At a preview event at Capcom in Japan, MeinMMO editor-in-chief Leya was able to play the full version of Monster Hunter Wilds and subsequently interview the developers in a small group of journalists. Here is the entire interview, which discusses beta feedback, weapon balancing, and the thematic direction of Wilds.
Capcom invited several journalists to Osaka (Japan) to play the full version of Monster Hunter Wilds directly in their studio for a few hours. Part of the event included group interviews, where we could ask questions directly about the preview we had just played and anything else that piqued our interest about the game.
The preview can be found here: I was able to play the full version of Monster Hunter Wilds in Japan for 7 hours, and one thing particularly stood out to me
Our interview partners were the three lead developers of Monster Hunter Wilds:
- Producer Ryozo Tsujimoto, Director Yuya Tokuda, and Executive Director/Art Director Kaname Fujioka
My group for the interview consisted of:
- Aligi Commandini for the Italian website Multiplayer, Alex Donaldson for the English-language site VG247, and me, Leya Jankowski, for MeinMMO
Below is the transcript of the entire group interview.
In some aspects of the beta feedback, we believe that it won’t be a major issue at the full release
Multiplayer (Aligi): I am interested in the feedback from the beta. What was the biggest point of feedback from the community during the beta? Did the community have more concerns about weapon balance, movement changes, game optimization, or completely different things? And how much of that feedback did you use to make adjustments in the latest version?
Capcom: Okay. We received a lot of feedback in all the categories you mentioned. Weapon balance, hit stops, performance on various platforms – we obviously observed all of that and tried to incorporate as much as we could. We want to ensure that anything that acted unexpectedly during the beta test is addressed. Bugs and performance are two things we have worked on to improve as much as possible before the launch.
However, in some aspects of the feedback, we felt that it wouldn’t be a major issue at the full release of the game, perhaps because it wasn’t so clear which parts of the beta were missing since only a part of it was playable. Some things that you could or couldn’t do or what wasn’t sufficiently explained in the beta, because it was only a small part [of the game]. And that’s the kind of feedback where the response lies in assuring people that it will make sense when they see the entire game.
We are trying to take time between now and the launch to provide everyone with the information on what we will change for the complete game and how the beta has helped us gather everyone’s feedback.
To talk specifically about performance: I hope you agree that it felt significantly better than what we had in the open beta; that was an older version. That has already improved. We are still working on it. We are working on both the PC version and the PlayStation 5 version simultaneously. And I can promise that the performance improvements on the PC version are just as impressive as those on the PlayStation 5.
Regarding the feedback on the weapons, we have heard the voices of the people on things like the damage parameters of various weapons or the balance of all weapons and how they feel. Things like how hard or easy it is to inflict wounds with the system compared to one weapon versus another, where it can be too easy with some weapons. We have taken a look at the game to ensure that when you complete the story and reach the endgame content, and everyone enjoys this cycle, digging deep into the skill-based equipment sets – we are mindful that the balance throughout the story and beyond is good. We are working on that.
MeinMMO (Leya): I would like to add a few more questions about the beta. You had crazy player numbers on Steam during the beta, and I can imagine that the console numbers were even higher since [Monster Hunter] is more of a classic console game. What were your feelings when looking at those numbers?
Capcom: I was really satisfied with the results. Part of the rationale for an open beta test, as opposed to a closed beta via invitations or lotteries, where you have only a few players, is that you can not only test how people react to the content, but it is also a performance test for the entire network to have players online at the same time.
And I believe it held up really well during that time. I was really pleased that the beta was a success on that level, and we could say, “Checked off!” The servers did not crash during the beta. That was really good news for me.
We are able to test ideas faster than before
VG247 (Alex): We saw the studio and the entire technology – it is all very impressive. To me, it seems like the “X-factor” of Capcom now is the RE-engine and its strengths. It just gets better with each game, and all that knowledge and technology is shared between the teams and so on. Therefore, I am curious about the philosophy behind this, what do you think is the philosophy in the company that makes all of this possible and how does it help you make these games better? Because I think if you look from the outside, that’s one thing that makes Capcom currently the best publisher.
