How Monster Hunter Took Over the World

In the lead-up to its global launch, Monster Hunter Wilds shattered pre-order records on both Steam and PlayStation, effortlessly following in the footsteps of its extraordinarily popular predecessors, 2022's Monster Hunter Rise and 2018's Monster Hunter: World. These sales figures firmly establish Capcom's unique and esoteric RPG series as one of the biggest video game franchises worldwide.

However, this wasn't always the case. Less than a decade ago, the notion of a Monster Hunter game achieving such global acclaim would have seemed far-fetched. Rewind to the series' inception in 2004, and the idea would have been even more improbable; the original game received mixed reviews. It wasn't until a year later, when Monster Hunter transitioned to the PSP, that the series truly took off—in Japan.

For a long time, Monster Hunter epitomized the "game series bigger in Japan than the rest of the world" phenomenon. The reasons for this were straightforward, as this story will elucidate, but that didn't deter Capcom from striving to break Monster Hunter into the international market. As evidenced by Monster Hunter: World, Rise, and now Wilds, the effort was well worth it.

This is the tale of how Monster Hunter evolved from a domestic hit to a global powerhouse.

Around the time of Street Fighter 5's launch in 2016, Capcom underwent an internal reorganization to prepare for a new generation of games. These games would utilize the company's brand new RE Engine, replacing the aging MT Framework. This shift was more than just a technological upgrade; it came with a new mandate to ensure Capcom's games were crafted not just for existing, territory-specific fans, but for a global audience.

"It was a few factors that came together," says Hideaki Itsuno, a former game director at Capcom best known for his work on Devil May Cry. "The change of the engine and also all teams were given a very clear goal at that point to make games that reach the global market. [Games] that are fun for everyone."

During the PS3 and Xbox 360 era, Capcom's games seemed to be tailored to capture an imagined version of the "Western games market." While the action-heavy Resident Evil 4 was a significant success, more gun-focused spinoffs like Umbrella Corps and the sci-fi shooter series Lost Planet failed to resonate. After several years, Capcom realized the need to create games that appealed to everyone, not just fans of traditional Western genres.

"I think that we had that clear goal of just focusing and not holding anything back," Itsuno says. "Towards making good games that would reach people from all over the world."

Itsuno notes that the period leading up to 2017 was pivotal. "The changes in organization and the changes in the engine, all these elements came together around that time," he says. When Resident Evil 7 launched that year, it kickstarted a Capcom renaissance.

No other series embodies this new company goal for global success better than Monster Hunter. While it had its diehard fans in the West, for decades, Monster Hunter was significantly more popular in Japan. The series was never intended to be exclusively big in Japan, but real-world factors contributed to this phenomenon.

Monster Hunter found tremendous success when it transitioned from the PlayStation 2 to the PSP with Monster Hunter Freedom Unite. The handheld gaming market has always been stronger in Japan than in the West, as evidenced by the success of the PSP, Nintendo's DS, and more recently, the Switch. According to the series' executive producer Ryozo Tsujimoto, the key to Monster Hunter's success in Japan was the nation's advanced wireless internet network, which allowed Japanese gamers to play reliably with friends.

"20 years ago, Japan was in a very, very solid state in terms of the network environments available to people, and being able to connect and to play online together," Tsujimoto says. "And of course, we're not speaking for everyone there, because we realize that there are people who may not have had the chance to play with friends back then. But by moving over to handheld systems, we were able to grow that player base that was interacting and playing multiplayer together."

Monster Hunter, built on a core pillar of cooperative play, recognized that this aspect would be best served when friends could quickly jump into hunts together. Handheld consoles were the perfect platform at the time, and Japan's advanced internet infrastructure meant Monster Hunter was initially developed for a local market, even if unintentionally.

This created a feedback loop. Monster Hunter games became best-sellers primarily in Japan, and to keep pace with the audience, Capcom released Japan-only content and hosted Japan-only special events, further reinforcing Monster Hunter as a "Japan-only" brand.

Despite this, Monster Hunter did have fans in the West, who enviously watched as Japanese players received exclusive tie-ins and quests. As the Western world improved its internet infrastructure and online play became standard for most console gamers, Tsujimoto and the team saw an opportunity to launch their most advanced and globally accessible Monster Hunter game to date.

Released in 2018 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, Monster Hunter: World marked a significant shift for the franchise. Instead of being designed for smaller, less-capable handheld consoles, it offered large-scale, AAA console quality action with enhanced graphics, larger areas, and, of course, bigger monsters.

"Our approach to the globalization of the series and Monster Hunter in general really ties into not only the themes that we had going into designing the game, but also in the name of the game," Tsujimoto reveals. "The fact that we called it Monster Hunter: World is really kind of a nod to the fact that we wanted to appeal to this worldwide audience that we wanted to really dig into and experience Monster Hunter for the first time."

It was crucial that Monster Hunter: World did not give the impression that Capcom was prioritizing one market over another. The game was released simultaneously worldwide, and there was no exclusive content locked to Japan, something Tsujimoto says "comes with realigning ourselves to hit those global standards that people come to expect of titles around the world."

Tsujimoto and his team conducted focus tests and user tests across the world to refine Monster Hunter's formula and broaden its appeal. "We did focus tests and user tests across the world, and some of the impact of those — the feedback and the opinions that we got during that really affected how we designed our game systems and really affected how much success we had as a global title for that game," Tsujimoto says.

One significant change resulting from these playtests was the inclusion of damage numbers when players hit monsters. These small tweaks to an already successful formula propelled Monster Hunter to unprecedented heights. Previous Monster Hunter games typically sold between 1.3 to 5 million copies, not including re-releases and special editions. Monster Hunter: World and its 2022 follow-up, Monster Hunter Rise, both surpassed 20 million copies sold.

This growth in player base was no accident. Instead of altering the essence of Monster Hunter to cater to Western tastes, Tsujimoto and the team found ways to make the series' unique (and, admittedly, complex) nature more accessible to a broader audience without compromising its core. This approach continues with the latest game, Monster Hunter Wilds.

"At its heart, Monster Hunter really is an action game, and that sense of accomplishment you get from really mastering that action is an important aspect of Monster Hunter," Tsujimoto explains. "But for newer players, it's really getting to that point. The steps involved in getting to that sense of accomplishment is really what we're trying to strategize for, in terms of designing for new players. So with World and Rise, for example, we were taking really great care to analyze where players got stuck, what was hard to understand, what they were having trouble with, getting player feedback, and also doing our own kind of research into that. And all of that kind of knowledge has impacted how we've implemented new systems into Wilds."

Within 35 minutes of its release, Monster Hunter Wilds reached 738,000 concurrent players on Steam, a figure more than double Monster Hunter: World's all-time high. With glowing reviews and the promise of more content to come, it seems highly likely that Monster Hunter Wilds will continue the series' mission to conquer the world.