Last night in a showcase livestream, Capcom provided details about the next Monster Hunter Wilds title update, arriving next week. The update features reprise appearances from fan-favorite monsters, new cosmetic additions, balance updates, and purported performance improvements that could make or break Wilds’ ability to win back player sentiment that’s recently taken a sharp downturn.
Headlining the additions in Title Update 2 are two returning monsters from previous Monster Hunter games: Lagiacrus and Seregios. Lagiacrus, an aquatic, lightning-charged serpent, first appeared as the flagship monster for Monster Hunter 3, but despite its massive fanbase popularity, technical issues have meant it hasn’t been featured in a mainline Monster Hunter game since Generations Ultimate in 2017.
“Lagiacrus is very popular all over the world,” Monster Hunter series producer Ryozo Tsujimoto said in the showcase. “People were really hoping for it.”
First appearing in Monster Hunter 4, Seregios is like if a hawk was a rattlesnake tail, and that rattlesnake tail was made out of knives. Monster Hunter Wilds director Yuya Tokuda said Seregios was originally designed as an opponent that would move and attack more unpredictably than previous monsters, able to spiral in midflight and attack diagonally where hunters had been used to their targets only moving forward and back or side to side. For its reappearance in Wilds, Tokuda said the team worked to emphasize that original concept.
“It’s an agile monster that you can enjoy dancing with in battle,” Tokuda said. “That’s what makes Seregios fun, I think.”
Both Lagiacrus and Seregios will also appear as 8-star tempered monsters, currently the most demanding tier for endgame hunts in Wilds. That should place their tempered versions on par with the infamous 8-star Gore Magala, hopefully providing more harrowing hunts for players who still feel that Wilds didn’t offer enough difficulty.
Arguably the most important addition, however, is detailed in the full Title Update 2 patch notes on the official Wilds site. There, it lists Steam-specific performance fixes, including an adjustment to “the amount of VRAM used with texture streaming, resulting in reduced overall VRAM usage.”
Texture streaming issues have seemed like one of the main culprits causing Wilds’s persistent performance issues, which have only seen incremental improvements in post-launch updates—some of which are only noticeable if you manually clear the game’s shader cache yourself. (If you follow that procedure on an Nvidia card, make sure to revert the settings you change in step 2.)
If those texture streaming adjustments provide substantial gains, it could go a long way to soothe performance woes cited in many of the recent influx of negative Wilds reviews. Whether 2 returning monsters with optional endgame difficulty hunts is enough to sate content-hungry critics is another question.
Among other new features is the eagerly anticipated Layered Weapon system, which will let hunters use the appearance of any weapon they’ve fully upgraded in place of any weapon they’ve equipped that’s the same type. No longer will using your god roll Artian weapon mean compromising your fashion.
Later this summer, there will be a new seasonal event with tropical-themed armor sets and decorations to earn. Apex monster Uth Duna will also be getting the arch-tempered treatment as an upcoming event quest.
Oh, and in August, you can get a Fender guitar gesture in an event quest to celebrate the Monster Hunter Rathalos Telecaster collaboration guitar that apparently went on sale in March. So, you know. That’s there, too.
Title Update 2 will launch on Monday, June 30. A third Title Update with even more additions is scheduled for late September.
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