Capcom: I believe as a philosophy, the RE-engine is not a change, as we had the MT framework in the past and generally follow the concept that an in-house engine leads to more efficiency over the years. But with the exception of some porting projects, I believe that everything we are currently working on is done with the RE-engine. And it is not just a great engine, but we also have access to the developers who can quickly build new tools and applications for a game that are then immediately available to all teams. Or the speed of communication is much faster than it used to be.
I believe we are just able to test ideas much faster than before with each individual title that is released. Every game we create with the RE-engine improves the engine. This has simply happened since the engine’s introduction, benefiting each subsequent game.
In the endgame, it’s all about diving deeply into different builds
Multiplayer (Aligi): Question: I wanted to talk about the skills because “Worlds” and “Iceborne” brought significant changes regarding the skill system of Monster Hunter. I wonder if Wilds is somehow a return to old virtues, as the skills were separated between weapons and armor and seem to have fewer levels. So I wonder if the skills with fewer levels have more impact or is that just because it is the beginning of the game and it remains similar to World or Iceborne with decorations and multiple levels at the end of the game. Have you changed that?
Capcom: I believe the skill system is still a bit rough.
Basically, it has the same structure as in Monster Hunter World and Iceborne. But the major change is that you are able to carry a second weapon from your Seikrets and we immediately knew what that would mean. If the skills were all focused on the armor and the decorations, that would mean you’d create an armor set made for a great sword, as there are specific skills on it that are especially suited for a great sword or similar weapons. Then you go to your Seikret and pull out a heavy bow gun.
This skill build you created suddenly becomes less effective than it should because your weapon could not change dynamically in the previous games without also changing the equipment set in the camp. By dividing the skills types across weapons and armor, I wanted to make it more flexible, so when you equip the weapon you directly have the skills and decorations that are intended for it.
That also has limitations.
It reduces the factor we previously had where certain equipment pieces had skills that were basically a “must-have” for specific weapons. If you have a longsword build, there might have been a specific skill on that head part or another piece. It was such that you absolutely needed it for the whole set to work. And that was limiting in terms of creativity for builds because everyone just had the same pieces since that was the logical decision. Now you are much freer to choose different armor pieces fitting your weapon. You can be more flexible and creative and have different options for different situations. The idea of skill builds will carry throughout the game into the endgame.
In the endgame, it’s all about truly diving deeply into different builds and different situations. By adjusting the design this way, I really hope that all endgame players feel like they have endless creativity to choose from.
As for the levels of the skills, they are all balanced with a focus on players who complete the story and then the endgame. That is done for each skill individually. You may have seen a few that you think don’t have many levels. But some of them have more levels than before. Some are the same, others have fewer levels. I have not made a single decision for all skills collectively; it simply belongs to our overall balancing idea of how many levels a skill has in total.
Weapons with elemental properties open up a lot of potential for creative secondary weapon combos
MeinMMO (Leya): Question: I have a question about weapon combinations and that there are some obvious decisions when you don’t delve too deeply into it. I believe you can carry a hunting horn as a secondary weapon to buff yourself or have a ranged weapon and a melee weapon at the same time. And I wonder because you must have experimented a lot with the combinations, do you have any recommendations for combinations that aren’t so obvious?
Capcom: To address the hunting horn, right after the beta, I believe it is too powerful as an emergency weapon for solo players. We will rebalance that. It will still be useful, but we don’t want it to be the obvious choice for a secondary weapon that outshines all other weapons. That is something we will change.
As for the combos, I believe many have not thought about the elemental properties yet because we had a limited selection of weapons in the beta, and most didn’t have enough time to think it through in detail. But once you are able to carry two weapons that have elemental properties, even if they belong to the same weapon type, it opens up a lot of potential to select creative weapon combinations. Sleep and paralysis, for example.
This type of elemental stuff will also play a role in the focused mode when inflicting wounds. For example, there are monsters where you’d want to bring a non-elemental weapon to inflict basic damage. And then, when the monster gets angry, you might find that a particular element works really well against that angry state.
