At the time of launch in 2018, Monster Hunter World used to be a game that broke all game sales records Capcom, with over 330,000 concurrent players on Steam at its peak. If we include the number of copies sold of the Iceborne DLC, the game has sold a total of more than 23 million copies globally to date. It can be affirmed that this is the most successful game of the series in terms of sales.
However, that glorious period is in the past. After 5 years of launch, Monster Hunter World has gradually sunk into oblivion, as its successor, Monster Hunter Rise was also released in 2021 and had great success. Everything seemed to continue like that, but a miracle happened to this 5-year-old game.
Starting with The Game Awards 2023, Capcom announced the next installment in the series titled Monster Hunter Wilds. However, the new game won’t appear until 2025, so the company has launched the “Return to World” campaign to stimulate players to return. The campaign includes a hashtag and the biggest discount ever on Steam, up to 67% off.
A miracle happened, the number of Monster Hunter World players, which had started to increase again since early December, suddenly reached 80,000 players at the same time when “Return to World” was announced. And that was just the starting point, as the number of players continued to increase steadily thereafter, reaching 130,000 concurrent players by January 1, 2024.
Besides the announcement of Monster Hunter Wilds, the “Return to World” campaign and huge discounts, the strong revival of Monster Hunter World certainly owes a lot to the quality of the game. The original game and the Iceborne DLC, which is considered to be as large in scale as a separate game, are great experiences for any veteran hunter or novice.
The wait for Monster Hunter Wilds is becoming a lot more bearable for fans of the series thanks to the revival of Monster Hunter World. The latest game in the series is currently only revealing very little information, other than the expected release date around 2025 on PC, Xbox Series X/S and PS5. Capcom promises to update fans further next summer. Hopefully the game will be a worthy successor of World and Rise, their two predecessors were extremely successful.
