Capcom says it will 'take action against any fraudulent ranking activity' if Monster Hunter Wilds cheaters goof up the arena quest leaderboards

The first title update for Monster Hunter Wilds arrives this Friday, and with it comes arena quests. I'll confess I'm having a bit of difficulty parsing the exact differences between Arena Quests, Free Challenge Quests, and Challenge Quests—even with the provided arena quest explainer—but one thing is clear: Capcom doesn't want people meddling with the arena quest leaderboards.

Monster Hunter is, first and foremost, a cooperative series, but arena quests offer a chance at bragging rights for hunters with a competitive streak. Unlike normal hunts, you can only use predetermined equipment loadouts to kill an arena quest's target monster, providing an even playing field for hunters to prove their skill by achieving the fastest kill time.

The clear times for each arena quest are tallied in a global leaderboard, so that your monster-slaying prowess can be the envy of hunters around the world. In Wilds, some quests will offer cosmetic rewards like weapon pendants for completing and earning high rankings in arena quests.

As with any global leaderboard, however, it's only a matter of time before someone attempts to post illegitimate times using cheats or mods that let them annihilate a target monster in a single hit. Open the arena quest leaderboards in Monster Hunter: World, and you'll see proof of that in all the literally inhuman quest completion times.

With Wilds arena quests, however, Capcom says it'll have a zero tolerance policy for anyone cheating their way up the rankings.

In a tweet posted this morning, Capcom said it "will take action against accounts participating in fraudulent ranking activity, such as the use of cheating or external tools." Accounts found to have manipulated their ranking times "may be suspended" or prevented from receiving arena quest rewards.

Even if you just tag along with a friend who's got monster-deleting mods installed, Capcom says you're guilty by association. "If cheating is confirmed in a multiplayer hunt by any member(s) of a team, the completion time for the quest will be deemed invalid and the right to rewards can be revoked for the whole party," Capcom said.

Whether Capcom will follow through with the declaration remains to be seen, but unless you want to risk account suspension, I'd advise against running any arena quests with performance-enhancing mods installed.

It's unclear whether Capcom intends to take any action against players who post arena times with purely cosmetic mods installed, but it's worth noting that the company's taken a hardline official stance on mods in the last couple years. It hasn't seemed like Capcom's been going after casual Monster Hunter modders since Wilds' release, but if you want to avoid any risk of getting flagged as meddling with arena rankings, it might be wise to disable or uninstall all your mods before jumping into challenge quests.

If you find yourself in an arena quest with someone who's clearly cheating, you can always report a player through their Hunter Profile. Admittedly, it might be difficult to notice until they've insta-killed the target monster, at which point you'll be considered an accessory to hunting crime. To avoid the risk, it's probably smart to stick to private lobbies or online singleplayer if you're trying to climb the leaderboard.