Square Enix just dropped a huge piece of news, and the gaming world is now abuzz with speculation. Final Fantasy XIV Online will be getting content from Monster Hunter Wilds. Yes. You read it right; the crossover launch date being set for Eorzea sometime in early October has players going nuts about it. But the reactions are far-from-positive. Most comments flat-out ridicule Capcom for the situation Monster Hunter Wilds finds itself in.
The whole thing about it is: The official Monster Hunter account on Twitter had posted the announcement, and the replies suddenly turned into yet another arena of war. Gamers are shamelessly commenting on Wilds’ performance ever since it was released. One player, Scribblord, said straight up, “runs like dog piss even on high-end systems” as if that wasn’t bad enough, “It’s embarrassingly bad optimization.” That definitely hurts.
The channel very fastly veered into the very modern problem of game releases. Raven commented, “This is the problem, it’s becoming normal for games to come out shitty and then spend 2 years receiving fixes to get better.” Seriously? They are absolutely right. We have a lot of examples of recent big releases. So much that the line between whether we like it or not has kind of blurred: at-worst, games get launched in a rough state and then fixed with enough time.
Well, joining in defense of Capcom were some. PrimitivSpongeBob brought up Cyberpunk 2077 as an argument, implying that game was awful at launch but good after multiple patches: Some of the higher ups pushed for an earlier launch for Wilds than the developers wished. Others weren’t buying that argument. Scribblord came back with, “It should’ve been working on release so they’ll get relentlessly clowned on until it’s fully fixed.”
Commenters are highlighting technical issues as a major one. A large number of people post that Wilds practically fails to even reach its system requirements-the worst marketing ever for any game, really. Fleshly Delight called someone out for making “inane and disingenuous” comparisons to Crysis, a game notoriously demanding but that at least delivered jaw-dropping visuals for its time.
Meanwhile, the actual discussion about the crossover content went on. A couple of players are wondering what exactly is coming out of this collaboration. Perhaps new monsters to hunt? Maybe some dope Monster Hunter gear for our FFXIV characters? This is pretty vague, promising only that contents from the world of MH Wilds are headed to Eorzea.
Some FFXIV players were already complaining about locations where the content would be accessible. This James stood to get roasted for saying that you’ll probably need to be fairly well-leveled to do the new content. Others responded, “No dope!” Of course, you need to level this game to even do any new content. That’s what working games do.
Traits of current fiscal systems start to get pegged in the critique. Yeziaphael ranted that players “should only have to pay for the base game and DLC,” anything else was deemed by them as “cash grabs” and they gave some lip service to microtransactions and monthly subscriptions. Greedy, really; that’s pretty much what the general perspective of gamers is while discussing the state of the industry.
What is worth noticing is that the announcement of the crossover even got dragged into a larger demonization about game development practices. Players are pissed about getting charged full price for a game that doesn’t even work at launch. Then the comparison with Monster Hunter World came in where some say that game also had issues on PC at launch but grew to be great. The difference here is that was Capcom’s first PC Monster Hunter game so some growing pains were to be expected. Wilds, on the other hand, are being held to a higher standard; players feel like they shouldn’t be making excuses anymore.
Among all of it, though, the extremely excited player community is waiting for the crossover to air. And Monster Hunter and Final Fantasy do have some overlap, and traditionally, those crossovers have usually gone very well indeed. Plus the excellent track record the FFXIV team has in the past for these collaborations would suggest the actual content should be something really special by the time it drops this October.
And this is kind of a good metaphor for modern surgery in gaming. On one side, we have some super cool collaborations that actually generate a ton of content to keep these games fresh for years. The other side is the realization that some of these base games land in such a bad state with little hope for any form of additional content. They want to cherish those experiences, but they are tired of being a beta tester for something they paid full price for.
We still have to wait until October to see what Square Enix and Capcom have lined up for the crossover. Hopefully, by then, Monster Hunter Wilds is performing fine. Because up until now? That comment section is downright scathing. The gamers aren’t just whining; they are demanding better from the studios. Honestly, they have every right to expect a working game at launch.
There’s something else the players say about the announcement—that they’re loudly airing their grievances about quality issues. They’re not taking broken anymore. They’re calling out companies to be held accountable. This is probably a backhanded compliment to the industry as a whole, even although it brawls through some sundry Twitter threads for now.
So mark your calendar for October but temper your expectations away from how well Wilds has been running so far. There’s hope that both games will be given a desperately needed shine before the whole setup goes live. Nothing could be worse than tying in more content to a game whose foundation is barely holding together. Players have spoken, and they aren’t happy. Let’s see what the developers have to say about it now.
