Monster Hunter World Player Count Skyrockets Following Sequel Reveal

With the announcement of Monster Hunter Wilds, it seems that players are very comfortable about what they will be doing to pass the time until its 2025 release. Following Monster Hunter Wilds’ announcement, players are going back in droves to play Monster Hunter World. According to Steam Charts, Monster Hunter World is currently maintaining a 24-hour peak of 136,187 players on Steam. 

It is an exponential increase from World’s earlier peak of 46,691 players back in November. The game has also maintained an average player count of 40k players over the past two months. It’s a drastic increase from the 20 thousand players back in November before the announcement of Monster Hunter Wilds. 

The increase in player base can be attributed to a few different factors. First, and the most obvious one, is the announcement of Monster Hunter Wilds, a next-gen entry in the Monster Hunter franchise and the sequel to World. That is of course, if you regard Monster Hunter Rise as its own thing rather than a proper World sequel thanks to its smaller scale. 

Another factor is the winter sale currently underway. World and its expansion Iceborne are on a massive 65% discount on Steam at the moment. It is easy to imagine many new players are taking this opportunity to jump into the game for the first time, especially with a new game so far into the horizon. 

One last contributing factor is the release of Monster Hunter NOW, which is an augmented reality mobile game developed by Niantic (Yes the Pokemon GO folks). The game is a mix of the “find monsters in the real world” shtick associated with GO combined with the typical Monster Hunter shenanigans of actually fighting and taking down monsters. 

Frankly, you can never have enough Monster Hunter and luckily for Capcom, they’re the only people in the industry that have such a stranglehold over that very specific niche. Of course, there have been outliers like Koei Tecmo’s Toukiden series and the now-deceased Wild Hearts by EA, but none of them have managed to properly tap into the niche in the same way that Capcom does.