Monster Hunter Wilds drops paid character edits - and the refund is two pendants

Here's a sentence I didn't expect to type this year: Capcom is removing a microtransaction. Not rebalancing it, not folding it into a pricier bundle - removing it.

From 3 December, Character Edit Vouchers and Palico Edit Vouchers disappear from every digital storefront for Monster Hunter Wilds. On the same day, every player gets 10 of each for free, as a bridge. Then, when the Ascendance expansion lands in 2027, the voucher system goes away entirely and you'll be able to rework your hunter and your cat companion as often as you like, at no charge.

For anyone who never ran into it: Wilds is a full-price game that charged real money to let you back into its character creator. You got a small free allowance, and after that, changing your own hunter's face meant a trip to the store. It wasn't new with Wilds either - World and Rise did the same - but on a game at this price it became the go-to example whenever someone wanted to show how far Capcom's DLC shop had wandered. It was only ever a few euros per pack, which is exactly the trick. Nobody starts a revolt over a few euros. You pay, slightly annoyed, and the line item survives for three games.

So yes, credit where it's due. But read the fine print. Players who already paid for vouchers aren't getting their money back. They get a "Special Thank-You Pendant Set" - two weapon charms, the Heavenly Hog and the Beelzeboar. That's the compensation. If you bought edit vouchers, Capcom is officially thanking you with a pig pendant, and I honestly can't tell whether someone in Osaka has a great sense of humour or none at all.

The timing isn't subtle either. The announcement arrives in the same Tokyo Game Show week as the extended Ascendance trailer with Teostra, along with early signs that the expansion will tackle the complaints about difficulty. Wilds has had a rough stretch with its community, and Ascendance is a paid expansion that Capcom needs those same people to buy. Scrapping the most hated item in the shop is cheap goodwill: it costs a revenue line that was probably fading anyway, and it buys headlines like this one.

I'm fine with that, to be clear. Pressure worked, and that's the useful part for players in our region, where a full-price game eats a much bigger share of a monthly salary than it does in Capcom's core markets. When you've paid around 70 euros or more, the character creator is part of what you bought. It took Capcom three games to agree. The rest of the Wilds store - the gestures, the stickers, the cosmetic packs - isn't going anywhere.

Image: Rob Fahey / CC BY-SA 2.0, source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Monster_Hunter_pagoda,_Tokyo_Game_Show_20100917.jpg