Monster Hunter World!!!!!

Not really. At the lower end it’s all about grinding for weapons and gear by killing dino-monsters. At the high end, it’s like an action MMO boss fight. The bad guy has a jillion hit points and the fights take forever. Lots of potion quaffing, rolling, dodging, and co-op shenanigans.

Call me crazy, but I’m going with something a little more nefarious. They thought the music would turn off the Dudebros/Trumpistas in the audience…

OK, so it’s all co-op PVE, not a lopsided PVP battle like Evolve, and all your loot and experience carries forward?

So the funny little music that played during the pit-roasting scene won’t be in the actual game? I thought that was quite a funny touch.

Simply, yes. Keep in mind that Monster Hunter characters don’t really have level stats. You have Rank, but that just determines what kinds of monsters/quests/loot you have access to. All the number-pumping is on the gear and weapons.

It really is like the high-end play in an MMO. Gear grinding.

Right, but it’s important to note that all gear is crafted. So you’re hunting for parts to make your weapons and armor sets. Also you’re not tied into any one kind of weapon, so if you want to try going ranged or a different melee weapon, all you have to do is pick one up and go to town.

This too. There’s lots, I mean LOTS, of crafting.

I ain’t got time to grind.

You got time to craft?

No.

Yep. Sooner or later, you will find yourself killing Rathian or whatever all weekend long because you need one more tooth or whatever to make your new whatsit that will make the next tier fight a lot more doable. And then doing THAT again in the next tier on some other monster.

But the soul of it is that monsters behave uniquely and learning their patterns and really learning your weapon’s moves, arcs, and timing simply makes the grind a roadmap to (rather than the reason for) the journey.

Wait, MHW has a grappling hook? So they’re copying Toukiden 2 now? Haha, Monster Hunter goes full circle!

And Freedom Wars had a grappling hook before that!

I am not sure if someone said it or not but here’s my experience. The only game I bought in MH was Tri. It was the first game I’ve played where where you hit is important and you’re trying not to just take the monster down but lop off the tail or get this part or that part for your gear. It’s a little harsh because the weakest player can really screw you up, you only get so many downs before it resets, but on the other hand, the monsters have tells and different versions of them. So the first time I met this monster, he did one thing, the second time he added a new attack. It felt kind of like an eco system before, but really constrained which might have been the Wii’s fault not the series… this sounds even better.

I mean for me it was pretty amazing to just kind of don my thing, hunting and gathering, and then just have this monster land and go to town on a nearby beast. I’m pretty excited about this, perhaps enough to finally get PS4 to get it early. They don’t even have a release date on PC, and I’ve been eyeing 4 for other reasons too. PC though… would really open up who i play with.

Tri also had these only quests that I am not sure are usually part of the series or not… special critters were in those.

You’re likely right, as the official trailer has audio at that point, just no music. Also there was a distinct lack of Palicoes.

Unless PC is coming very soon after console, this will be a double-dipper for me for sure.

Alienate the existing fanbase, make a crappy watered down game for the general public who already weren’t interested in MH. I hope not!

I think the modern games have much better AI for the monsters as well. They kept the old monsters AI basically (like Rathian and Ratholos) and they are so much worse than the better designed monsters in X (Mitsusune is one of my favorite!)

It looks like some of the additions could be really cool though, if they keep the base complexity of the game intact as well.

I like the idea of the more open landscape, the living ecosystem where monsters can hunt each other, and using the environmental interactions/hazards as traps.

The green sparkly ‘following the spoor’ thing, I’ll wait and see - but I have no objection in theory to systems like that being added.

Capcom USA confirmed they have no announcements to make about a western release of Monster Hunter XX, which you’ll note is a game that’s been out in Japan for months and already halfway officially translated into English because it’s an expanded version of Monster Hunter Generations. They’re officially “100% focused” on Monster Hunter World outside of Japan right now.

Monster Hunter Stories, the more traditional JRPG spinoff for 3DS, is being localized directly by Nintendo, not Capcom.

Monster Hunter fans are livid.

That is disappointing if true. How long does it take to learn Japanese from scratch? :o

Interview, with some minimal bits of new footage

Drop in and Drop out is definitely a cool feature. The sneaking thing seems to be an extra item so maybe it’s like other things, you have to chose sneak over something else. Simultaneous launch is cool… 14 weapons? Tri had half that unless they double count them?

Also crawling through tunnels like that is probably going to freak me out a bit and probably totally screw up with the camera angles.