Is Monster Hunter Wilds' PC performance bad because of DLC?

Monster Hunter Wilds' issues might have a simple (overlooked) fix

It turns out Monster Hunter Wilds' PC performance issues may be tied to how much DLC you own, as discovered by one player.

Reddit user de_Tylmarande posted a lengthy breakdown of testing they did on last year's Monster Hunter sequel with an account that had no DLC and one with several packs installed, and they found that Wilds runs a near-constant series of extensive checks to verify which DLC the player owns and has installed. The checks reportedly place a sizable demand on your processor, resulting in frame drops.

Tylmarande says they took their test further and created a little mod that tricks Wilds into thinking you own all the DLC (without adding it to the game). They found that Wilds skips the check entirely that way and avoids getting bogged down in the endless cycle of digging around to find add-ons. Without the check, they said Wilds' performance was "through the roof" in the game's balanced mode without any CPU boosting required.

"The more DLC you own, the better performance you get in the game," Tylmarande said in a summary of their findings on Reddit. "Why? Because Capcom focused so hard on microtransactions that they implemented an insanely crooked and aggressive DLC ownership check function. And no, it is not about protection or anticheat or whatever - it is just a DLC presence check."

"I did NOT mean Capcom did this on purpose," they added in a later update. "No, no, and again no. It's just a bug in the code they need to fix."

Their post was initially removed from the Monster Hunter subreddit and contested by people who thought they found discrepancies in de_Tylmarande's findings. However, more folks started testing it themselves and came to the same conclusion, so the post was reinstated. The performance testers at Digital Foundry also posted a little teaser of their own testing on Patreon in their weekly call for questions.

"We'll be taking a look at the latest Monster Hunter Wilds PC performance drama and its alleged CPU saturation via DLC checks," the team said. "Yes, it's true, and we'll have the numbers, Mason, from our trusty Ryzen 5 3600 entry-level PC."

Tylmarande reported similar issues in Dragon's Dogma 2's PC version, and their work helped Capcom resolve the game's performance issue. They sent their Wilds findings to Capcom as well, though haven't received a response from the studio yet. Polygon has also reached out to Capcom for comment, and will update this post when the company responds.

Monster Hunter Wilds started strong and sold more than 10 million copies following its February 2025 launch. However, sales dropped off sharply later in the year to the point where Wilds' predecessors started outselling it, thanks in part to these performance issues. On Steam, Monster Hunter Wilds has "mixed" reviews from users, many of whom call out the PC version's performance.