"Monster hunter" is a long-lived series in its home country Japan.
The core has always been simple – but fun and exciting. Go out together with a group of players, use large weapons to fight enormous monsters, says producer Ryozo Tsujimoto in an interview via interpreter.
Defeating the monster rewards the player with resources that enable them to take on more challenging creatures, and so the cycle continues.
The first game in the series was released as early as 2004, but it was not until 2018's "Monster hunter worlds" that the series broke through in the West.
Pleasant for beginners
Now that it's time for the sequel "Wilds", the ambitions are being raised another notch. Large monsters are now moving in herds and the open world is more seamless. For beginners, "Wilds" is a good entry point into the series, thinks Tsujimoto. Over the years, Capcom has become better at analyzing player data – for example, when players give up or don't understand what to do.
We have managed to introduce new features and more thoughtful design choices around the learning curve, start, and introduction, to make the experience as pleasant as possible for beginners.
At the same time, one doesn't want to anger veterans, some of whom have accused the series of being dumbed down and simplified in order to reach a Western audience.
The idea has always been to make it easier to get into the game, and once you've learned, you get the same challenging content that veterans love – and that you can enjoy together.
Not just mindless violence
With the help of the current hardware's power, new types of monsters have been able to be created.
I think even veterans will feel that they've never seen anything like it. An example is the squid-like creature Nu Udra. It has many tentacles that move individually as it crawls around on the ground and interacts realistically with the player, says Yuya Tokuda.
There is a broader story in "Monster hunter wilds" that explains why the monsters are being hunted, according to Ryozo Tsujimoto.
We depict a living world with an ecosystem where monsters are part of the life cycle. If it were just about four people hitting a big creature with their big weapons, it would be violent and brutal and could be off-putting to players.
"Monster hunter" is an action role-playing game series and the Japanese game company Capcom's second-largest (after "Resident evil"). The first game was released in 2004, but it was not until "World" that the series really broke through outside of Asia and sold 24 million copies. A total of 108 million games in the series have been sold. The main titles are "Monster hunter" (2004), "2" (2006), "Tri" (2009), "4" (2013), "World" (2018), "Rise" 2021, but a number of spin-offs have also been launched over the years.
"Monster hunter wilds", the latest game in the main series, will be released on February 28 for Xbox Series, PlayStation 5, and PC.
