UPDATE
Have you been diving into the older titles to get ready for the upcoming one? How do you think they hold up? Let us know below!
ORIGINAL STORY
It’s always interesting to see what “established franchises” become super popular with fans either at the beginning or well into their lives. You might think that series needs to capture the gamers’ imaginations with the first title in the line, or else never get a sequel, but it’s not as clear-cut as that. Numerous series have had strong roots in places like Japan but never got popular in the West until much later. Monster Hunter was one such title, and it was Monster Hunter World that helped get players all over the world invested in it.
You see, the franchise before this entry was known as being a “grinding” title. Yes, you could kill all sorts of monsters, but to do so, you had to grind for a long time to get the weapons and armor you needed to get the best gear to slay the beasts. While many in Japan enjoyed that gameplay loop, many in the West found it restrictive.
However, when Monster Hunter World came out in 2018, Capcom did its best to refine the gameplay while making it as seamless as possible, thanks to the power of more modern and powerful systems. That led gamers to give it a chance, and it went on to sell huge numbers on consoles and PCs and easily surged the series’ popularity.
So why are we bringing this up now? Well, at The Game Awards, the final “world premiere” was the announcement of Monster Hunter Wilds, the next entry in the series by Capcom. While news about the title is slim, many are excited about it.
So much so that they went to Steam and started playing Monster Hunter World again; they came in such numbers that, according to its Steam data page, they’ve gotten more players online than they had in the last three years!
There is a reason for this outside of the new game announcement. Specifically, Capcom did a “Return to the World” event where they focused on community gameplay and did various livestreams to showcase what players were still doing in the title. It’s not necessarily new content, but it was a clever way to bring people back together.
Given the success of the last two main titles and their DLCs, the upcoming game will have plenty of pressure on it. However, Capcom knows what works, and they know that people are eager to play the new game, so they’re not likely to screw it up.
