Highlights

  • Monster Hunter Wilds is shaping up to be one of 2025's most anticipated releases, thanks to the franchise's recent success.
  • Monster Hunter World and Rise have paved the way for Wilds to continue the series' crossover appeal into the mainstream.
  • With Monster Hunter's impressive sales milestone, Wilds could potentially surpass previous titles and become Capcom's biggest release.

Next year's Monster Hunter Wilds is already shaping up to be one of 2025's most anticipated releases, thanks in no small part to the prolific rise of the Monster Hunter series in the West. The franchise recently celebrated its 20th anniversary and announced that it had reached a lifetime sales milestone of more than 100 million units sold, setting even loftier expectations for Monster Hunter Wilds in the process. Considering how instrumental both Monster Hunter World and Monster Hunter Rise are to the franchise's recent success and crossover appeal, all eyes are now on Wilds to see if it can meet or surpass its two predecessors.

Prior to the launch of Monster Hunter World, the Monster Hunter franchise occupied niche territory. Though the franchise has been popular in its native Japan for well over a decade (including strong sales on that side of the world), Monster Hunter World's success is the tipping point for the franchise's crossover into the mainstream in the West. To date, Monster Hunter World accounts for almost half of the franchise's total sales, with an impressive 38 million units sold since its launch in 2018. Rise isn't far behind, either, setting the stage for Wilds to follow suit.

Monster Hunter Wilds 2025
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Monster Hunter Wilds' Announcement Only Helped Boost the Series' Profile

The reveal of Monster Hunter Wilds at The Game Awards 2023 brought with it an immediate and staggering boost to the average player counts for Monster Hunter World. 5 years since the game's initial launch, the title would routinely hit concurrent player counts of more than 150,000 in the weeks following Wilds' announcement, and the game is still hitting an impressive average of roughly 70,000 active players months later. Ultimately, the upcoming release of a new Monster Hunter game only served to bring people back to the franchise, which bodes well for Monster Hunter Wilds' future success.

Even Monster Hunter Rise, which has similar success as World but has only sold about half of the total units, continues to have an impressive almost 20,000 average concurrent players on Steam. Out of the 100 million units the Monster Hunter series has sold to date, Monster Hunter World and Rise account for more than half, and there's every reason to believe that continued interest in both titles years after their release will translate to some impressive sales figures for Monster Hunter Wilds.

Monster Hunter is a Pillar of Capcom's Continued Success

Though it's always been an important franchise in Capcom's catalog, Monster Hunter's impressive sales milestone now makes it one of three pillars that support the legendary developer and publisher's business. The "100 million +" club is an exclusive group of titles, and for Capcom there are only three of its franchises that have membership – Street Fighter, Resident Evil, and Monster Hunter. Both Monster Hunter World and Rise have helped the franchise reach the same kind of popularity previously reserved for Resident Evil and Street Fighter titles in North America, which makes Monster Hunter Wilds' release next year all the more significant.

With rumors suggesting that the next Resident Evil titles (both mainline entries and another remake of a classic game) won't arrive until 2026, the stage is set for Monster Hunter Wilds to be Capcom's biggest AAA release in 2025. And with Capcom having a seemingly unbreakable run of successes over the last several years, there's every possibility that Monster Hunter Wilds could potentially bypass Monster Hunter World's sales to become the best-selling game in the franchise and the biggest single title in the history of the series. The Monster Hunter franchise has gone from a niche series to a global success, and Monster Hunter Wilds stands to benefit the most.