Introduction: The release of Monster Hunter Wilds quickly became one of the most successful in this year’s gaming market. As the latest game from the acclaimed Monster Hunter series, it managed not just to break the franchise’s record, but also become the most successful launch that its developer and publisher, Capcom, ever had. The mixture of factors that came into this game and its release are unique but also showcase how one part of the global game development community is fighting not just the ongoing gaming industry crisis, but also the overall changing trends in the same field.
Article: In the last couple of years, many developers have continuously decided to keep their expectations low when it comes to the launch day of their games. Regardless of whether a game was developed by a AAA team with a budget counted in tens of millions of USD, or if a title comes from a small indie team, the previous period brought about an environment where no one can predict hits and flops. Big games with huge studios and publishers behind them regularly fail to make an impression on the market, while projects of similar size are shut down on a regular basis. Due to this, the ability of developers, video game media, and the gaming community to predict how a particular release will fare went down substantially. In the case of the latest Monster Hunter game, which is Monster Hunter Wilds, its development studio and publisher, Capcom, was cautiously optimistic.
After a development cycle that lasted nearly seven years, the launch date for the game was set for February 28, 2025. But, once it got to the market, the game’s rapidly growing popularity took everyone by surprise. In a matter of days, the game became the best-selling Capcom title, overcoming not just the other Monster Hunter games, but also franchises like the super-popular Resident Evil. At the same time, the game’s appeal even allowed third-party platforms like Steam to break their own concurrent player records – it reached over 40 million players on the Wild’s launch day. The success of this game, however, was not a fluke or a lucky shot. Instead, it came about through years of painstaking development, but also a willingness of its creators to stick to a clear plan that more or less ignored many of the current gaming trends.
Monster Hunter Franchise
The Monster Hunter series began 21 years ago, with the first title that was launched in 2004 on PlayStation 2. In the series, the concept of the game hardly changed – the objective of the players, who inhabit a place known as The Forbidden Lands, was to fight and capture massive beasts. These monsters come in all shapes and forms, often requiring players to band together so that they can take them down. Through this setup, the strongest elements of the franchise come to the forefront. Those are the co-op mode, which remains a big fan favorite, but also a complex gaming system, which goes beyond a scaled-up souls-like setup. Instead, the franchise built its following by allowing players to combine cooperation, action, and planning when they take on the monsters. The formula proved popular in particular for the Monster Hunter World. This game came out in 2018 and sold over 28 million copies by 2019, covering several versions of the game. This paved the way for the Monster Hunter Wilds, despite the fact that the same road took more than six years.
Long-Expected Release
For weeks, even months, the global gaming audience eagerly expected the launch of Monster Hunter Wilds. From a marketing and promotional standpoint, the success of the game’s pre-launch campaign might seem like it came out of the blue. However, the development of the game was neither fast nor easy for Capcom. The game’s director, Yuya Tokuda, led a team that was made up of Monster Hunter veterans. While the game industry in North America and Europe tends to lay off its developers regularly, forcing some out of the whole industry, Japan’s development landscape is different. Here, employment protection stacks upon the desire of the game developers to stick with their products. That is why Tokuda has been on the series for over two decades. He, along with the team, analyzed the older games to figure out what elements should be improved, and which ones could be disregarded. The same applies to Capcom’s ability to reuse old assets, like locations in the Forbidden Lands, for example. The approach provided both flexibility to improve the formula, but also cost-cutting efficiency of the production itself. In the promotional sense, the prolonged development promoted the game as well. Thanks to that, players of the series patiently waited for the release and then appeared in droves when it came out. In a matter of days, that formula allowed the game to break so many records.
Flaws and Issues
It is also interesting to note that Monster Hunter Wilds, despite the huge success in terms of sales, did not impress the audience across the board. The game faced a lot of technical and performance issues, mainly revolving around its visuals and frame rate when it came to the Windows OS. On the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, the game gained what meta critic aggregator term universal acclaim. But, the PC market was very different, which is why the game presently has a Mixed rating on Steam, based on nearly 90,000 reviews. In all likelihood, the Capcom developers will iron out these problems in the subsequent updates and patches. But, even with the game’s struggles, it still sold over eight million copies in the first 72 hours after its release.
Different Formula
The impact of Monster Hunter Wilds goes beyond its market performance. The philosophy that Capcom and Monster Hunter developers took upon themselves shows a different way of perceiving AAA video games. Instead of risking their time, money, and effort on new and unproven gaming trends, Capcom decided to improve the things that worked and do it slowly and steadily with an established team. Even along with technical problems on PC, the game became an enormous hit. Once more, it proved that keeping developers for the long haul always pays off better than having a revolving door policy that shuffles people in and out constantly. Those lessons are badly needed in the rest of the game development industry and can not just help people find stability in the gaming business, but also enable companies to make hits like Monster Hunter Wilds.
Available on Steam, PlayStation and Xbox
Author: Ivica Milaric, game designer and assistant professor of game design at the Novi Sada Academy of Arts, Republic of Serbia