Or another monster: For normal attacks, take a non-elemental weapon. And once the wounds are opened, there might be an element that acts very strongly on it. So even if you have, for example, a great sword, you could take two of them and select the right one for each situation. And I believe that will open up a lot of potential combos, and everyone will enjoy discussing it to figure out what the best choice is for a particular battle or monster.
Rathalos defines how fantastic the world in the game can be as the ultimate Monster Hunter monster
VG247 (Alex): You have talked a lot about this unusual world in this game that somehow breaks the natural rules of Monster Hunter, and I understood that when you explained it. But only when I play it do I really see how seriously you took that. I love LalaBarina, the spider, this ghostly beast with a touch of Lovecraft. But I’m curious, could you tell us how you decided how far you want to go with that? Because it is … strange. Monster Hunter is fantastic. Of course, it is, but different. How did you come to the conclusion about how far you can push it without delving too much into the realm of science fiction?
Capcom: That the forbidden lands are the primary setting is key to it.
The name already implies that the guild has prohibited the hunters from entering this place – and for good reason. But what exactly is forbidden about it? By having that as a starting point, it really allows us to shift the boundaries of what we can show in a Monster Hunter world. There must be a creature or an aspect of the environment that is so dangerous that [the guild] has decided that one must not go there.
With that as our starting point, it meant that we could create designs that might be a little in contrast to former monsters from Monster Hunter and feel like something you have not seen before. That makes it worthwhile to visit that area. At the same time, we always have the fundamental thought of creating a plausible ecosystem. If it were too fantastic or alien, it would not even look like a creature that lives here and goes about its everyday life.
This grounds us all in the monster designs when we ask whether that could really be an animal that hunts, eats, and sleeps here. At the same time, we want to have this too fantastic monster alongside Rathalos, the ultimate Monster Hunter monster. To have both of these beings in the same world, where they seem totally out of place, would just not be good. You know, when Rathalos flies over the scenery we have created. If that deviates too much, it just does not feel like Monster Hunter anymore.
Therefore, we try to move the whole time within the area of what Monster Hunter is while also trying to make it interesting for long-time players who want to know what awaits them in the forbidden area.
In the beta, it was way too easy to inflict wounds with the bow
Multiplayer (Aligi): Question: What you said earlier about wounds as part of the answer sounds super interesting. I would like to dive a bit deeper into the system. I wonder if there are weapons that are better suited for inflicting wounds compared to others and maybe cause less damage compared to other weapons. And I wonder if there is a limitation on how many wounds one can inflict on a monster and whether there are new abilities in Wilds that focus on wound explosions or inflicting wounds and the entire system surrounding that.
Capcom: Regarding whether weapons are easier or harder to use to inflict wounds: It is definitely an act of balancing because there are 14 different weapon types.
We want to make sure that each weapon feels appropriate. You have the focused strike attacks you can use once the wound is open and will be rewarded for that. We learned from the beta test data and the feedback that the balance was off in some places.
The bow, for example, it was way too easy to inflict wounds with it because you could just fire a salvo of arrows from a distance one after the other. That felt bad for the balance of multiplayer hunts. On the other hand, there were weapons where people felt it was too hard to inflict wounds regarding how they thought the weapon worked.
We keep that feedback in mind. I believe when the game is released, there will be a better balance among the weapons, and each one has a place in the portfolio of the 14 weapons in terms of how it feels with the focus mode and the focused strike system on wounds. That is something we will continue to improve.
One of the main concepts is that nature has a wonderful side, but also a dark, ruthless one
MeinMMO (Leya): I have one more question about the environment. There could not be a stronger contrast between the natural monsters and the more sci-fi-like monsters. Because on the one hand, there is this strange factor of the Lala Barina and this forest that is somehow odd … like a bloody Valentine’s Day. Then the swamp that you showed and especially the Rompopolo, I just love the design of the creature. But on the other hand, I’ve noticed that Wilds is much more fun, sometimes it’s just funny – but very exaggeratedly funny. Is this contrast intentional?
