The director of Monster Hunter: World, Yuya Kokuda, spoke in an interview with Gamespot about the accessibility for newcomers and the great success of the game. The formula for success for Monster Hunter World seems to be combining the Japanese uniqueness and complexity of the series with increased accessibility and friendliness for beginners.
Since its release in February 2018, Monster Hunter: World has become the best-selling game from Capcom due to its extraordinarily high sales numbers. Together with the director of the game, Yuya Kokuda, Gamespot reflects on the past months in an interview.
Balance between accessibility and complexity
One of the goals during the development of Monster Hunter World was, according to Kokuda, the accessibility for newcomers to the series. Some mechanics and gameplay elements that arose during development were accordingly revised or completely removed.
According to Kokuda, the three most important aspects of Monster Hunter are action, multiplayer, and “gameplay loop.” These should be developed in MHW in such a way that new players can progress far enough in the game to experience and enjoy them.
According to this, one of the biggest challenges during development was to make the controls and tutorials pleasant.
The team tried to make the system as user-friendly as possible within the given budget and release deadline.
However, Kokuda is aware that there is still room for improvement, such as with online multiplayer. He also wants to work on that in the future.
Despite all the accessibility, care was taken to ensure that the depth and complexity of the gameplay are not neglected. The hardcore fans of the series should not feel that Capcom is boring them with simple gameplay.
And despite the accessibility for newcomers, the game should feel mysterious and intriguing. After all, it’s about exploring new areas and their ecosystems. Director Kokuda wanted there to be information in MHW that is first discovered by players and then shared among themselves through forums or Twitch streams.
This balance, however, is hard to maintain, and Kokuda believes there were still players who stopped playing MHW because they lacked information and thus could not progress.
Awe at the sales numbers
Although Kokuda was confident in the quality of his game and was optimistic that it would be well received by players, the high sales numbers of Monster Hunter: World were still surprising to him.
He believes that part of this success is due to the growing popularity of games with complex combat systems, like the Souls series, and gameplay depth, like Witcher 3 and Horizon: Zero Dawn.
The director advises other Japanese manufacturers to try to understand the play style of the western audience, but primarily to work on and polish the typically Japanese features. These are unique and are gaining popularity again.
With the release of MHW on the current console generation, the director’s wish to represent monsters as part of the ecosystem was fulfilled. As a result, there were, for example, the brutal territorial battles.
The team will focus first on the ongoing content and DLC support of the game with new monsters and quests in the near future. Whether there will be an Ultimate version of MHW has not been explicitly confirmed by Kokuda. Also, the director cannot yet make any statements about the G-Rank monsters.
In the end, he revealed that his favorite monsters are Nergigante and Xeno’jiiva. The former due to the fast-paced and action-packed combat, and the latter due to its great design.
To learn more about the future of Monster Hunter: World, read our exclusive interview with the game’s developers:
