Monster Hunter Rise was made for the Switch and is coming to the PC too

Capcom is in an interesting position with Monster Hunter Rise, your new title for the Nintendo Switch. 2018 Monster Hunter World it was a great triumph, taking the series to a Western audience accustomed to home consoles and PCs and becoming one of the company’s best-selling games. But in doing so, he had to abandon some of the biggest factors behind Monster hunterThe Japanese success of: portability and local multiplayer.

Since Capcom started working on Monster Hunter Worldhowever, the Switch has become a global success and, on paper, it looks like it should be a perfect system for the series. It is much more capable than the PSP and 3DS hardware you made Monster hunter a social phenomenon in Japan, while offering the flexibility to allow you to play on TV or anywhere. This and where Move up goes into.

“We think that by launching this on a portable console, we make it much more accessible, much easier to pick up and touch,” said producer Ryōzō Tsujimoto The Verge. “It is also obviously easier to play with people in their immediate environment. So, it is very suitable for playing at home with your family, and you can pick it up and play whenever you want – you can do some quick missions before bed. Yes, we think it can bring some people back [who didn’t play World] because of the ease of access and the ease of grip. “

But the Switch presents technical challenges for Monster Hunter Rise compared to World, which used more powerful PS4 and Xbox One hardware as a development base. Early Monster hunter the games took place in small numbered areas separated by loading screens, while World it had complex stages of various levels that you could explore perfectly. Move up can divide the difference – you wouldn’t confuse environmental complexity with that of World, but the graphical fidelity is impressive for the Switch and there’s no load time when you’re on a level.

“In the early stages of development, we were still thinking about maintaining the same map system as the older games, with separate areas divided by loading screens,” says director Yasunori Ichinose. “But throughout development, we saw how World was doing, basically we were asked to make all environments open as in World. So it was not something that we planned from the beginning, but it is something that we are definitely happy to have done. ”

The stages also have a much higher degree of verticality compared to previous games – Ichinose says this is what “Rise” in the title refers to – and the ability to zip environments with the new Wirebug or walk on the back of a canine Palamute companion offers more options for crossing. In fact, Ichinose says, that’s why Capcom decided to put the locations of the monsters on the map from the beginning of each mission, instead of forcing hunters to track them from scratch – in Move up, figuring out how to get to the monsters can be challenging.

Still, I wondered if Capcom weighed the risk of losing some of its fans who jumped on board with World and may be waiting for another technical breakthrough. Switching to Switch could have an effect on Move uppopularity of in the West?

“We are not particularly concerned about this,” says Tsujimoto. “I mean, every time we do a Monster hunter game, we make sure it is a good and appropriate Monster hunter games. It is not that we invest less in our portable inputs or something like that. That’s it Monster Hunter Rise is a game that happens to be on a portable console, so we optimized it for that. But it doesn’t really change anything from a game point of view – it’s still very Monster hunter, so that fans still like it. ”

Furthermore, as Tsujimoto confirmed at the end of our interview, Monster Hunter Rise is coming to the PC too, with Capcom planning a release date in early 2022. This should be a good option for anyone who is reluctant to give up Worldsmooth frame rates on modern hardware. If you’re planning to play on the Switch, however, it’s only a month away – Monster Hunter Rise will be released worldwide on March 26.