The Monster Hunter Wilds beta gave fans a first chance to play the game before its release in 2025, and while it proved enormously popular it also sparked a debate about combat.
Some fans have complained that Wilds’ combat feels floaty, or not as impactful as it is in other Monster Hunter games. This feeling, according to one player who has analyzed frame data for Wilds and compared it to that of prior Monster Hunter games, has to do with hitstop — or, in this case, the lack of.
Hitstop in action games pauses an attack animation on hit for dramatic effect, usually to emphasize the weight of an attack landing. Accompanied by various visual and sound effects, hitstop helps to give attacks a sense of power, as opposed to waving around a virtual weapon that feels like it fails to connect.
Increasing the number of frames (and thus time) devoted to a weapon’s hitstop is traditionally used to increase the feeling of its power, as it leaves the player character in this paused state. Monster Hunter has used this to great effect over the years with many of its oversized weapons, and it’s this comparison to Wilds that YouTuber Blue Stigma has made to suggest a significantly reduced hitstop in Wilds is making the combat feel different.
“If you felt like the combat in the MHWilds beta felt ‘off,’ it's not just you!” Blue Stigma tweeted. “As this short comparison video shows, Capcom seems to have reduced hitstop on most (if not all) weapon types in Wilds, leading to some weapons ??????? worse than they did in prior games.”
If you felt like the combat in the MHWilds beta felt "off," it's not just you! As this short comparison video shows, Capcom seems to have reduced hitstop on most (if not all) weapon types in Wilds, leading to some weapons ??????? worse than they did in prior games. pic.twitter.com/PRIbkdEFTP
— Blue Stigma (@Axelayer) November 3, 2024
In the video we see this effect in action, with combat in Wilds perhaps less impactful than in other Monster Hunter games. “It's worth noting there are other factors to general combat potentially feeling worse in Wilds; stuff like SFX, attack FX, and screenshake all play a part in making attacks FEEL good,” Blue Stigma continued. “Hitstop is just one part of the formula and I'm not sure why there's less of it in Wilds overall.”
The issue of hitstop in Wilds was picked up on by players ahead of the release of this video, with various threads on Reddit questioning Capcom’s decision here. “The removal of hitstop on some attacks completely ruins the impact,” redditor Cyrisaurus said last week. “I'm loving almost everything about the beta, but one thing I just cannot wrap my head around is why Capcom neutered the hitstop on almost all of the attacks in the game.
“One of the best feelings in World was sliding down a slope with the Great Sword and plunging it into a monster, where you would really feel the brutality of it piercing through them thanks to hitstop. In Wilds, it's completely gone, and when you do the sliding attack it feels like you didn't even hit the monster. If not for damage numbers, I would be left thinking my attack missed, it just feels... like nothing. Obviously this isn't the only attack that feels anemic now, but it was the most jarring to me
“Please Capcom, bring back the hitstop.”
With Monster Hunter Wilds’ release date set for February 28, there are now just shy of four months until launch. Whether the hitstop issue is something Capcom plans to address remains to be seen. It may not be something the developer can meaningfully tweak this close to launch without a significant rework of combat, but fans are calling for changes nonetheless.
In our most recent preview of Monster Hunter Wilds 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."
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
