Capcom is considering extending Monster Hunter Wilds’ Open Beta Test.
The first Monster Hunter Wilds Open Beta Test was held in late October, and successfully amassed a concurrent player peak of over 400,000 players. Capcom then decided to hold a second Open Beta Test that started this weekend, with the hope that they could hype the game up days before release.
Unfortunately for PlayStation 5 players, that Open Beta was marred by PSN going offline for over 24 hours last Saturday. This was the longest that PSN was offline since the infamous 2011 hack.
Capcom themselves kept their PlayStation 5 players up to date on the PSN outage. They shared this message on the official Monster Hunter Twitter account immediately after Sony’s services were fully restored:
“PS5 hunters, thanks for your patience and understanding during this weekend’s PSN service issues. To account for reduced OBT2 play time due to the outage, we are considering running OBT2 for an additional 24 hours at a future date. Exact details and timing are TBD, so please stay tuned.”
More recently, the official Monster Hunter Twitter account made this announcement a few hours ago:
“Part 1 of #MHWilds OBT2 has now concluded, but fear not, Part 2 goes live on PS5, PC and Xbox Series X|S on Feb. 13, 7pm PT / Feb. 14, 3am GMT.
Due to the PSN outage, we are considering running OBT2 for an additional 24 hours at a future date. Say tuned for details!”
Capcom is in a strange dilemma in this situation. Of course, they want to keep their PlayStation players happy. We do expect most of their Monster Hunter Wilds players to be playing on PlayStation 5. But of course, Capcom would just want to make sure any fans would be happy, especially players who are on the fence about buying the game at launch.
The dilemma here is that Monster Hunter Wilds is actually releasing on February 28, 2025. Some fans will probably assume that Capcom will try to squeeze in that Open Beta Test time in the weekend before this, around February 20 and 21. But the issue is that Capcom should be spending that time preparing for the actual launch itself.
It’s not so much that Capcom can’t make this happen, but its additional work that may hamper the launch of what is expected to be one of the biggest releases of this year. While Capcom created expectations with that statement, it was clearly intended to calm players down. PlayStation players shouldn’t think that this is 100 % happening because that’s just setting themselves up for disappointment.
With all that said, if Capcom is going ahead with it, they may want to extend that beta for Xbox and Steam players as well. We won’t be waiting that long for Capcom’s final decision, and for that matter, for Monster Hunter Wilds.