Betting big on new IPs can either lead to a jackpot, or a huge loss. EA hoped for Wild Hearts to be its own version of Capcom's Monster Hunter. Unfortunately, it isn't and the publisher has seemingly given up on the IP.

An unofficial announcement was made on the game's official Discord channel - weird how that works, right? - that EA is ceasing support for Wild Hearts. The news was also shared, via a moderator, on the official subreddit for Wild Hearts.

"What you think has happened to the game has unfortunately happened," the moderator said. "In typical EA news, it seems like they did not want to sit on the game and give it the time and expected it to most likely be the next MH(Monster Hunter). Seems like it didn't turn into the multi-million dollar big hit they wanted and don't want to give it the love to grow."

We expect the servers for the game to still be online for a long while. However, gamers should not expect additional content, updates, or fixes in the future. EA hasn't made an official announcement about its plans for the game, but the moderator said one should be expected.  

Wild Hearts was released back in February and received positive reviews from critics. Since its release, there have been some incremental updates for the title adding content and fixes. The last major update for the game on Steam was uploaded in July and added a new Kemono, weapons, armor sets, and quests.

Looking at the pattern of updates, it is evident that Omega Force has scaled back on the support for Wild Hearts. From February to May, the game got a considerable number of updates but the content slowed down in June which saw just two updates. In July, the studio only deployed one update and then went silent in the next two months.

Wild Hearts was one of the more ambitious titles to come out this year. However, it looked like EA had no clue about what made Monster Hunter, the game it was supposed to compete with, one of the most successful franchises for Capcom. Omega Force did try its best to innovate the monster-hunting niche but ultimately failed to recreate the magic of Capcom's IP.

Speaking of Monster Hunter, fans believe that an announcement for the next entry into the franchise is imminent. There has been speculation that Capcom will reveal the next title at the Tokyo Game Show next week. It will be interesting to see what is in store for fans with the next Monster Hunter game.

EA and Omega Force have not yet commented on the news. We will update this space once an official statement is released. For now, take the information as a rumor, and with a huge pinch of salt.