In spring 2025, Monster Hunter Wilds is a big topic on Steam, PS5, and Xbox. Some monster hunters have speculated about a release for the Nintendo Switch 2, but that is currently not planned. However, a similar game is making a comeback: the almost forgotten Wild Hearts.
This is the announcement: KOEI Tecmo will bring Wild Hearts S to the Nintendo Switch 2 on July 25, 2025.
The action role-playing game is very similar to the Monster Hunter series and takes place in a fantasy world reminiscent of feudal Japan. You travel as a hunter through the land of Azuma, hunting gigantic monsters, Kemono. For the battle against them, you use 8 types of weapons and craft items that help you in your fight.
No one probably expected the game now, especially since the first release in the West failed disastrously over 2 years ago.
Wild Hearts was hardly on anyone’s release list for the Switch 2
Why does the game come as such a surprise? Wild Hearts had its release on PS5, Steam, and Xbox Series X in February 2023 and was clearly planned by EA as a replacement for the already phasing out Monster Hunter World.
However, despite decent reviews, Wild Hearts quickly proved to be a flop: the game was perceived as “way too expensive” at €80 and suffered from significant performance issues. The harshest criticism at the time was on Steam, stating that the price in euros was higher than the FPS that Wild Hearts could max out.
The number of players on Steam was not impressive even at the release in February 2023 and then quickly fell to abysmal numbers.
In September 2023, we reported on MeinMMO that EA was basically giving up on the title, and indeed not much happened in the game in the following months.
Some regretted the quick demise of Wild Hearts at the time because the negative atmosphere at the release was primarily due to performance issues and bugs. Those who gave Wild Hearts a chance praised the game to high heavens.
It will be interesting to see if Wild Hearts can now use its second chance for a fresh start. The comments on YouTube are mostly friendly:
- “Oh boy, the game is still alive.”
- “Bro, we’re so back.”
- “I’m glad it’s not dead.”
- “I’m glad to see competition for Monster Hunter Wild.”
As the developers announced, the Switch version, Wild Hearts S, is intended for 1 to 4 players.
One of the fans who really liked Wild Hearts at the 2023 release is MeinMMO’s Benedict Grothaus: I log in to Wild Hearts every day just to die
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