A continuation of one of Capcom’s greatest franchises: “Monster Hunter Wilds”
Colby Craig, Staff Writer
In March 2004, “Monster Hunter 1” was released in Japan, marking the start of a very influential series that would eventually make its way to the western world. The game was a simple simulation where the player would fight various large creatures with big weapons to take them down.
The game was originally released in Japan and had large success due to the uniqueness of the experience.
Fast forward to December 2005, Japan released their first portable Monster Hunter title called “Monster Hunter Freedom,” which thrived due to the closeness of the general public in Japan’s city life. Public transportation caused the game to be popular with the public but not very influential in the western world.
The franchise never made a large impact on North America or Europe because of the differences in lifestyle, the largest example being the low density of people in many areas of America. The creators made a major step to bring the franchise to the west with their largest release of all time, “Monster Hunter World.”
“Monster Hunter World” was Japan’s successful attempt to bring the franchise to the western world and did so with relative ease. The game came out on Jan. 26, 2018 for the Xbox and PlayStation globally but came out on PC in August 2018.
The next mainline Monster Hunter game, “Monster Hunter Rise,” was released on March 26, 2021 but only on the Nintendo Switch. There are many things that people like about the game, and many things that people dislike.
Rise brought back a lot of monsters from older games that many people enjoyed fighting, but the initial release on the Nintendo Switch gatekept the game from a large portion of the community until it was released on all other platforms much later.
The next installment of the Monster Hunter franchise comes out on Xbox, PlayStation and PC Feb. 28, 2025 and has been anticipated since the Game Awards in December of 2023. Players are anticipating many things, like a new “Flagship monster” which is a monster introduced with each main line game, a new mechanic called “focus mode” which gives the player many new ways to fight the monsters, a new ability to bring in two weapons at the same time on a mount called a “Seikret” and much more.
The embargo on early access reviews was finally lifted on February 24, and many reviewers have high hopes for the game. PC Gamer gave the game an 85 out of 100, saying, “It’s the cleanest Monster Hunter has ever played, and it’s a temperamental piece of software that might crash if you tab back in at the wrong time.”
Throughout their review, the author wrote about enjoying the gameplay, but some things were missing. The things that were promised were there, but the author expressed that it felt like it had lost its soul from the number of changes it has undergone with the most recent games: Things like the quest system being more open world, feeling a bit easier than other games and a shift to a more cinematic style of game.
Overall, the game is still going to be a very big launch, and it has already been the top selling title on Steam in pre orders alone.
