Monster Hunter Wilds Beta Is Off to a Wild Start on Steam

Good morning, happy Monster Hunter Wilds beta day! And what a day it is! A quick glance at SteamDB this morning indicates that a lot of people are playing the Monster Hunter Wilds beta this morning: over 463k at some point in the last 24 hours, with plenty of room to grow further over the weekend.

As of this morning, the Monster Hunter Wilds beta is currently the fourth most-played game on Steam, behind only Counter-Strike 2, PUBG, and Dota 2. It's managed to surpass GTA 5, Call of Duty, Naraka: Bladepoint, and even Banana, the weird game that's consistently had massive player counts for months despite just being a game about clicking bananas. Anyway, yes, Monster Hunter Wilds is more popular than clicking a banana.

That player count will likely only continue to grow over the weekend, as well, given that the current player count as I'm writing this at 5:45am PT on a Friday is 424k. Will Monster Hunter Wilds dethrone Dota 2? We'll see!

The Monster Hunter Wilds beta has technically been out since October 28 on PS5 via an exclusive two-day early access period for PS Plus members, but it landed on PC, Xbox, and for the rest of PlayStation uses yesterday at 8am PT. It runs until November 3 at 7pm PT. The beta includes the character creator, with the ability to transfer characters to the full game, a bit of story content, and a full hunt for the monster Doshaguma.

In our most recent preview of the game back in August, we were pretty pleased with what we saw. We called it "a Monster Hunter that embraces the parts of Rise that made it so much more inviting, but also doesn’t shy away from the larger scale and spectacle that helped make World the more enduring entry."

In case you're waiting for the full release, Monster Hunter Wilds launches in full on February 28, 2025, and Capcom has shared the system requirements for PC players. We've already seen a number of trailers previewing what to expect, including a recent new monster reveal that's...a farting pink ape? Neat?

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to [email protected].