Monster Hunter Wilds Players Have a Theory About Its Performance Issues

A Monster Hunter Wilds player thinks that the game’s performance issues are at least partly because of DLC checks. Capcom has faced heavy criticism over how the game runs on PC, and while it has improved a good deal since launch, many players still cite frequent framerate drops and related problems. There may not be a formal fix for everything yet, but there’s now reason to believe Monster Hunter Wilds runs significantly better with DLC installed.

The latest in the fan-favorite Monster Hunter series is a bit of a paradox. While it has a respectable 88 on Metacritic, Monster Hunter Wilds was one of the most disappointing games of 2025 for many, and it didn’t meet Capcom’s sales expectations despite being the company’s fastest-selling title to date. Much of that discrepancy is because fans and critics generally love the game itself but have been frustrated by its poor optimization. To Capcom’s credit, the studio has put out several patches in an attempt to right these wrongs, but one user has found that the problems’ source may have been flying under the radar.

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Monster Hunter Wilds Player Finds Performance Improves Significantly with All DLC Installed

A lengthy post from Redditor de_Tylmarande explains how the fan encountered a strange discrepancy: Monster Hunter Wilds ran substantially better when playing on a Steam account with all DLC installed. They followed this discovery with several tests across different PCs, and the results were the same. A mod that prevented Monster Hunter Wilds from checking for DLC resulted in framerates going from between 20 and 25 FPS to north of 80. While Capcom’s latest Monster Hunter Wilds update includes many performance fixes, no official patch has resulted in nearly the same level of improvement as de_Tylmarande’s DLC-focused test.

The going theory behind this finding is that Monster Hunter Wilds repeatedly inspects the game’s files to see if the user owns any DLC, and these aggressive checks eat up a considerable chunk of the available CPU bandwidth. When there is DLC present, the checks take less time and resources, leading to better performance. Some fans were disheartened to hear this, as Monster Hunter Wilds has at least three paid DLC packs, and people aren’t fond of buying cosmetics to make the game run better. However, de_Tylmarande explained they believe this quirk is likely a bug, not a shady tactic from Capcom to try to get people to buy more DLC.

It’s still possible that the game’s PC struggles are a mix of issues, not solely the DLC check bug, but the results of this admittedly small test are convincing. Other players in the comments backed it up, too, mentioning they’ve noticed the game tends to perform better on consoles when not connected to the internet, which may stop DLC checks. The user who made this discovery says they’ve reached out to Capcom Support with their findings, so there’s a chance devs could come out with a fix in the future, although there’s no guarantee. With rumors of Monster Hunter Wilds coming to Switch 2, though, a little CPU optimization could go a long way, whether that comes from less intense DLC checks or something else.

It will be interesting to see if Capcom sees and addresses this apparent bug and, if so, how that impacts the franchise going forward. Wilds is still early in its life cycle, and Capcom has another Monster Hunter game coming out later in 2026, so the series could use a boost after stumbling last year. For now, fans without DLC will have to wait for a fix, and de_Tylmarande says they’ll release the mod they made to block DLC checks if Capcom doesn’t resolve the issue.