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While we’re on the cusp of the launch of Monster Hunter Wilds, earlier this month, we had a chance to talk to the game’s developers at Capcom about the game. With the help of a translator, we were given the chance to talk to Producer Ryozo Tsujimoto and Director Yuya Tokuda.
Hitstops, seasonal content drops, and more were among the topics discussed. Given our conversation, the developers’ answers are taken as one.
Capcom Talks Monster Hunter Wilds With MP1st
MP1st: With the launch being so close, what’s your day-to-day work? What’s left to do with being this close to the release
Capcom: So, the team is currently preparing for the day-one update, which is mostly done (finished by the time this interview is out), but we’re currently working on title updates, which will have content that will allow people to enjoy the game a little longer. Basically, right now, what we’re doing is preparing for title updates.
MP1st: Will Monster Hunter Wilds have endgame raid-like quests? Has Capcom thought of doing something like this?
Capcom: Currently, for Monster Hunters Wilds, the general gameplay is planned for four-player multiplayer. Like we had for Monster Hunter World, which was the Kulve Taroth, which was a 16-player raid, we don’t have something like that planned for end game for Monster Hunters Wild right now.
MP1st: Is there a technical reason for that or is that just how the general development of the game led up?
Capcom: So similar to Monster Hunter World, the raid quest wasn’t available in the game, it was added as an update after the game launched. Similar to Monster Hunter World, we want users in Monster Hunter Wilds to generally get used to the gameplay first and enjoy it, and then move on to the more challenging part, more enjoyable content after they finish. So in the game itself, when we launch it, we don’t have plans for raid quests. It’s similar to how we ran Monster Hunter World, it’s an intention that we didn’t add it, and it’s not a technical one.
MP1st: Monster Hunter Wilds is expected to be a live service game. How is Capcom handling it in terms of content? Will we get seasonal updates? How long will each season last?
Capcom: So we don’t really think of it so much as a seasonal thing. We are just adding content as we go down the line, releasing quests and such. We don’t really think of it as each season. We know, because of that, what kind of “cycle,” the kind of content people that people are looking forward to as we continue down the line.
Similar to Monster Hunter World, we do plan on having several updates for Monster Hunter Wilds. But not only that, we want to look at how people are enjoying and playing Monster Hunter Wilds and then make changes for the content in the future. Not everything is locked in right now, things that we have planned early on after the game launches, some things we can’t change. But things we have planned further down the line, they’re still more adjustable and we plan on making changes based on how people experience the game.
MP1st: Monster Hunter has traditionally has had collaborations with other IPs, can we expect the same for Wilds? Anything major you can tease, but obviously not reveal? Metal Gear Solid 3 Remake coming, wink, wink, wink?
Capcom: Obviously, currently, we can’t really say anything. We always have a feeling of wanting to do collaborations with IPs that are not from Capcom. That requires both parties to align, and the timing is crucial. We know users look forward to having other IPs and Monster Hunter collab together. We understand it is something users look forward to, but like we said its not something we can just decide on our own, and we have to agree with other parties.
MP1st: Obviously we haven’t seen all the weapons in the game yet. But one common complaint about World that was partially addressed in Iceborne was base weapon designs being very samey, especially compared to past Monster Hunter’s weapon designs. What can you tell us about the designs in Wilds?
Capcom: So in Monster Hunter World, the base design of weapons were made so that when you made changes to it, made upgrades to it, they added monster elements to it so they could apply for many variations. We understand people were looking for big changes to appearance when they made upgrades to their weapons.
For Monster Hunter Wilds, we adjusted so weapon designs will have bigger changes when making improvements and upgrades. So in Monster Hunter Wildswe feel that weapon designs will have more variations, similar to past titles, and a little different than Monster Hunter World.
