Dive into the world of Capcom’s highly anticipated Monster Hunter Wilds with game producer Ryozo Tsujimoto. The game is set to be officially released in February 2025. During an interview with regional media at Gamescom Asia in October, Tsujimoto shared (through a Japanese translator) the creative process behind the new Monster Hunter expansion, exploring the challenges of introducing new monsters and refining gameplay mechanics.
Monster Hunter Wilds is such an ambitious project. What aspect of the game is the team most proud of?
In past games, we mostly focused on Hunter versus Monster. But this time in Monster Hunter Wilds, you can kind of see the direction [we are going] where it involves past civilisations, people and villagers. So a goal in this game was to meld together the monsters, people and the ecosystem all together. I’m really proud to have created a [game] that has done really well, and I’m excited for people to actually play the game and find out more about that aspect of it.
In terms of development of the game, what is the most challenging thing that you have faced so far?
A technical challenge for the developers this time was, first of all, the concept of herds, and monsters herding together. It’s something that the developers really want to express in a very natural way in terms of, like, a lot of monsters existing in one environment at the same time, and the way that they move within the environment. And because it was such an important focus for us, there was a lot of QA [quality assurance] and gameplay testing that went into the development. It’s something that hasn’t really been done before, with so many monsters at the same time, so this was something that was challenging, and we worked really hard on playtesting for that.
How do you balance players expectations of what a Monster Hunter game should be while introducing new ideas and gameplay?
As you know, the series has been going on for over 20 years, and the team has so much experience in making Monster Hunter games. Of course, just like how fans have their own image of what Monster Hunter is like, the developers also have a certain image of what they feel the game is like.
They put a lot of importance on not breaking that sort of image when putting out a new game. They want to put out a game fans can see and know that, okay, this is Monster Hunter. But at the same time, they also have to add new components and new elements to take the games further and evolve the series as well. So it’s really hard to talk about specific factors, because there have been so many iterations. It’s a balancing act, and it’s something that we put a lot of importance on in terms of not breaking the image that fans have, but also having our own concept for each game and adding new things each time.
Could you share the process of incorporating new challenges into the Monster Hunter universe?
One of the main concepts and goals for Monster Hunter Wilds is to increase the immersiveness of the game, and make it more realistic as a Hunter in an actual environment. So one of the aspects was to express how the environment itself may change as well, because in real life, you’re not just always hunting in one single type of environment. So that’s kind of the starting point of how the concept came to be.
Out of all the monsters that have been shown up, even in the trailer or demos, which monster is your favorite and why?
Right now my favourite is the main monster Arkveld. We haven’t been able to show all of what the monster can do but I’m really excited for people to see all of the actions that have been added. It is actually really unique in terms of its actions and how it interacts with the environment.