Capcom: Yes. It feels good to hear that you liked it so much. I believe that we try … we always have a humorous thread running through our games. The designers try to make it so that our game is not only funny or super dark all the time. There has to be a balance that shows different facets or sides of things.
There is not just a dark or just a funny character. I think every character can have these sides, and that goes for the world as well, where one of the main concepts is that nature has a wonderful side, but also a dark, ruthless side. I hope that when you play through the entire game, you see that we have maintained this “Monster Hunter” balance, where it occasionally gets a bit more relaxed so it never becomes too dark. But yes, whatever individual people find funny, I think that depends on individual humor. It’s good to hear that the humor of the designers apparently aligns with that of the players.
I think one of our intentions is – I don’t know if the word caricature has a positive connotation in English or German – but you know, to try to characterize the emotions we want to show so they are easily understood while playing the story. So that you quickly understand the feeling the developer intended. I believe they will be happy to hear that in such cases, where it was intended to be a nice, funny moment, it has come across.
Ryozo likes these scenes too. There is a scene where they fight over the meat of a Quematrice and a scene with the little forest characters. These things are things he finds funny as well.
In the following gameplay video from the preview event, you can get an impression of the contrasting world:
The majority of people play Monster Hunter as single player
VG247 (Alex): For a long time, Monster Hunter was this cooperative online game that you could also play alone if you wanted to. That has shifted a bit over the years, most notably in Worlds. But while I played it today, where we don’t even have co-op as an option, I noticed that [this game] feels much more like a traditional RPG that additionally has a crazy co-op component for 4 players. Therefore, I am curious about how you approached all that and how you got there.
Capcom: The RPG or story elements are all part of the overarching game design that I wanted to introduce. I have said this a few times, this ecosystem, this truly believable environment that draws players in and then allows them to understand what they will be doing in this world throughout the game. I believe the story is well suited as a mechanism to convey this information and give the impression of immersion. To help people understand what their gameplay experience will be.
If that resonates with the RPG community, that’s fantastic, and I hope they enjoy the game. But we did not implement it to fundamentally appeal to those players. Similar to World, we have the data from Monster Hunter World that shows us a large portion of the people who play the game either play solo or a mix of solo and multiplayer, with a tendency towards solo with a bit of multiplayer.
So, again: It’s great to hear that you like this kind of single-player RPG experience and that it feels like a good game for you. But that is just the result of design decisions made as part of a more holistic view to create the best possible experience in Monster Hunter Wilds for as many players as possible.
Players of different skill levels should be able to utilize the mechanics
Multiplayer (Aligi): Question: I wonder a bit about your inclination when it comes to designing the movement sequences of different weapons, as it seems like you have built in many defensive maneuvers for all weapons. Because now it seems like all weapons either have a counterattack, a perfect parry, or a perfect dodge. And I wonder if that is because the endgame content is becoming rather aggressive and harder compared to previous Monster Hunter games or are you simply focusing more on the flow of the fights so that each weapon is more flexible and leaves the player with more options? And then maybe that has nothing to do with difficulty at all.
Capcom: I don’t believe there was a design intention to make every weapon more defensive, but features like the “Power Clash” can cause that to happen. That is a new feature we are bringing into the game. I wanted players of different skill levels to experience it and not have it just be something that happens at a perfect defense or perfect dodge.
In that case, if you’re just guarding normally and don’t have perfect timing, you might get one or two Power Clashes per hunt. Whereas if you are more experienced, an expert in timing, and make those perfect parries, you will experience it more often in battle and can use that to your advantage. But I don’t want the system to be blocked behind perfect timing. So the idea was rather to make new concepts, like the Power Clash, accessible to players across different skill levels and with different weapons in the game. And it should also not be restricted to weapons that already have a defense mechanic built in.
There will also be abilities that fit into that part of the system. For example, abilities that ensure you can achieve the perfect timing more often and easier. And that then impacts your endgame skill sets. If that is an area you want to focus on, then that happens more frequently.
You haven’t seen what Rompopolo looks like when it shrinks
MeinMMO (Leya): But now let’s get to the important question that everyone is surely interested in: What about Poogie?
