With Monster Hunter Wilds barreling over the horizon, one big question remains – what are Capcom’s post-launch plans for its colossal new RPG? Its two predecessors, World and Rise, are the studio’s best-selling games of all time, and both have been comprehensively supported by a mixture of free updates, paid cosmetic DLC, and eventually a full ‘master rank’ expansion following in the series’ long-standing tradition. Ahead of its launch, I sat down with Monster Hunter Wilds producer Ryozo Tsujimoto and director Yuya Tokuda to ask what the post-release roadmap looks like.
Recent Monster Hunter games such as World and Rise have been supported by periodic free title updates that introduce a range of additional content to the RPGs. New monsters are the big highlight, but there are also event quests, many of which award prizes such as special weapons and armor, or cosmetic ‘layered armor’ styled after Capcom favorites like Street Fighter’s Ryu or Resident Evil’s Leon Kennedy. We’ve even seen several crossovers with other companies, including the FF14 Behemoth fight and The Witcher 3 Leshen quest in World. So can we expect anything similar for Monster Hunter Wilds?
Once Wilds is out, Tsujimoto says [via translator] that “The next thing on our plate is the title updates. As usual, we plan to have multiple free title updates for the game after launch. At the moment, that’s pretty much where our mind is – we haven’t really gone further down the roadmap in our minds just yet. But, as you know, the series is well known for great post-launch support, so yes, absolutely.” Tsujimoto has also been clear in the past that there will be no pay-to-win DLC offered.
You can expect some additional Monster Hunter Wilds monsters to show up after release – starting in spring, as teased in the trailer above, with beautiful bubble boy Mizutsune, seen in both Generations and Rise. Beyond that, however, things are up in the air for now. “It’s not that we don’t have anything in mind,” Tsujimoto explains, “it’s more that things need to crystallize and come together before we can really realize them.” For now, he says, the team is tackling the task immediately ahead of them – launching the game and making sure things go as smoothly as possible for everyone playing.
Tokuda adds that, rather than picking out a monster and trying to jam it into the game, the developer always considers the environment and ecosystem first, and if there’s a gap that needs filling. In the right case, the team concludes, “That gap could be quite neatly filled by returning monster X, and that’s also one that the fans like, so why don’t we use it?” We saw something similar with Deviljho arriving to invade your hunts after World’s launch, and the use of Rajang to open up a whole-new zone in Iceborne’s endgame Guiding Lands.
It’s also likely we’ll see more collaborations – Tsujimoto comments that they’re “always really fun to see in Monster Hunter” – but there’s currently nothing set in stone. “Collaborations aren’t really something we can make a unilateral decision on, whether it’s within Capcom series or external partners,” he notes. He says the team has “a positive approach to hopefully having great collabs happen,” but wants to make sure that whatever comes about feels “really meaningful for both parties.”
Monster Hunter Wilds launches Friday February 28. You can read my preview for more in-depth thoughts on the early game, and stay tuned to PCGamesN for everything you’ll need to know to become a master hunter.
With one more Monster Hunter Wilds beta before launch, take a look through all the Monster Hunter Wilds weapons to find one that’s right for you.
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