If you ask people who the main characters are in Monster Hunter, they might say “the hunters” – but others will tell you: “It’s all about the monsters.”So many striking creatures have appeared over the course of Monster Hunter’s 20-plus-year history.
With each new hunter and each new hunt, we form new memories around these monsters. That's why players have pored over information about the new monsters appearing in the latest title, Monster Hunter Wilds, and why they let out shouts of joy when they heard that certain monsters would be making a long-awaited return.In this interview with Kaname Fujioka, who was the director of the first Monster Hunter and now Executive Director and Art Director for Wilds, and Yuya Tokuda, director of both Monster Hunter: World and Wilds, we get to hear in detail about the process that new and returning monsters went through before appearing in Wilds, with a special focus on the processes of creation and selection.
Throughout the interview, I felt the deep love that these developers have for their monsters, as well as the ceaseless work they've put into giving those monsters the greatest stage possible.Tokuda first explains the process that goes into the creation of a Monster Hunter monster."We first consider what we want players to experience when facing major monsters like Arkveld, as well as the setting, ecosystem and so on of the world, unique to each title,” he tells IGN. “We then think about the kind of monsters needed to do that.
In a way, we start by putting puzzle pieces together, like, ‘If this monster exists in this place, how does the ecological pyramid work here?’”It's easy to simply think that players will be happy so long as popular monsters make a reappearance, but the development team actually focuses most on the player's experience."We don't focus too much on the proportion or number of new versus old monsters,” continues Tokuda. “What's important at the end of the day is the overall level design and order of monsters