What you need to know
- Monster Hunter: World, Capcom's best-selling game of all time, is seeing thousands of players returning to play, reaching a peak of over 150,000 people playing in the past 24 hours according to Steamcharts.
- This resurgence of players is likely due to at least three things: Capcom's announcement for the upcoming Monster Hunter Wilds, a promotional campaign enticing players to return to Monster Hunter: World, and popular streamers like Asmongold playing the game.
- Monster Hunter: World is an action-hunting game where you play as a Monster Hunter, traveling to the New World to investigate a migration of Elder Dragons while intent on hunting giant monsters.
Over the past three months, there has been a resurgence of players returning to play Capcom's best-selling action-hunting game, Monster Hunter: World.
According to Steam's databases on Steamcharts, the PC version of Monster Hunter: World has just seen a recent record-breaking peak of 154,121 players playing the game in the last 24 hours. This number of concurrent players for the game hasn't been seen since April 2020. To be clear, the highest amount of concurrent Steam players was 329,333 in July 2018, at the game's launch. But to see 154,121 people concurrently playing a game within a 24-hour period that is roughly six years old is impressive.
The reason why so many people are flocking to play Monster Hunter: World now, even though the game is six years old, is due to several factors. For one, Capcom announced Monster Hunter Wilds on Dec 8, 2023 and this reveal has generated some anticipatory hype that's brought players back to World. This upcoming Xbox and upcoming PC title is considered to be the true next-gen successor to Monster Hunter: World as opposed to Monster Hunter Rise which many fans felt was more akin to an arcadey spin-off built primarily for the Nintendo Switch.
So it is likely that returning players and newcomers alike are diving into Monster Hunter: World to get themselves hyped up and to prepare their hunting skills for when Monster Hunter Wilds releases in 2025 for Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PlayStation 5, and PC via Steam.
Hunters, keep your skills sharp ahead of the arrival of Monster Hunter Wilds in 2025 as we invite you to join us as we #ReturntoWorld! It's time to relive the hunts & journey we've taken since 2018 as we look forward to the next generation! Full info: https://t.co/vniPj56ko9 pic.twitter.com/EGTFlZ410sDecember 11, 2023
What's more, Capcom itself enticed players back to World with a promotional campaign called "#ReturntoWorld" that launched on Dec. 11, 2023, after Wilds was revealed. During this event, Capcom's community management team further rallied the fanbase to return to Monster Hunter: World and play with them on their live streams while enticing new players to join.
The second major reason why Monster Hunter: World is seeing major relevance again is that 2024 will mark the 20th anniversary of the Monster Hunter franchise. To celebrate the occasion, Capcom is going all out with all kinds of promotional events like the aforementioned "#ReturntoWorld" campaign, partnering with MSI to create Monster Hunter-themed products, and announcing that the company will show off more news for Monster Hunter Wilds in the Summer of 2024.
In addition, Capcom held a massive 67% discount for Monster Hunter: World during Steam's 2023 Winter Sale, selling it at a reduced price of $29.99 to $9.89, enticing even more people to buy the PC version.
The third major reason why Monster Hunter: World is seeing a resurgence in popularity is that popular streamers like Asmongold have started playing the game.
For those unaware, Asmongold is a streamer and content creator with over 2.32 million subscribers on YouTube and 3.5 million followers on Twitch. He is most famous for streaming and producing content on World of Warcraft since 2009. Part of Asmongold's success is due to how funny and direct he is. He became a major contributing factor to Final Fantasy 14's massive surge of new players in 2021 when he started playing it — especially since he was one of the many players who migrated from playing WoW to FF14 during World of Warcraft's controversial Shadowlands expansion.
Now a similar phenomenon is happening again since Asmongold started his playthrough of Monster Hunter: World on Dec. 30, 2023 (with just the first video of his playthrough reaching 1.2 million views alone on YouTube), inspiring other streamers and players to follow suit.
Join the hunt and see why this game is one of Capcom's finest
Personally speaking here, I am so happy to see the gaming community at large play Monster Hunter: World again. I consider this game not just one of the best Xbox games and best PC games out there, it's also one of my favorite games of all time, despite some niggling issues that I hope Monster Hunter Wilds improves upon.
Its immersive world-building is engrossing, it has mountains of cool-looking weapons and armor you can collect, the combat system is difficult to learn but satisfying to master, the sheer wealth of gameplay content will last you for years, and it features some of the most fun boss fights I've ever had the pleasure of conquering.
All this title's exciting gameplay is made even better with an online co-op multiplayer feature where you can play in 4-man parties and hunt the towering monsters of the New World together.
If any of you readers haven't tried Monster Hunter: World and are fans of action games you can play with your friends, then I wholeheartedly recommend you give it a try and see why this game has sold 23 million units worldwide. I especially recommend the PC version as there is a gigantic modding community creating hundreds of gameplay-altering mods for Monster Hunter: World and its expansion, Monster Hunter World: Iceborne.
