5,700-word Wild Hearts patch notes promise better performance for ‘some CPUs’ and other PC improvements
Plus a new fox creature, and over 400 lines of other changes to the Monster Hunter-like game.
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Poor PC performance and a small monster roster were two of the issuesour reviewer hadwith Koei Tecmo’s Monster Hunter-like game, Wild Hearts, and the latest patch seeks to make some progress in both areas. Today’s update adds a new monster, “the dangerous Murakumo,” and according to director Takuto Edagawa, will improve performance for “some CPUs.”
The update also adds FSR support, which is AMD’s rival to Nvidia’s DLSS. Both work by rendering a game below screen resolution and then upscaling the images before they’re displayed, ideally without a noticeable drop in quality but with a significant framerate increase. Unlike DLSS, which only works on Nvidia GPUs, FSR isn’t locked to AMD cards.
“This is not limited to the PC version, but we are continuing to work on fixes for various issues, including unexpected crushes, as well as some balance adjustments,” Edagawa added in aninterview about the updateposted on its Steam page.
The new monster, meanwhile, is a fox creature that “commands cherry petals and lightning,” which is a reference to “a special term in Japanese for ‘spring thunder’ that conveys the arrival of spring,” according to Wild Hearts' other director, Kotaro Hirata.
The performance improvements and introduction of the Murakumo are hardly the patch’s extent. Thefull Murakumo update patch notesare over 400-lines long. Here are just the notes about PC specific issues:
Removing the 240 fps limit setting seems to suggest, a bit comedically, that the idea of ever hitting 240 fps was too aspirational, but hopefully the “improved processing” and FSR support help.
The other notes are mostly very specific gameplay changes or fixes: stuff like “attacks from the Training Bear Karakuri will no longer hit tsukumo” and “fixed an issue where it was sometimes not possible to drink Healing Water while dodging.” There are also some quality of life improvements that sound like they’ll be pretty meaningful. The first change listed is a good example: “Added a ‘Camera Distance’ setting that allows the player to adjust the in-combat distance of the player character and the camera.”
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Wild Hearts costs$70 on Steam, where it currently has a “mixed” user review average. We’ll see if this patch improves that overall assessment—Wes did sayin his Wild Hearts reviewthat the combat is “sublime,” despite the other problems.
Tyler grew up in Silicon Valley during the ’80s and ’90s, playing games like Zork and Arkanoid on early PCs. He was later captivated by Myst, SimCity, Civilization, Command & Conquer, all the shooters they call “boomer shooters” now, and PS1 classic Bushido Blade (that’s right: he had Bleem!). Tyler joined PC Gamer in 2011, and today he’s focused on the site’s news coverage. His hobbies include amateur boxing and adding to his 1,200-plus hours in Rocket League.
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