To the surprise of anyone who’s played Monster Hunter in the past decade, Monster Hunter: World has become extremely popular, selling over six million copies. But that isn’t all that’s happened in the last month. Here’s a rundown.
- First, though, those numbers: Monster Hunter: World is the fastest-selling game in Capcom’s entire history. Can you believe that? I’ve been waiting so damned long for this game to become popular.
- There’s been a steady flow of Event Quests, limited-time events that sometimes offer special rewards in-game. (You can check the schedule on the Monster Hunter: World website – it isn’t easy to find.) The first part of the Horizon: Zero Dawn-themed event was uninteresting: Players killed eight flying creatures in a simple arena quest in order to craft Horizon: Zero Dawn outfits for their cats. The second part of this event is still happening: Anyone who hits Hunter Rank 11 by the end of February will be subjected to “the Proving”, a quest that will unlock the full Aloy outfit.
- Meanwhile, the Ryu from Street Fighter armour is brilliant and ridiculous. Players with a Street Fighter 5 save can now literally punch dragons to death (with dual blades), after getting enough tickets from an arena quest against a giant Barroth.
- As millions of new people have discovered Monster Hunter with World, veterans have been taking new players under their wing all over the world. For those without an IRL MonHun mentor, the Adopt-a-Hunter website and Discord channel has formed a community of around 500 veterans willing to help with quests and dish out advice.
- Inevitably, fans everywhere have been asking Capcom whether Monster Hunter: World will be coming to Switch. The answer appears to be “no”. World was in development for PS4 and Xbox One long before the Switch was even announced, and Capcom’s president Haruhito Tsujimoto says that porting it at this point would be difficult.
- Speaking of Tsujimotos, I wrote a profile of Monster Hunter‘s producer and regular spokesperson Ryozo Tsujimoto over at The Guardian, based on an interview from earlier this year. He’s been with the series since the very beginning, and interestingly, he is the son of Capcom founder Kenzo Tsujimoto and the brother of current president Haruhito.
I’m the kind of person who would never be good at a normal office work, so I always wanted to work in a creative industry. When I was looking for a job after graduating from university, I wanted to go into either games or toys … I’m just from that gaming generation. [As the third son], I had a bit more freedom… The older ones had more pressure to go into certain positions. I wasn’t being lined up for something in the same way.
- On Eurogamer, there’s an interesting and nicely-illustrated look at what must have been part of Monster Hunter’s design inspiration: Medieval bestiaries: “Bestiaries are a series of colourful anecdotes that paint their creatures in broad strokes. Every animal is defined by a handful of memorable characteristics. In many cases, we learn about the way they defend themselves or kill their prey or enemies. The animal kingdom is a realm of feuds and deadly rivalries: There’s hatred between the dragon and the elephant, the hydrus and the crocodile, the weasel and the basilisk and even the gryphon and the horse. Those rivals are often shown locked in a mortal embrace.”
- People have been recreating Monster Hunter‘s canteen meat feasts in real life, which is as amazing (and delicious-looking) as it is inevitable.
- Capcom has addressed a few things in game updates over the past month. Xbox One matchmaking, which was sketchy at launch, has been fixed. A bunch of problems relating to players’ Squads were fixed, but at the cost of wiping some players’ squad data, which was an inconvenience. After players discovered that Slicing Ammo was so powerful that there was little point using any other type, Capcom adjusted the balance of bowgun ammunition.
- One problem that Capcom hasn’t yet solved is griefing. Some players have reported being trolled out of their hard-won carve rewards by arsehole “teammates” using attacks to continually stun or stagger them in the middle of their carve animation. (You can’t hurt other players in Monster Hunter: World, but you can interrupt their animations. This is why you don’t take four Hammer users on a hunt.) Waypoint has reported that Capcom is looking into this: “The team is actively monitoring player feedback [and] this is definitely one of the concerns they have seen raised.” I’ve never encountered this problem myself, thankfully, but one wonders how difficult it would be to make all players immune to player-on-player aggression during the 60-second post-quest period when everyone’s collecting their carves.
