Summary
- It doesn’t look like the original Monster Hunter games will be remade any time soon.
- Monster Hunter Wilds producer Ryozo Tsujimoto explained that, due to the way online worked in the original PS2 game, a remake would require far too many changes.
- Instead, Capcom is more interested in pushing the series further with sequels and spin-offs, implementing new, modern features.
Monster Hunter has never been more popular, which brings up an interesting question — should Capcom remake the classics? After all, we’ve seen other series under its umbrella, like Resident Evil and Dead Rising, get similar treatment. According to producer Ryozo Tsujimoto… no.
“One of the barriers to trying to remaster or remake a Monster Hunter game is that it’s always been an online game with multiplayer,” he said in an in interview with Arekkz Gaming (as reported by GamesRadar). “So each generation of Monster Hunter game has been structured and built around the online capabilities of that generation.”
The original Monster Hunter launched in 2004 for the PS2. While you could use the internet back then, you needed a network adapter, and there was no centralised online system like PSN or Xbox Live. Instead, servers were hosted by publishers, which were authenticated by Sony’s DNAS system. That meant online worked differently from game to game.
In Monster Hunter, you had to open the Town and pick between the Red and Green Worlds, which each had a Town Area split between A to Z. It’s a little more complex than modern matchmaking, so remaking classic Monster Hunter games would be far more involved than other Capcom classics.
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“We now have a much better online infrastructure,” Tsujimoto said. “Trying to go back to a game that was from 2004 internet, update it in a way that actually feel[s] good to play in the modern day, would probably end up making so many changes that is it actually meaningful to call it a remake or a remaster of the first game? I think that that’s one of the principal reasons we generally move forward with the series rather than look back to remakes.”
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While Tsujimoto didn’t completely rule out remakes of classic Monster Hunter titles, it doesn’t sound like we’ll be revisiting the originals any time soon. Instead, he’s more interested in how he, and the developers at Capcom, can take the series further.
“Ultimately, things like implementing crossplay in Monster Hunter Wilds […] feels like a better use of our resources to bring better features to new titles rather than to necessarily think about using resources to just bring back one of the older games,” Tsujimoto explained.
Unfortunately, there’s no way to play the original Monster Hunter unless you own a PS2 copy, which means forking out anywhere from £10 to £100 depending on condition and your region, so hopefully Capcom at least considers porting the game to current-gen consoles down the line. Dino Crisis is finally playable on modern hardware thanks to the PS Plus Classics collection, as is the original Resident Evil, so it wouldn’t be unprecedented. We’ll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, we have Wilds to look forward to, which launches just tomorrow.
