The main Monster Hunter games haven't added a new weapon type since the introduction of the Charged Sword and Bug Glaive in Monster Hunter 4 in 2013, and Wild monster hunter won't change that when it launches on February 28, 2025. However, Wilds executive art director Kaname Fujioka and series producer Ryozo Tsujimoto say the development team regularly talks about new weapon ideas. .
Talking to an Italian site Multiplayer.it (automatically translated via Google and DeepL for this article), Fujioka claims that the idea of adding a 15th main weapon was never abandoned and many potential ideas have accumulated as a result. The important context here is that Monster Hunter technically has 18 weapons, it's just that the tonfa, magnetic spike, and haste ax have only appeared in a few spin-off games, while the hilariously named medium crossbow was only seen in Monster Hunter 3.
Monster Hunter Wilds continues the approach of games like Monster Hunter Rise and Monster Hunter World, Fujioka adds, by refining the 14 existing weapons and taking them in new directions with additional moves and features. Wilds, in particular, has given most, if not all, weapons some sort of counterattack or perfect timing mechanic.
Tsujimoto says that matching the level of depth and care of current weapons makes it much more difficult to choose and develop a fifteenth. He points out the Charged Sword and Bug Glaive again, which have evolved dramatically since their release despite being the newest of the bunch. Meanwhile, classics like the greatsword and longsword are almost unrecognizable compared to their primitive counterparts.
It's also a question of development priorities, Tsujimoto notes. Even if the team had a solid idea and also had the resources available to make a 15th weapon, Tsujimoto says they have to ask themselves if that's really the best use of those resources, or if the series and its fans would be better off investing them. . elsewhere, perhaps further improving current weapons or simply prioritizing the main themes and objectives of the next game.
GamesRadar+ spoke with Wilds director Yuya Tokuda earlier this year. about how our guns are evolving, especially since we can now take two of them hunting and swap them out via our Seikret bird mount, and reasoned that it all comes down to filling in perceived gaps.
“As we upgrade each weapon and consider how it will be addressed in each title,” he explained, “like you have a gap in your moveset that is filled with something that could be used as a parry, but also these moves can generally be used in any time, it is not something that you can only achieve if you do it right now, it is more [about] Perhaps this weapon was missing something to counteract the verticality that now exists in the game with these three-dimensional maps. “I would have added a move that could be used that way.”
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