GamePia held a reporter conference prior to the release of Monster Hunter: World, a game developed by Capcom, and the sale of its Collector’s Edition. At this conference, Tsujimoto Ryozo, the producer and director of Monster Hunter: World, answered all sorts of questions regarding the game.

The Monster Hunter series has sold more than 40mil copies worldwide, and is an action RPG in which the player becomes a hunter who takes down gigantic monsters in a prodigious wilderness. Monster Hunter: World is the latest of the series, in which the character modeling, textures, lighting, and etc. were newly created so that players won’t just see quality graphics, but will experience the game as a living and breathing world.

The official release date of Monster Hunter: World is on January 26th, 2018. The discussions regarding the game at the conference and answers to questions by Producer Tsujimoto Ryozo are as follows.

Held at 13:30~18:10 October 24th, 2017 (KST)

Included Demonstration of Monster Hunter: World and Q&A by Producer Tsujimoto Ryozo

◎ The Monster Hunter: World Presentation

Monster Hunter: World is the latest in the series, and has adopted the newest technology. It has great graphics as well as a more realistic ecosystem, brimming with monsters that display various behavior patterns. The new teaser was based on a scenario, and along with this, players can check out the new world of Monster Hunter: World through all the different teasers that have been revealed so far.

Now I’d like to explain the new fields in the game: Wildspire Waste and Coral Highlands. Large ant mounds are symbolic to this area, in which extraordinary monsters exist.

The Coral Highlands is a unique field in Monster Hunter: World; it is where coral grows on the land, not in the ocean, and it has many exquisite creatures, found nowhere else, as well as diverse flora and fauna. There are monsters that attack with their wings and have attack patterns like flying into the air and dropping the player down when breathing. There are other monsters besides these, and players need to make use of different strategic approaches that take into account the ecosystem of monsters in this field.

As you’d already know from the story teaser, the player is a member of the expedition team heading for the New World, following the gigantic monsters that migrate to the New World by crossing the ocean once a decade. Players are the 5th expedition team based in the city of Astera, a place built by the 1st expedition team. The buildings in the city are made from the materials taken from the ships the expedition team came riding in, which offers unique sceneries to players. I think it is a place worth seeing.

This part of the series puts an accent on multi-action. There are 14 different weapons in total, from melee weapons to long distance, and from heavy to speedy ones; players can choose a weapon of their liking. Up to 4 players can enjoy the multiplayer mode, and I recommend choosing weapons based on balance.

Costumes, face painting, and gestures are provided in the Digital Deluxe Edition. The Collector's Edition includes the promotion code for the Deluxe Kit as well as a figure for Nergigante, the main monster in the game, the 32-page-long hardcover art book, a special soundtrack, etc.

This is the first time we’re disclosing the track title and the composer in the soundtracks, and the first track listed is the main theme song for Monster Hunter: World. As the 10th track is also considered important in the series, I hope many of you take some time to check them out.

◎ Group Q&A

A player cutting in during the middle of another player’s farming to kill steal could be seen as an unfair trick. How will the reward be calculated in that situation?

If another player joins in the middle of a hunt, the monster’s health will change into one for multi-players. The difficulty level will automatically change and the monster’s health will increase. Also, the loot will not change depending on the contribution. Every participant will receive the same rewards.

Can monsters be caught using traps? Also, there were 2 ways of capturing monsters before; were any more added?

The capture system also exists in this game, and there hasn’t been any new method added separately.

There are many talks regarding how satisfying the feedback is when attacking monsters; is there any possibility of it getting improved?

If you actually play the game, you won’t think that it lacks in satisfying feedback from hits. We didn’t just upgrade the graphics; we also reinforced that aspect from the original series. For example, when you attack monsters, their blood and scales are splattered around you as they become more battered and broken. Once again, this feedback aspect has been actually upgraded.

We are curious about how many monsters will appear in the game, including the new and old.

It is hard to tell you the exact numbers. To tell you briefly about it, most of the monsters from the series will appear in this game. There were a lot of people saying that the volume of the game been reduced, but we’ve improved it while keeping the original volume so there is no need to worry.

It took a while for Monster Hunter for consoles to be released. Can you tell us the difference between Monster Hunter for portables versus consoles?

There is a difference between portables and consoles. The portables emphasize the sporty vibe more- they allow players to enjoy the game enough during a short period of time. As for consoles, you’ll be sitting down for good while to play the games, so we prepared a game for players to be absorbed in for a long time. But that does not mean the game became heavy; we tried to keep the balance.

The Korean version of the game as well as other languages will be provided; we’d like to hear how you came to decide this and how you feel about it.

When we started developing Monster Hunter: World, we aimed for a simultaneous release worldwide for the first time in the series. The subtitle for the game, ‘World’, was chosen for this reason, since we wanted players from all over the world to enjoy our game. It is for the same reason we are providing multinational languages.

The motion in the game has changed quite a bit. Players can now drink potions while moving, which seems to make playing easier.

We mainly focused on making gameplay in Monster Hunter: World that isn’t halted by anything. That is why we don’t have the map loading as well. However, this won’t be always in favor of the hunters. If they attacked while drinking health potions, their health will be only regenerated to the point they were filling before being attacked. Players should be moving around naturally, just as the monsters do.

The game was developed using the Unreal Engine. We would like to know if the Monster Hunter series will keep coming out in such high quality in future.

The series of Monster Hunter has been developed over a decade now. More than one has been released every year. As for Monster Hunter XX, we aimed for the gameplay style to feel festive. This time, we aimed to portray the ecosystem in the game as clear as we could. How Monster Hunter will turn out to be in future will depend on the game concept every time. We won’t be making the game the same exact way in the future.

We’d like to know if the game will be released on other platforms aside from PS4.

Currently, we’re planning to release it only for PS4. We don’t have any plans for other platforms yet.

We were shown monsters fighting with each other; do they also fight together?

Basically, they are fighting for their territories due to being different species. As you see within the ecosystem in nature, interrelations exist in the game. Also, they do not fight together. Of course, there may be instances in which two monsters attack the hunters at the same time.

What was the reason for having the damage shown?

We’ve been trying out various test plays during development, and players wondered if they were hitting the monster right. This question came up, especially among beginners. That is why we let the players check if they are hitting the right spots by showing the damage they are inflicting. It is showed in different colours depending on the amount of damage dealt, so players can check if they are hitting the right part based on the colours.

What are the frame rates for the game?

It is variable.

It was said that 4G wouldn’t be released back when Monster Hunter XX was released, but it actually was. So we’d like to buy the expansion pack for Monster Hunter: World if there are any released; what are your thoughts on that?

Whenever we release a new title, we make it so that players can enjoy it enough. We’d appreciate players enjoying the main game more rather than the expansion pack.

◎ Photos from the Conference