Monster Hunter Wilds Producer Says Story Focus Contributed to Its Success
The winds of change.
Monster Hunter Wilds has blown all expectations out of the water, even for a series that’s become one of Capcom’s biggest. After a massive debut that hit over 1 million concurrent players on Steam, it’s clear Monster Hunter has turned into a real juggernaut. But it also brings some tremendous change to the long-running franchise, and its developers think that change is part of the reasons for the game’s success. Surprisingly, according to series producer Ryozo Tsujimoto, the bigger emphasis on the story was a specific reason for the game’s success.
Tsujimoto’s comments come from a new interview with the Japanese outlet Nikkei (and translated by Automaton. "We placed emphasis on the story and increased the immersive feeling with voice acting," says Tsujimoto.
I have some mixed feelings about attributing a lot of success to the story. On the one hand, I legitimately do think the story is quite interesting, with some phenomenally likable characters and a narrative that does a decent job of introducing newcomers to the core ideas of Monster Hunter. Even just searching the words Alma or Gemma on X or BlueSky will show you how much players have taken to some of these characters. But on the other hand, there’s been a lot of criticism of the story from longtime fans, and it’s not even something we knew would really be a focus going in.
For better or worse, the first 15 hours of Monster Hunter Wilds are incredibly streamlined, with a heavy focus on narrative.
Almost all of Capcom’s pre-release marketing was focused on what people have always expected from Monster Hunter — huge monsters, epic hunts, simulated wildlife, and complex systems. While some trailers did feature story setups and character intros, it clearly wasn’t emphasized in the lead-up to the game. Even when I started playing Wilds for the review period, I went in with zero expectations of there being any kind of meaningful story. It’s something that has appealed to some players after playing, sure, but I have a hard time thinking anyone went into a Monster Hunter game hoping to get a good story out of it.
But that’s, perhaps, not what really matters, and what’s more important is the crossroads the series currently finds itself at. Wilds is a pretty drastic change for the series, mostly because of how that focus on story changes the Monster Hunter formula. It takes out a lot of the grinding required by previous games and gives players a narrative-focused 15-20 hour experience that feels breezy and not too challenging, before then layering more of the complexity and difficult hunts in the endgame. It’s essentially an on-ramp to bring new players into the experience, ensuring they don’t feel overwhelmed early on.
While we still need to see the post-launch support for Wilds, Capcom needs to decide if Monster Hunter, from here, becomes a more streamlined experience that appeals to a broad array of players, or returns to that dense, complex that revolves entirely around the gameplay loop of hunts.
Wilds introduces more difficult hunts in the post-game, but the real test for hardcore fans will be how robust the game’s post-launch support is.
It feels like Tsujimoto’s comment makes it abundantly clear which of those options is the more attractive right now — and it’s easy to see why looking at the success of Wilds. This has become the biggest debut a Capcom game has ever seen, and there’s no going back from that.
At the same time, Capcom has also shown a tremendous willingness to iterate on ideas over the years, trying to hone them into something that can appeal to all sides. Street Fighter 6 is easily one of the most newbie-friendly fighting games ever created, but still manages to pack in complexity for longtime fans. The same is true for Devil May Cry 5, an action game that manages to expertly straddle the line between approachability and complexity.
Looking at games like that seems to make Monster Hunter’s path clear, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing — if Capcom can continue to provide ample reason for longtime fans to jump into new Monster Hunter games, either through robust post-launch support or optional hunts with higher difficulty.
It’s strange how different this moment feels from the launch of Monster Hunter World in 2018. With that game the answer was clear, just make the next game a bigger and better version of World. Now the very structure of the franchise is in question. But massive success breeds questions about who you’re making the game for, and whether we like it or not change is coming for Monster Monster.
