Monster Hunter Wilds is back in the news for all the wrong reasons. Although Capcom has confirmed its next Steam-exclusive patch for PC gamers later this month, on January 27 specifically, the bad news is that we’re yet to see the company address a recently discovered bug affecting the game’s performance. Independent testing from a Redditor exposed the bug, which reveals the game actually runs better when you have more DLC installed. Publication Digital Foundry has now backed up these claims.

So far, the issue seems isolated to certain areas of the game, namely the hub area. The issue is said to be caused by a particularly intrusive DLC check feature, which doesn’t cause trouble when you already own all of the game’s extra downloadable content, but if you’re running on a fresh copy of the game, you can suffer from noticeably worse FPS.

Digital Foundry confirms you get more FPS with more DLC

Digital Foundry has confirmed that the DLC check code is hurting Monster Hunter Wilds performance. The confirmation was posted on Digital Foundry’s Patreon page, and a few benchmarks have now been posted on its website. DF has also tested a newly published MH Wilds mod aimed at improving the bizarre issue.

The ‘Less DLC Checks’ mod is now available on Nexus Mods, and gives us further insight into the issue. According to the modder, the intrusive DLC check feature “looks like this only happens when you’re close enough to a Support Desk felyne”, as this is where you can access a DLC menu. So, while this mod won’t improve performance across the entirety of the game as you may have hoped, it is at least something to tide you over while we wait for the January 27 PC performance patch.

According to the tests from Digital Foundry, running on a relatively modest Ryzen 5 3600 / RTX 4060 Ti setup at 1440p, the mod helped improve performance by up to 26%. This means a jump from ~40 FPS to ~50 FPS.

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Jack Goodall

At PC Guide, Jack is mostly responsible for reporting on hardware deals. He also specializes in monitors, TVs, and headsets and can be found putting his findings together in a review or best-of guide.