward request: ‘How about you just use the money from paid DLC to add more monsters?’ It is a legitimate question, isn’t it?
However, it is not just about wanting more monsters. There is a timeless feeling of being exploited. A user, Lakita, described the situation as ‘utterly disgusting behavior from a AAA studio,’ and he elaborated that a lot of this should be part of the game like the Guild Palace weapons in Monster Hunter: World. Another player, Leviath0n5, supported this by saying that Capcom should ‘revert to the standard set a decade ago and do not charge for cosmetic sets in a game where self-expression is the main factor.’ Ouch! That can be really painful as many people see the fashion hunting, that is the ability to totally change your hunter’s appearance, as the best part of the Monster Hunter universe. Taking even more of it away from the players without charging feels like a betrayal.
And then there is the confusion about the Cosmetic DLC Pass. User nath instantly asked, ‘what was the point of the cosmetic DLC pass anyway?’ Others like user 🖕🏼𝑶𝑭𝑭! came in with, ‘What did we buy the pass for if we still have to pay for every dlc?’ This is a major source of conflict. If gamers were under the impression that the pass they purchased would cover cosmetic drops only, and then new cosmetics are sold separately anyway, that would lead to a lot of bad reviews and angry tweets. User Panickin’ Skywalker even said, ‘Yes, I am going to have to lower my review rating for this game on PS5 now. This is just getting annoying.’ Such feedback is very direct and thus, it is hard to take.
There have also been complaints about the performance and thus, why not? User Infinite Devil Machine made a sarcastic remark, ‘Very funny to do this when the game still runs like a PowerPoint on an RTX 4090’. So in addition to the complaints about the monetization situation, there are still some players who have to deal with technical problems, and thus, the announcement of new paid DLC adds to the complaints and seems even more out of touch with the community’s needs.
On the other hand, it must be said that the negativity towards this announcement is not universal. There were a few users like Limi who actually liked the cat-themed pendants. And user MarronBear nostalgically expressed: ‘It would be nice to have a quest to earn them…’ which brings the central issue into the limelight. The desire is there! Gamers want cool items. They just want to, well, play the game and get them. That sense of accomplishment is a big part of the Monster Hunter cycle. It’s less rewarding to buy a pendant with a credit card than to earn a whole armor set after a long hunting adventure.
If we look at it from a broader perspective, the old-school Monster Hunter values collide with the modern live-service monetization. Some of the long reply threads, like the one from EnlightenedGanjanath, get into the issue of platform availability, noting frustrations from players on Xbox.
