Capcom released a free Monster Hunter Wilds demo yesterday, which is perfect if you’re still on the fence about grabbing the latest mainline installment in the franchise. The trial comes with a major caveat, though: you can’t play it online. At least your progress carries over to the full version. The demo encompasses the beginning of the game, from character creation to Chapter 1-3: To the Forest (thanks, Polygon). Players can create their Hunter and Palico and fight starting monsters like Chatacabra and Quematrice. All 14 weapons are available in the demo, so you can test them all and find one you click with. Several of them have seen changes from past iterations, like the Insect Glaive. Though you can’t invite friends to your adventures, hunters who are struggling can call on NPCs for aid, an option that made the cut from the full game. You can try all of Wilds‘ weapons, including the overhauled Insect Glaive. Screenshot by Destructoid Another important aspect of the demo is that you can check how the game plays on your device. Wilds‘ optimization has been notoriously dreadful, so this gives you a trial run to see if your specs can handle it. Wilds had a contentious launch in February 2025, and its struggles haven’t exactly ended in the year and a half since then. Its poor optimization has been by far its biggest hurdle, despite Capcom’s attempts at fixing the issue. It took the studio almost a year to make significant progress on that front, but the damage was arguably done by then. And while excessive microtransactions rarely go down well, barraging fans with them as a game flails certainly does not help. The latest mainline title in the franchise failed to attain the same positive reception on Steam as its two predecessors, World and Rise. Wilds sits between 65 and 70 percent of positive reviews on the Valve-owned platform, compared to Rise‘s high 80s and World‘s 89 to 92 range. Reviews for the younger sibling even reached the dreaded status of Overwhelmingly Negative on Steam, largely due to how badly it ran. Might be time to celebrate. Image via Capcom Capcom is hellbent on making Wilds take flight, selling it “with the energy of a man paddling up a waterfall,” as GamesRadar’s Austin Wood so eloquently put it. The game had a permanent price reduction effective as of yesterday, with new editions and matching cosmetic DLC items. Wilds has been mostly left behind at this point, but its upcoming Ascendance DLC in 2027 could signal a potential resurgence. Both World‘s Iceborne and Rise‘s Sunbreak expansions built upon a strong foundation and helped elevate them to new heights. Ascendance, on the other hand, is Capcom’s second chance to make a good first impression. The studio needs to avoid the pitfalls from the base game—especially when it comes to performance—to really stick the landing, else Wilds might just get more of the same. Until then, you can try out Wilds for free on PlayStation, Xbox, and Steam. Just tinkering with its 14 weapons is bound to keep you busy for a few hours (and mastering the Charge Blade will likely take more than that).0The post Monster Hunter Wilds gets a free demo ahead of next year’s expansion, but there’s a catch appeared first on Destructoid.