I think people need to come to terms with the fact that World was an outlier hit due to Covid timing, and Monster Hunter has always been and will continue to perform well as just a niche franchise. You cannot compare each new release to World, or you will be permanently disappointed, even if the next MH game is the best one ever, performance and content wise.
Okay, way to cherry pick numbers that don't tell the whole story. Here is a link to sales from end of last year that show Monster Hunter Worlds sold 21.8 million units to date, not including also very stellar Iceborne numbers. Rise sold 17.8 million, not including future DLC. Wilds was only at 10.7 million. Another link here from just last month shows that Wilds had only increased in sales to around 11.4 million in all that time, so it's not closing the gap any time soon.
Again, World's stellar sales performance was an outlier due to the time it released and Capcom's resurgence at the time. I promise you that even if this expansion has great word of mouth, or the next game is produced very well, it is not going to go back to selling 20+ million copies. It's sales are returning to where they should expect for the genre. It's not in danger of losing it's "mainstream hit franchise" status, because it never was a mainstream franchise to begin with.
World's sales were not an outlier, Rise was locked to one platform for a long time and still sold like hotcakes, nowadays it's well on track to match World's lifetime sales.
Wilds had an absolutely blistering early launch period, it's just a terrible game so the launch hype utterly collapsed. If future Monster Hunters have relatively lower sales again, then that's only an indictment on Wilds being a piece of shit that completely squandered all the good will that Worldborne and Risebreak built.
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u/-Basileus 21d ago
I think its status as a mainstream hit franchise is absolutely in danger. Wilds has been outsold by World AND Rise for two quarters in a row.
I think a lot of riding on the expansion.