After two big betas to gather feedback, Monster Hunter Wilds' director hopes weapons are just about balanced across the board. While director Yuya Tokuda is feeling confident as launch nears, though, he's not getting "cocky."
The battle for balance hangs over many action-based games that feature weapons of some sort– many fans gravitate to what's 'broken' because it's fun, though that often leaves plenty of other toys or gadgets gathering dust.
How much you nerf a good weapon down or buff a bad weapon up is typically up to the developer, though it's a headache for all. No fan likes their fun to be nerfed, after all. For Tokuda, the belief is that no weapon or skill build should rule above all else and be the solution to beating every monster.
"There shouldn't just be one weapon to slay them all," he tells GamesRadar+. "You're going to have weapons that are more suited for this or that monster. Within that context, with the same weapon and monster, this skill build, or that skill build, is something that will give you more of an advantage or less of an advantage.
"I want players to think about that and to really treat the weapons and the skills as a sort of toolset for approaching the best way and the best strategy for defeating a monster. If they were able to just pick Weapon X and set their skills up and then that was it for the rest of the game, no matter what came at them –– that's not the kind of experience I want them to have.
"The gap between weapons isn't so much as 'strongest versus weakest', so to say, but more that interactions between weapons and monsters are going to make you think about which one you want to use at any given time."
Tokuda goes on to say the power gap between the range of weapons on offer is smaller this time around and hopes they're all "nearly as viable as each other in general as a starting point for players." All of that, however, is "something that's out of my hands."
"The game has to be released, and the fans have to tell me whether we achieved that or not! So I'm confident, but not cocky," he says. "I'm going to wait and see how players respond, and we always have room to make adjustments in future."
Monster Hunter Wilds is out on February 28.
