Monster Hunter Wilds dev says the series' true turning point wasn't Monster Hunter World, but a PSP game that came out 10 years earlier
Sep. 24, 2024Shout out to Monster Hunter Freedom 2
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Years before Monster Hunter World, producer Ryozo Tsujimoto says a PSP game was the series' true turning point.
Speaking toThe Sankei Shimbun(translated viaGoogle, DeepL), Tsujimoto notes that 2008’s Monster Hunter Freedom 2 came “at a time when people were less likely to gather at friends' houses and play games together.” Getting players to take advantage of Monster Hunter’s online multiplayer with the PS2 had been a bit of a struggle, he notes, but the PSP allowed for far easier co-op.
That success is letting Capcom push even further withMonster Hunter Wilds, which is set to launch next year - although that did cause its own set of issues. Wilds has taken five years to make,partly because World was such a runaway success that Capcom had to spend time figuring out what new players actually wanted. And all that work was kickstarted by the humble PSP.
The Monster Hunter Wilds map is twice as big as Monster Hunter World’s Wildspire Waste, according to one dedicated mapper.
Sign up to the GamesRadar+ Newsletter
Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more
I’m GamesRadar’s news editor, working with the team to deliver breaking news from across the industry. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I’ve run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam’s latest indie hit.
As Monster Hunter Wilds finally approaches, veteran dev says making a new monster “takes about one year,” and that’s not counting “small, detailed adjustments”
Monster Hunter Wilds director explains balancing plans: “Some weapons, like the long sword and bow, are too easy to use and overpowered”
Untitled Goose Game publisher is back and weirder than ever with a bizarre FMV game called Blippo+, and no one’s even quite sure what exactly it is: “video is no game™”
