Capcom has made a welcome announcement when it comes to Monster Hunter Wilds’ upcoming open beta.
They shared this message on Twitter:
“Hunters, we’ve seen some comments wondering if you need to have pre-ordered Monster Hunter Wilds to access the Open Beta Test.
The answer is no, no pre-order is needed to play! However, if you’d like to pre-order after playing the Open Beta Test, that’d be cool! “
The open beta starts next week, with PlayStation 5 owners with a PlayStation Plus subscription getting first dibs. The PlayStation 5 PlayStation Plus early access beta runs from October 28, 2024, 8:00 PM PT, to October 31, 2024, 7:59 PM PT.
Subsequently, open beta opens up to PlayStation 5 owners who do not have a PlayStation Plus subscription, as well as Xbox Series X|S players, and Steam players. The rest of the beta period runs from October 31, 2024, 8:00 PM PT, to November 3, 2024, 6:59 PM PT.
As we understand, Monster Hunter Wilds will have a sprawling open world, in what is already a multiplayer online experience, and one that will also allow cross play across multiple platforms. That’s a really ambitious game idea, and while Capcom has iterated on it and are capable of delivering on it, of course, they’ll need to prepare for the launch.
So it stands to reason that Capcom will want to stress test their servers ahead of the game’s official release. They are not a smaller developer or publisher, where gamers will excuse if they aren’t ready to prepare everything at launch, as long as they label a title as Early Access.
There are expectations that Capcom needs to meet, especially for a community that is already as locked in as the Monster Hunter community. But an open public beta would still be in line with what fans would reasonably expect that developers need to do to prepare their games.
The fans will also have certain expectations that this open beta will already have a certain amount of quality, if not necessarily have as much prepared in terms of content. So we do think that Capcom is ready to show those players the baseline level of polish in its presentation, and what they can expect in terms of combat and overall game design. So we can consider this an early peek at the looming gigantic year for video games that will be 2025.
Monster Hunter Wilds is releasing on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Windows via Steam on February 28, 2025.
