Monster Hunter Wilds Patch 1.041 Adds Arch‑Tempered Arkveld, Anniversary Bonuses, Optimizations

Capcom released Ver. 1.041.00.00 for Monster Hunter Wilds on February 18, 2026, adding Arch-Tempered Arkveld and a slate of ★10 Arch-Tempered content while requiring an update before players can access DLC or online multiplayer. IGN warned, “Note that you won't be able to access DLC or play online multiplayer until this update has been installed,” and advised Steam users to update to NVIDIA GeForce 581.57 or newer and AMD Radeon 25.9.1 or newer, noting that “Some issues have been identified with AMD Radeon drivers versions 25.10.2 and higher on certain PCs using AMD Radeon graphics cards such as the AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT/7800 XT.”

The update adds Arch-Tempered Arkveld, described by Game8 as “the final Arch-Tempered monster of Monster Hunter Wilds,” and a new permanent 10-star difficulty quest chain tied to Arch-Tempered encounters. Game8 and PlayStation list four additional ★10 Arch-Tempered targets now available as permanent event quests: Arch-Tempered Rey Dau, Arch-Tempered Uth Duna, Arch-Tempered Nu Udra, and Arch-Tempered Jin Dahaad. PlayStation also says that besting all ★10 Arch-Tempered Arkveld event quests and related special environment quests will unlock a high-difficulty Free Challenge Quest dubbed the ★10 Arch-Tempered Hunt-a-thon.

Anniversary activities run alongside the monster rollout. IGN reports an anniversary login bonus window running “from now until March 18,” and PlayStation laid out a week-by-week Festival of Accord rotation: Blossomdance February 18–25, Flamefete February 25–March 4, Dreamspell March 4–March 12, and Lumenhymn March 12–March 19. PlayStation’s post also contains a conflicting line that says “the final Free Challenge Quest, Arch-tempered Arkveld, will be available from March 19 to March 31,” while elsewhere calling Arkveld a permanent Event Quest starting February 18; the two statements appear verbatim in the PlayStation material and are unresolved in the supplied notes.

Offline and permanence changes landed in the same patch. Game8 lists that all nine permanent event quests that had been online-only are now playable offline, and that 29 limited-time event quests that yield equipment materials have been made permanent and playable offline. Examples called out in the notes include Heart of Judecca (Arch-Tempered Jin Dahaad) and Specter of Their Sins (Gogmazios).

Players will also find new equipment, pendants, and collaboration content in 1.041. Facebook and Game8 reference a “Design Contest Weapon & Pendant” addition and a Monster Hunter Stories 3 collaboration. PlayStation highlights new side missions tied to egg transport and rewards, noting, “Some eggs are highly potent, and delivering these increases your additional rewards. Good luck delivering those Monstie Eggs to camp for Rudy.” PlayStation further lists event rewards including Gala Suit α and Felyne Star α armor sets.

Quality-of-life tweaks in the Game8 excerpt include a new special environment quest unlocked after completing three existing special environment quests and the 10-star Arch-Tempered Arkveld event quest, a default departure point setting when quick-accessing Quest Last Played, a clearer offline indicator on event-accept screens, a Refresh button for SOS Flare search results, and improved Hunting Assistant UI clarity.

Several specifics remain unlisted in the provided notes, including the full line-by-line bug-fix and weapon-fix details, the exhaustive lists of the nine now-offline permanent event quests and the 29 permanent equipment-yielding event quests, and clarification on whether Arkveld’s March 19–31 free-challenge window is separate from its February 18 permanent event status. Expect Capcom to publish the full patch notes and clarification on those points; until then, install Ver. 1.041 before attempting DLC or multiplayer and update GPU drivers if you play on PC.