Over 80K Monster Hunter Wilds players just want to see health bars

The only thing PC Monster Hunter Wilds players want more than fully nude characters are health bars. One of the most popular mods uncovers information that the game hides from you, like a monster’s current health. Even though there are various ways the game communicates whether a monster is weak or not, thousands of people just want to see the raw numbers.

MHWilds Overlay on Nexus Mods has over 83,000 unique downloads, and it’s been the go-to mod since Monster Hunter Wilds was released last Friday. All it does is surface a bunch of details about the boss monsters and your hunter that you wouldn’t normally need to worry about. You can see the boss’ health, your total damage output, how many times you’ve landed a critical hit, and more. It slaps so many numbers and bars on your screen it looks like an MMO player’s UI.

But in a game all about hitting monsters for several minutes at a time, a lot of people want to be able to track their progress.

Seasoned Monster Hunter players argue that health bars are completely unnecessary because monsters already limp away and show up as a skull icon on your minimap when they’re close to defeat. “These tells are one of the cool thing that Monster Hunter does that sets it apart from other action games that just add an HP bar to the boss,” X user DarkHero wrote in reply to a PC Gamer article about one of the mods.

Monster Hunter Wilds modders don’t seem to care about preserving the designer’s intentions, however. Many of the game’s other popular mods erase the friction in managing consumable items and crafting gear upgrades, while others let you freely change how your character looks. For as streamlined as the new game is, there are still plenty of things it explains poorly, which is probably why so many people look to mods for help.

It’s not just Monster Hunter Wilds, either. Health bar mods are also prominent for both Monster Hunter World and Monster Hunter Rise, the two previous games. And I suspect that will continue for future entries as long as Capcom designers refuse to cave and add them in. The beauty of PC mods in a non-competitive game means people can enjoy it as it was intended while others can enjoy the comfort of watching a big health bar gradually go down.