Deadlock is back in the conversation.

That's not a small thing for a game most people can't officially play. Valve's PvP shooter is still in a very closed beta, and the usual way in is a friend with an invite. There's no release window. There isn't even a hint of wider testing. In a year packed with big launches, it would have been easy to lose track of it completely.

Then Valve shipped The City Never Sleeps, and the player count jumped.

What's in The City Never Sleeps

This isn't a balance pass with a fancy name. It's a broad update that touches almost every part of the game.

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Monster Hunter Wilds has a difficulty problem, or at least a slice of its community thinks it does.

Not everyone will agree. Plenty of hunters were happy to carve through the base game's monsters, gather materials, and move on without breaking a sweat. But a vocal group of players felt Wilds rarely pushed them, and it's not hard to see why. The game's focus mode is flexible and powerful, and once you learn to lean on it, a lot of the danger drains out of even the biggest fights. For players who come to Monster Hunter specifically to be flattened by something enormous, that's a real complaint.

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