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Over the offbeat Monster Hunter Rise, Monster Hunter Wilds represents a more direct follow-up to Monster Hunter World, the breakout hit that catapulted a long-niche series to global stardom. That success was validating, according to longtime series producer Ryozo Tsujimoto, and he believes the lessons Capcom learned from World's record-shattering turnout, which now represents over 25% of the total sales of this 20-year-old series, have put Wilds in a much better position to capitalize on its newfound audience.
Speaking with The Guardian, Tsujimoto says "it was a challenge to bring the series to a global level that it hadn’t had up to that point. There are certain things you have to have in place to be a global level hit that we previously hadn’t been doing."
One major advancement which may not be "as visible to players," he says, is greater coordination between Capcom's global offices. The Japan mothership is now working more closely with Capcom's Western and global branches. As a result, "we’re in a much better place than we used to be in terms of hearing player feedback and responses to the games, and having that inform our decisions on how to approach the next title."
Monster Hunter Wilds isn't out until 2025 – potentially early 2025 – but we can already see this responsiveness in action, not to suggest that Rise was a stick in the mud. Monster Hunter Wilds has been unveiling highly requested features back-to-back-to-back at Gamescom, like un-gender-locked armor, a 3D map, and skippable cutscenes. The latter two stand out as direct answers to pain points from Monster Hunter World – confusing layered environments and annoying co-op hangups, respectively – and the armor change, while a long time coming, seems to have been accelerated by the more varied tastes of a broader audience jumping into World from other action RPGs.
“It was a huge relief and vindication, in a way, to have Monster Hunter World become such a big hit," Tsujimoto tells The Guardian, "because it showed we were in the right direction and taking the right steps to open the game up to more players. And with Monster Hunter Wilds, I want to build on that, make the game even more open, so all kinds of players can jump in."
I saw Monster Hunter Wilds up close earlier this year, and after 500 hours of World, over a dozen significant changes immediately jumped out to me. I also spoke to both Tsujimoto and Wilds game director Yuya Tokuda about the direction of the franchise, and Tsujimoto stressed that Wilds, built for PC and new-gen consoles in a series-first crossplay simul-launch, "lets us bring that immersiveness and seamlessness that we started the series on with World to the next level."
Monster Hunter Wilds players celebrate Capcom lifting gender restrictions on armor after 20 years: "Gonna be the male character with the prettiest dress."
