Monster Hunter Wilds Ascendance Director Says Players Got Better Than Capcom Expected

Monster Hunter Wilds: Ascendance director Takuro Hiraoka has explained how Capcom is approaching difficulty in the upcoming expansion. At Tokyo Game Show, he said the studio is retuning its endgame standards after the base game's difficulty divided players.

Hiraoka said balancing difficulty is one of the hardest things to get right in a game. His main goal is to make sure players feel they can finish the game they bought, since those who get stuck are unlikely to return. The base game was tuned with that in mind, but Hiraoka admitted there was a gap between Capcom's expectations and the skill of the community: players got better than the studio expected.

In my mind, that's where the difficulty curve should be for Wilds, and I think we achieved that, but the player base was so good and so skilled. We had a bit of a gap in expectations. Maybe players got better than we expected in the intervening years. We've grown the audience greatly since Monster Hunter: World, and that was a game where a lot of players dropped off before finishing the story because it got too hard too quickly. We're trying to tackle that issue, which I see as a problem

The director also pointed to Monster Hunter: World, where many players dropped off before finishing the story because the difficulty rose too quickly. Capcom wants to avoid repeating that. At launch, Wilds felt too easy to many players, and later updates that raised the challenge through higher monster damage drew criticism from those who found the approach unsuccessful.

In the upcoming expansion, Capcom is trying to appeal to more than just the most hardcore players while not alienating those looking for tough challenges. According to Hiraoka, players who buy the DLC want to see as much of the story as possible, while those who want the toughest fights should be satisfied by the endgame loop. He added that the team is still working on that balance.

Ascendance is an upcoming DLC for Monster Hunter Wilds from Capcom. It was announced at Summer Game Fest 2026 and is expected to launch in 2027, but the exact release date is not yet known.