Monster Hunter World had some amazing looking food, seen every time the player enjoyed a meal. A visit to the Meowscular Chef was a genuine treat. However, it doesn’t seem like Capcom is content with Monster Hunter Wilds coming in second to Monster Hunter World in any department, including food. During our recent Monster Hunter Wilds preview, we were treated to a cutscene of a shared meal consisting of naan bread and cheese. Not only did the bread look good, but there’s a cheese pull in Monster Hunter Wilds that is simply out of this world.
When I sat down with Capcom producer Ryozo Tsujimoto, executive director/art director Kaname Fujioka, and director Yuya Tokuda (via a translator), I had to ask about the food in Monster Hunter Wilds. The cheese pull was THAT good. Laughing, the three agreed, “It probably took a lot more time than you would expect to bring it to the level that we have now.”
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Indeed, as Fujioka would explain, they began working on food such as naan and cheese “very early in production.” He emphasized that it took a long time to get all the details right, but one thing that Capcom did this time around was focus more on the ingredients used in each meal. Monster Hunter World and other titles obviously had good-looking food too, but because Monster Hunter Wilds is a more intimate cooking experience, with ingredients traded between players and the villages/Wudwuds, the team wanted each ingredient to really stand out. And indeed it did.
Fujioka provided a perfect description of the food in Monster Hunter Wilds. For the naan, he explained that the outside looks very crispy, but the trick is making the inside look soft for the meal scenes. He also described pulling the cheese as something that flows magically, which I would agree with. In his own words (via the translator), Fujioka said,
“For the naan and cheese pulling illustration, we began working on that very early in production. It obviously took a very long time to illustrate it in the way we wanted to perfect it. We really focused on making the basic food look very delicious because past titles and Monster Hunter World also have very gorgeous, luxurious food, but now we wanted to focus on the details of each ingredient that’s used in meals. In this game, you can trade items with villagers and also Wudwuds. We wanted to focus on each of the ingredients you can get and illustrate it in a way that really brought life to the ingredients you were cooking. Even with the naan, the outside looks very crispy, but when you pull it, the inside looks very soft. The cheese could be a little bit shiny, and when you pull it, it just flows magically.”
From Monster Hunter Wilds‘ gameplay to its food, it seems fans are in for a real treat come February, and it’ll be interesting to see what other food looks like. This cheese pull, though? Immaculate. It’s the best cheese pull I’ve seen in any media since A Goofy Movie, and while that’s an animated classic, this cheese pull feels much more realistic.
- Multiplayer
- Online Multiplayer
- ESRB
- T For Teen // Violence, Blood, Crude Humor