Recently, Monster Hunter series producer Ryozo Tsujimoto visited Capcom U.K.’s headquarters, where he took part in a community event with Monster Hunter fans. During this time, Eurogamer caught up with Tsujimoto to ask him about his goals for growing the series in the west, and how he feels it’s doing so far.
“We’ve definitely developed the community greatly from when it started in the west, from when the first title was released here,” Tsujimoto says, with regard to the success of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate in the west. “We’ve got to a great place now, but we’re not stopping. We’re going to keep going and we’re looking forward to being able to achieve greater heights with the community and with the next Monster Hunter titles over here.”
On the subject of Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, Tsujimoto says that he feels a portable Monster Hunter game with online multiplayer will open new opportunities up for the series in the west. Tsujimoto says that the 3DS game will potentially allow people to introduce their friends to Monster Hunter via local multiplayer, and that those newcomers will then be able to hop online, where there will be a thriving community of veteran players who will be able to assist them further.
Regarding the Nintendo 3DS, Tsujimoto points to the system’s dual-screen setup, touch screen and stereoscopic 3D capabilities as its strengths, and the aspects of the platform that the Monster Hunter games play upon. He also mentions that there are no plans to bring Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate to the Wii U at the moment, since the Nintendo 3DS version of the game already has online multiplayer, and Capcom are interested in seeing how 4 Ultimate performs on a single platform.
Tsujimoto also touches upon why Monster Hunter isn’t developed for consoles, when pressed on the question.
“It’s based on resources,” he says. “Frankly, it’s not like we have some multi-thousand member development team on this game. It’s about 150 people on the Monster Hunter development team.”
