Monster Hunter Wilds feels more like a traditional RPG, but the director says that just sort of happened: "It was a natural outcome of our other decisions that hopefully makes sense"

Monster Hunter Wilds feels more like a traditional RPG than other entries in the beloved series. But, director Yuya Tokuda says that came about naturally and eventually over the development cycle – rather than as a design decision made from the start.

Having gone hands-on with Monster Hunter Wilds previously, we noticed more of a traditional kind of RPG experience compared to previous games regarding the kind of front-facing story and structured chapters you get. Given the chance to speak to Tokuda lately, we ask if there was a push for this type of content to appeal to or help guide players unfamiliar with Monster Hunter to get into the game.

"The concept that I had from the start of the game was humanity as part of the ecosystem, and realizing that humans weren't something on the outside of it looking in, they were part of it, and they had an effect on it," Tokuda answers. "And that naturally led to an increased focus on story. Because, you know, the storytellers, the humans, are actually right in there amongst it.

"It just made sense to me to have the story more upfront than in past titles. So it was a natural evolution of that concept, and it spoke to all the other elements of the game, such as the learning curve of which monsters you face in which order as you get started in the game, and how they teach you the necessary skills to play the game, how that interacted with a chapter-based story structure of which one you were going to meet next.

"It all sort of flowed naturally from that original concept, rather than being the idea of, as you said, let's just make it more like an RPG on that basis."

As for the chapter structure, Tokuda says it makes a lot of sense as "it's easy to follow" and gives players a clear sense of how far along they are.

"The result was, it looked like, as you said, 'Oh, are you trying to go for RPG players by imitating that structure?' But really it was just a natural outcome of our other decisions that hopefully makes sense to players."

Monster Hunter Wilds is due to release later this month, on February 28. The good news, though, is that you don't have to wait that long to try it, as we're in the middle of the second Monster Hunter Wilds open beta test. While the first leg has come and gone, the second kicks off on February 13 at 7pm PT, with an extra 24 hours courtesy of the recent PSN outage, too.

Monster Hunter Wilds will give you one free character edit, which is great for Fashion Hunters, but frustrating for everyone who's sick of paywalled customization.