Monster Hunter Rise's demo launched last week after a few members of the press were given early access to it. Both critics and fans agreed that the demo put a number of quality of life and gameplay improvements on display, but many were quick to point out the game's lackluster online capabilities and frequent freezing. In a bizarre twist, this bug is tied to the number of friends a player has on their Nintendo Switch friends list.

Since the demo launched, Capcom has acknowledged the bug and promised to squash it. In a Twitter post on the Japanese account for the game, Capcom's official statement (translated from Japanese)  roughly says, "When playing the Monster Hunter Rise demo online, if the amount of friends registered on your account is above a certain amount, we confirmed this will trigger freezes during gameplay. We confirmed this bug is not present in the final version of the game and has been corrected so please do not worry. We apologize for the inconvenience and ask for your understanding."

With the promise to fix the game before launch, it remains unclear if the demo will also see a fix for the game-breaking bug.

Monster Hunter Rise is the first new mainline Monster Hunter game to hit a Nintendo platform since Monster Hunter Generations launched on the 3DS in 2015. Since then, Monster Hunter has exploded in the West, with Monster Hunter World catapulting the series to new heights in the region and becoming Capcom's best-selling game of all-time.

Although the Monster Hunter movie certainly didn't live up to anyone's expectations, this year is serving as a bit of a blowout for Capcom's hit franchise. The almost Pokemon-like JRPG spinoff game, Monster Hunter 2: Wings of Ruin, is set to release some time after Monster Hunter Rise launches exclusively on Switch on March 26th.