Are you still playing Monster Hunter: World? My TV broke a couple of weeks ago, so I’ve been taking an enforced break, but I’ll be right into the Proving as soon as it’s fixed.
Comments
11 responses to “Monster Hunter: World, One Month Later”
I’ve been wanting to play a monster hunter game for a long time, as I’d heard good things. I just had to wait until it was on a platfom that I wanted to play (anything that isnt for/on a screen smaller than 10 inches basically).
Now that it’s out and I have it, ive only put 40 or so minutes in because of lack of time. Can’t wait to actually dig in and see what the fuss is about.
Lack of time (and copies on the shelf at key moments) is the main reason I haven’t picked it up yet. Real life hobbies (ie, tournament poker) have really gotten in the way the past few weeks, so buying it just hasn’t been an option. And probably wont be for a couple more weeks yet.
But man I want to play it…
After 120 hours I am taking a little break. Great ride and will be back, but the grind is getting real and I was having fun… so a break should freshen that up. I do not think I have ever hammered a game this hard.
You start just doing some quests.
Then you are trying to get some sets.
Then you are trying to get some elemental damage for a particular hunt.
Then you are trying to balance multiple sets for different beasts.
The pacing is great as you develop and go from generalist monster stabber to specific kit monster slayer.
Patiently waiting for this to come out on PC and trying my hardest not to by it on PS4 before hand 😛
I’m HR 70 or something, and my feedback in a nutshell is; great game, but it’s not nearly hard enough at the tail end of the game. Tempered elder dragons are about as tough as it gets, but they’re just too easy and will get reliably slaughtered in any SOS group, and quickly. The tempered Kirin is just about the only thing that feels like it’s at the right difficulty level in the endgame. There’s also a few mechanics that undermine that challenge; the big one is that hunts with multiple monster targets appear to cut their HP proportionately, which makes them substantially easier than they seem on paper.
I don’t mean to suggest that the game should be hard all the way through, and I’m glad that they made a conscious effort to guide people into the Monster Hunter experience a little more smoothly than unusual. But there really should be a point where the monsters start showing their teeth, which never really happens. It’s also a bit unfortunate that most high-rank and tempered monsters never get a chance to be a relevant challenge.
I think the game desperately needs some kind of proper g-rank to give it the meaty, challenging phase that it currently lacks. Adding that via DLC (free or paid, I don’t really mind either way) would be fine, especially if they’re amending monster movesets slightly as a part of the challenge bump.
G-Rank i am looking forward to..
I agree with you that the game is getting easy and time goes on. However, i still fail a lot of SOS because of team mates carting.. But that’s ok.. I am planning to grind everything then take a break until next updates bring out more content.. i have other games to play and complete.
HR 11, 30 hours in. Just starting to open up the High Rank gear and weapons. Have spent most of my time running SOS multiplayer quests and investigations. Good fun.
197+ hours in. 14 weapons and tons of replayability. Just watched a GS vid this morning about how hitting a monster with the meat of the blade instead of the tip results in more damage. Every day I learn something new. Bless you Capcom for GOTY in January.
That said, I’ve seen cheating going around. Glad the PS4 ecosystem makes it hard, can’t imagine PC players turning up to hunts in multiplayer and having a boss nuked in 5 seconds. Hope this is part of their 10 month ‘optimisation’ plan.
I’ve been attacked during the carve… but only if I rock up too late to help in the battle. Fair.
As MH has been a voyage of discovery, I’m sure there’s loads I don’t know. The special quests for example… I had no idea where to look to get some Horizon armour.
I’m still waiting for it to come out on PC. I hope some of the friends I play with will pick it up on PC too but most of them picked it up on PS4.
Wonder if multiplayer has been fully fixed
Ie waiting for host to watch video clip.
Or not being able to join anyone.
Having to sacrifice 75 goats to join another game.
Shame this didn’t really answer any of that.
But the article did give me information about the food being recreated so thanks, I guess.
“Xbox One matchmaking, which was sketchy at launch, has been fixed.” … Ummm no it hasn’t 🙁