Game review
WILD HEARTS
6.5 / 10
- Developer
- KOEI TECMO GAMES CO., LTD.
- Publisher
- Electronic Arts
- Released
- 16 February 2023
- Platforms
- Windows
- Genre
- Action RPG, Fantasy, Hunting
- Monetisation
- One-time purchase. No microtransactions found in this review's sample.
- Players
- Up to 3-player online co-op hunts
The short version
WILD HEARTS is a fantasy hunting action RPG developed by KOEI TECMO and published by Electronic Arts, released 16 February 2023 as a direct challenger to Monster Hunter, distinguished by a Karakuri system letting hunters build wooden mechanisms — trampolines, walls, turrets — on the fly during a fight. It sits at a lifetime Mixed 46.9% across 13,045 reviews, a badge that significantly understates recent sentiment: the most recent 5,181 reviews run 53.8% positive, seven points higher than the lifetime figure. This review reads a substantial share of both samples and finds a genuinely well-regarded combat and crafting system undercut, severely, by a launch so technically broken that reviewers accused EA outright of shipping a "buy now, fix later" product at a full AAA price. Steam's own aggregated news feed documents what happened next: reports the game might end support after just seven months, a story outside press has kept returning to years later, describing a genuinely good game "left to die."
Biggest strengths
- The Karakuri system — building trampolines, walls, turrets and other structures mid-hunt — draws consistent, specific praise as a genuinely inventive twist on the hunting-game formula, with several reviewers using Monster Hunter: World as a direct point of comparison and finding Wild Hearts holds up
- Weapon variety and combat feel are repeatedly singled out as well-designed and satisfying once performance issues are set aside
- Currently available at an 80% discount, which multiple recent reviewers specifically cite as the price point that finally makes the game an easy recommendation
Biggest weaknesses
- Launch-week performance was severe enough that reviewers explicitly accused EA and KOEI TECMO of shipping an unfinished product at full AAA price, citing frame drops, broken hitboxes, sound bugs and asset pop-in
- Multiple reviewers report a specific, serious bug where EA's cloud save system overwrote local save progress, in one case erasing an 11-hour session
- Online co-op reliability draws consistent complaints, with connection failures reported as a persistent, not occasional, problem
Who it's for: Monster Hunter fans curious about a genuinely inventive rival mechanic, especially now that it's available at a steep permanent discount; less suited to anyone expecting the ongoing live-service support a full-price launch usually implies.
Our recommendation: An easy recommendation at its current heavily discounted price for the combat and Karakuri system alone — just don't expect further content, and check current performance against your own hardware before buying.
6.5 / 10
Introduction
WILD HEARTS drops hunters into a fantasy Japan overrun by nature-fused monsters called Kemono, armed with weapons and a Karakuri ability that lets you conjure wooden mechanisms — springboards, barricades, turrets — directly into a fight. Developed by KOEI TECMO and published by Electronic Arts, it released 16 February 2023 as a direct challenger to Monster Hunter, and sits at a lifetime Mixed 46.9% across 13,045 reviews. That figure, taken alone, tells an incomplete story: the most recent 5,181 reviews in this review's sample run 53.8% positive, seven points above the lifetime number, describing a genuine recovery in sentiment even as the game's commercial fate looks increasingly settled. This review reads a substantial share of both samples and finds a game whose core design earns real, specific respect, wrapped around one of the more thoroughly documented launch failures in this library's coverage.
An inventive core, widely respected
Set the launch problems aside for a moment, and this review's sample agrees on something substantial: the Karakuri system works, and it's genuinely different from anything Monster Hunter does. Being able to slam down a springboard mid-air to redirect a jump attack, or throw up a barricade to interrupt a charge, gives fights a improvisational quality several reviewers describe as the game's standout achievement. One extended comparison review, using Monster Hunter: World as its explicit baseline, concludes the underlying combat and monster design hold their own against the genre's biggest name. Weapon variety and the Kemono roster draw similarly consistent praise across both this review's positive and negative samples — even reviewers who ultimately can't recommend the game credit its fundamental design as sound.