MP1st: Weapon hitstops: why was it removed in the first place? Was the dev team surprised at the community’s reaction to it being removed
Capcom: So when we released Monster Hunter World, there were many comments and requests from the audience that hitstop was too strong and it interfered with their gaming experience. When we had the open-beta test for Monster Hunter Wilds, because we have such seamless gameplay, we made it intentionally just a little bit lighter so that it wouldn’t interfere with the gaming experience, and there were some elements that didn’t make it into the OBT, so it was released as is. It ended up feeling a little bit lighter than what was intended, but after releasing the OBT, we heard that everybody wanted to have a harder hit stop, and that was honestly something HIS NAME HERE was happy to hear that people were looking into the actual hitting, the feeling of the weapons hitting the monster. They (the studio) prioritized that, so, in the final product version, we will have hit stops and additional sound effects that make it feel like you are hitting the actual monsters. It will be closer to what people are looking forward to.
Capcom Devs Muse on the Feedback and Reaction for MH Wilds
Capcom: We found out that for each weapon throughout the series, each player has a lot of memories for them. For example, the insect glaive it has an airiel dance. When we had the first hands-on playable,we thought, even without the aerial dance implemented, the insect glaive was a fun enough weapon to enjoy. But when people had their actual hands-on gameplay with it, they said it was one of their identity of as insect glaive users to be able to do the aerial dance. They really wanted to have it put back in, and after hearing that feedback, we realized it was a very big part of being an insect glaive user so we immediately put that back in. Each player has a very specific memory of how they strongly feel about a weapon. So those feelings we understand, and we plan on implementing them to heart.
We were actually on the show floor at Gamescom when we had the first hands-on playable, and we had people coming up to us asking why is it not there,. At the airport, when we were flying back to Japan and talking about it because we heard so many people talking about it, we said we already planned on implementing it back into the game.
MP1st: Monster Hunter is an established franchise with solid roots that might seem daunting to newcomers. Is there something Capcom plans to do in order to ease players in?
Capcom: For every Monster Hunter title that we have, we always think about new players starting the series with that title in the line. The same applies to Monster Hunter World, we created the game thinking this will be the first Monster Hunter that some people will play. As a result, we ended up with people enjoying the game worldwide, with many new players joining the series for the first time.
But there are obviously still people who didn’t play Monster Hunter World and people who played it but unfortunately left the game and stopped playing. We found that out through the data analysis, that we were able to retrieve with Monster Hunter World. We not only looked at where they stopped playing Monster Hunter World but also looked into the reason why they stopped playing.
We analyzed that within the dev team and thought of things that maybe we could use to avoid that in Monster Hunter Wilds. We know it’s not simply the difficulty that users have trouble with. For some people, the true essence of enjoying Monster Hunter is the action against the monster, that’s basically the fun part. We noticed that some people didn’t even reach that part, so they quit before reaching the true fun experience of Monster Hunter. So we designed Monster Hunter Wilds in a way that people can reach that part of the game, enjoy it, and maybe continue to play to feel that Monster Hunter is truly a fun gaming experience. So Monster Hunter Wild had that in mind so that newcomers could smoothly adjust to play and have fun with it.
One other thing is that when you first start the game, and you’re not used to Monster Hunter, you get 14 weapons that you can choose. It’s kind of hard to choose from those 14 because you don’t know what you are comfortable with, and how its gonna feel when playing it. So even if you choose the greatsword, it might be too heavy, it might be too slow, and people might just quit then instead of changing to a different weapon.
To avoid that, in Monster Hunter Wild we have it asking questions about what kind of gameplay you prefer, maybe even making suggestions so its easier to choose.
One other thing, people were having trouble finding monsters and tracking the monster, so in Monster Hunter Wild we have the Seikret (mount). As long as you jump on the Seikret, it will auto-lead you to the monster. We felt that would avoid confusion for newcomers to the title. On top of that, we have the NPCs support hunters that players can use.
Monster Hunter Wilds will be released on Feb. 28, 2025 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC. You can check our review of the game here.
