Monster Hunter Is Coming Back to Playstation (and PC!)

For everyone in the West the first installment of the Monster Hunter series was a PS2 title. Though in recent years you probably wouldn't know it since it's been living on Nintendo's family of consoles for some time. Monster Hunter Generations was one of the most popular 3DS titles, and so I was a little surprised to see that the Nintendo Switch got snubbed on the Monster Hunter World announcement. The announcement was great news for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC gamers though as this game will be available for all of them! I have to say I'm pretty excited to be able to play Monster Hunter on PC. The game looks beautiful, and while I have my reservations I do believe it will be an amazing game.

So far the feature I'm most excited about is that the developers claim this game will have a true open world aspect! If you've played any other monster hunter titles you'll be familiar with the map set up. Your character (and the monsters) move from area to area on the map. Monster Hunter World promises to remove these map loading screens to give players a more immersive experience. It will also make the game more challenging. In previous games if you were about to die you could dodge roll into another area to heal and save yourself. It looks like that won't be the case with Monster Hunter World. You'll have to do your healing while trying not to get murdered. It's an exciting feature, and I'm super hyped to try out a true open world hunting experience.

From the looks of the trailer this game will be more focused on using stealth and traps to gain advantages in combat. Unfortunately, there was no preview for the co-op functions of the game, and I'm eager to see how this title will perform in a multi-hunter setting. In the shot above from the trailer video you can see the character is wearing something a kin to a ghillie suit to avoid detection by the fluffy-saurus. I'm also happy to see that mounting has stayed in tact since it was one of my new favorite things to do on the Monster Hunter games for 3DS.

I'll have to admit that when I started reading the press releases I did have a bit of pause. I saw mention of how this title would be more "geared toward the West", and things about the so called steep learning curve involved in previous games. I don't really agree that Monster Hunter was too difficult to play, and I really hope this doesn't mean they'll be dumbing down the games or anything like that. That being said I of course want Monster Hunter to be brought to as many people as possible, and this release could do just that.

If the game plays anything like the footage that was released at E3 we'll get beautiful, seamless maps full of huge monsters to hunt, and it will be glorious. There hasn't really been any changes to the newer games that I didn't like, and I've read that Palicoes will be featured in Monster Hunter World as well! If you're not familiar with them they're little kitty cat bros that follow you around and help you out either by distracting the monsters, healing you, or even picking up some items for you while you're questing. In the 3DS games you could even smith armor and weapons for your little cat friends! It's a fun little feature that I'm happy is going to remain.

Multi-player will feature a global server, and drop in multi-player so you can just join in hunting with anybody in the world. I do wonder how the setup will be though. In past games you could make a room with a password that would only allow people you know to join. I know some people will say that takes the fun out of it, but sometimes I just want to play with someone who's in the same room as me, and not anyone else.

Overall, I'm very optimistic for the game, and I can't wait to play it! Unfortunately, we won't be getting it until 2018. You can watch the E3 trailer below to see the gameplay.