Capcom: What should I do with the question? Wait and see. Feel free to ask another question. Because that wasn’t really a big answer.
MeinMMO (Leya): The other question might be a bit silly now, but I’m a really big fan of Rompopolo and I would really like to know if there’s something you can reveal about Rompopolo that hasn’t been known yet.
Capcom: When we designed the monster, one of the first things we agreed on was that it would use gas-based attacks. Part of that … one of the best designs we came up with and used was the idea that its face looks almost inspired by a gas mask. Basically, I believe in games or character designs, only psychopaths wear gas masks. There is always some kind of weird person who wears the gas mask.
So the idea was that it wears a gas mask and the gas builds up in its body until it can no longer hold it in. It was just such an unusual idea compared to past designs in Monster Hunter that I really wanted you to think: That’s a really strange creature. Hopefully, that was successful.
So the lady who developed Rompopolo thinks it’s cute. When we announced it, she read the comments online and they were all like: “Gross, creepy, strange.” And she was like, “What do you mean, it’s super cute.”
So I make sure she knows that at least one other person thinks exactly like she does.
This part of the interview was so important to me that it resulted in a standalone article:
MeinMMO (Leya): It is super cute. I really love the design.
Capcom: I think what we aimed for is a “love it or hate it” design. To be honest, the idea that some people find it cute and others find it creepy is exactly what we wanted. One thing to look out for is the Palico gear from Rompopolo. It is unique. Let’s just say: very unique.
Moreover, you haven’t seen what Rompopolo looks like when the gas has already escaped and it has completely shrunk. So look forward to that when it is not so full of gas anymore.
Monster Hunter has been praised over the years for its characteristic animations
VG247 (Alex): I was astonished yesterday when we were in the motion capture studio. It was said that for the first time most human animations were done with motion capture. When that happened – after all, you have all these traditions of the series. When you see a real person trying to wield these gigantic great sword weapons from Monster Hunter, do you think: Oh my God, what have we done? Do you think about the logistics? And likewise with the monster designs. Do you create a monster and then when you see an actor embodying it, do you think “Oh no …”?
Capcom: I believe the actors need to be really good because they have already made you fall for the illusion that they are really swinging heavy weapons. We give them light swords. They just manage to make it look very impressive as if there is really a lot of weight behind it. But, you know, [Monster Hunter] has been praised for its characteristic animations over the years.
And although we use motion capture as the basis and starting point for the animations, we still have many animators who not only improve the keyframes and fix errors but also connect smaller animations so that the actors can safely capture what is needed in a way that they can replicate again and again as needed. Their performance is directed by us, the directors, in that we tell them to swing the weapon in a manner that makes it seem particularly heavy. Then for another weapon, we explain to them that this movement is much faster and smoother. Then it should look like it is not strenuous at all. Then another, where it looks like a massive effort that quickly tires you out.
By getting them to do all these parts and then piecing it together into a thing that isn’t actually feasible for a person in-game, ultimately it’s all about how the player feels when they press the button and swing the heavy weapon. They should feel like they are executing this heavy action, and that it has consequences in the game. [The performers] are very focused. They are solely motion capture actors. And we often have conversations with them about what we want to see from them. They also ask us, “How is it? How would the player feel when the hunter does this or that?” So to sum it up, yes, hopefully, they did a good job.
Moreover: Yes, we showed some monster animations through humans, but some monsters are animated simply because it is utterly impossible.
So, that applies not only to monsters that cannot be represented with motion capture but also to those that have been captured, need the work of talented animators who bring a sense of personality into the animation. And one way to do that is by embodying it yourselves. Another way is through traditional hand animation, frame by frame. And I believe those are the skills that we have seen over the years in Monster Hunter, earning us all the praise that the animations feel so good.
Thank you for the interview!
Monster Hunter Wilds is set to release in February 2025
During the interview, it was evident that the three lead developers are developing their game with great passion and take community feedback very seriously.
Until the release, the team will continue to work on weapon balancing and improving performance.
Monster Hunter Wilds: Release, Crossplay, Demo, Features – Everything about the new Monster Hunter