A launch reviewers called dishonest
What drags the score down is not a matter of taste but a specific, severe, well-documented technical failure at release. The most-upvoted negative review in this review's sample — with over 3,000 votes — reads simply: "buy our game today, and we promise it'll work next week," followed by an edit confirming the promised patch didn't fix it. Others go further, arguing the industry needs to "collectively stop buying games from developers who think its okay to sell broken barely functional games... with the expectation of 'we will fix it one day.'" These aren't isolated complaints about minor bugs — reviewers report broken hitboxes, severe frame drops, asset pop-in and sound corruption, at a launch price several specifically call out as full AAA pricing for what felt like an early-access build. One particularly damaging and specific bug, reported by multiple reviewers, involved EA's cloud save system silently overwriting local saves — one reviewer lost 11 hours of progress this way.
A story Steam's own news feed keeps telling
What sets Wild Hearts apart from an ordinary rough launch is how publicly and persistently its troubled fate has been documented, aggregated directly into the game's own Steam news feed. A September 2023 post — seven months after launch — reports that EA's Monster Hunter rival "may end service after just seven months." Multiple 2024 reviewers echo the same conclusion independently: one calls the game "abandoned," adding "genuinely insane for such a passionate game... it feels criminal." The story hasn't faded either — a piece aggregated as recently as February 2026 is titled "Monster Hunter rival Wild Hearts might have been left to die, yet I can't help but love it," capturing precisely the tension this review's own reading of the corpus found: a genuinely good game whose commercial and support story overshadows its design.
The current, honest recommendation
Where this review lands more positively than the lifetime badge suggests is on value at today's price. Wild Hearts currently sells for NZ$21.99 against a NZ$109.95 list price — an 80% discount — and multiple recent reviewers specifically credit that price point as the one that finally makes sense for what's on offer. Performance has also measurably improved since launch according to several 2023-era patch notes and reviewer follow-ups, even if it never fully matched what a $70-110 launch price implied it should have been from day one.
Final Verdict
WILD HEARTS is a well-designed, genuinely inventive hunting game that launched in a state its own reviewers accurately and specifically called dishonest for the price, and whose publisher appears to have moved on from active support well before the game's underlying quality warranted it. The Karakuri system and combat design hold up against genre leaders on their own merits, which is why recent sentiment runs meaningfully higher than the scarred lifetime badge suggests. At its current steep discount, this is an easy recommendation for Monster Hunter fans wanting something genuinely different; at the price it launched for, this review understands exactly why so many reviewers said no.
Pros and cons
Pros
- The Karakuri system — building trampolines, walls, turrets and other structures mid-hunt — draws consistent, specific praise as a genuinely inventive twist on the hunting-game formula, with several reviewers using Monster Hunter: World as a direct point of comparison and finding Wild Hearts holds up
- Weapon variety and combat feel are repeatedly singled out as well-designed and satisfying once performance issues are set aside
- Currently available at an 80% discount, which multiple recent reviewers specifically cite as the price point that finally makes the game an easy recommendation
- Monster (Kemono) design and encounter variety draw genuine, specific praise across both the positive and negative samples
Cons
- Launch-week performance was severe enough that reviewers explicitly accused EA and KOEI TECMO of shipping an unfinished product at full AAA price, citing frame drops, broken hitboxes, sound bugs and asset pop-in
- Multiple reviewers report a specific, serious bug where EA's cloud save system overwrote local save progress, in one case erasing an 11-hour session
- Online co-op reliability draws consistent complaints, with connection failures reported as a persistent, not occasional, problem
- Reports the publisher considered ending support after only seven months are documented in the game's own aggregated news feed; several 2024 reviewers describe the game as effectively abandoned despite its underlying quality
Screenshots
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WILD HEARTS™Image: Electronic Arts via Steam -
WILD HEARTS™Image: Electronic Arts via Steam -
WILD HEARTS™Image: Electronic Arts via Steam -
How the review scores each part of the gameWanderer Editorial -
The essentials at a glanceWanderer Editorial -
The short versionWanderer Editorial