Monster Hunter

Monster Hunter games are action role-playing games that takes place in a shared low fantasy setting, where the human-like species have a pre-industrial level of technology such as steam power, but continue to study the ruins of a long-past advanced civilization. In the setting's less populated regions, monsters roam the landscape and threaten small villages or research bases that have been established to study the ruins and these monsters. Players take the role of a Hunter that serves to help protect the villages and bases from these monsters, typically aiding in researching these. This is generally presented through a series of quests to slay or trap a monster but can include numerous optional challenges.

The core feature of Monster Hunter is its compulsion loop.[3] Unlike traditional computer role-playing games, a player's Hunter does not grow and has no intrinsic statistics or attributes whatsoever. Rather, the Hunter's abilities are instead defined by the specific weapons and armor selected. The Hunter is tasked with missions to hunt or capture various monsters, and on successful completion, the Hunter is awarded in both in-game money ("zenny") and loot representing parts from the monster. These parts, along with other resources collected while on missions or through mission rewards, can be used to forge or upgrade new weapons and armor which then can be used in against more powerful monsters and tackle more difficult missions, completing the compulsion loop. Mission rewards are often generated randomly, typically requiring the player to grind the same monster repeatedly to get the right parts. Weapons and armor have intrinsic bonuses or penalties towards certain types of elemental or physical damages, and may provide special skills which can be fine-tuned through the mix-and-matching of equipment pieces.[4]

The games feature a variety of different weapon classes, ranging from swords, hammers, and bows, with the most recent titles (Generations, World, and Rise) having a total of fourteen classes.[3] Each weapon class has a unique set of combat maneuvers and reflect a number of different play styles based on speed of attack, damage strength, and the application of buffs and debuffs to monsters and allies. Monster Hunter games use an "animation priority" combat, committing the player to a move until the animation is completed and leaving them potentially vulnerable to a monster's attack. Further, players are encouraged to watch their Hunter's health and stamina. Losing all health will force a retreat to a base camp, and after three such retreats, the mission is deemed a failure. Performing most combat actions consumes stamina, which otherwise recovers outside of combat; once exhausted of stamina, the Hunter becomes venerable as they pause to catch their breath. Combat is centered around watching for a monster's tells prior to an attack to be able to dodge it and/or make a counterattack, and looking for openings to unleash strings of attack combos, depending on the Hunter's current weapon.[5] Unlike most other action games, Monster Hunter fights have been compared to a series of boss fights.[3]

Nearly all Monster Hunter games have a single-player mode; in these, the Hunter is often accompanied by a Felyne or Palico, a sentient cat-like creature that provides support and limited offensive abilities in combat. Most Monster Hunter games support or originally supported four-player cooperative online modes, allowing the group to hunt down stronger versions of monsters. The games typically have a main quest line, frequently called "Low Rank" or "Village Quests", which can take up to fifty hours to complete. Once completed, the game opens up with new "High Rank" or "Gathering Hall" quests, featuring stronger versions of monsters they have previously faced, as well as new monsters are yet seen and unique variants of these foes, all of which provide better components for more powerful weapons and armor sets, providing hundreds of hours of potential gameplay following the main quest.[6][3] More recent titles add a third rank of difficulty, called "G Rank" or "Master Rank", adding further variant monsters with new attacks and attack patterns.[7][3]

The first Monster Hunter game was one of three titles Capcom had developed to take advantage of the processing power and online capabilities of the PlayStation 2, which according to Ryozo Tsujimoto, who has been the series' producer since Monster Hunter Freedom 2, had begun to match arcade games in capabilities; the other two such titles were Auto Modellista and Resident Evil Outbreak.[8] Tsujimoto considered Monster Hunter to be the culmination of the work of these other two titles once it was released.[8] He also felt that the game was intended for such cooperative play so that players of any skill level, working with others, could feel accomplished in taking down giant creatures.[9] Monster Hunter proved a success, selling over 1 million copies, principally in Japan.[9] Enhanced versions of the early games, adding more difficult monsters and end-game quests, were released with a "G" affixed to the end (such as Monster Hunter G for the first such game); for those titles that were released in Western regions, these were affixed with the Freedom moniker.[3]

The series took off explosively in Japan with Monster Hunter G/Freedom on the PlayStation Portable, and even more so once its sequel Monster Hunter G/Freedom 2 was released which supported up to four players via the unit's ad-hoc networking.[10] Handheld systems are generally more popular in Japan, and due to the country's high population density, it was easy to find players to hunt cooperatively with, making it a phenomenon there.[11] James Miekle, writing for PC Gamer, had worked for Q Entertainment and lived in Japan during the release of Monster Hunter Portable 3rd, which was the best selling PlayStation Portable game of all time, and described how even during work, impromptu Monster Hunter sessions would break out between employees, and there was extensive marketing of Monster Hunter branded consumer goods.[10]

While Monster Hunter had been successful in Japan, its popularity in Western markets (primarily North America and Europe) languished. In contrast to the Japanese culture, Western markets favored home consoles and computers during the mid-2000s, and because of a thinner population density, most players relied on Internet-based gaming rather than local ad hoc networking.[11][10] The series also struggled with a difficult learning curve that had made the games off-putting in Western markets.[12]

The series had little popularity in the West until the release of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate on the Nintendo 3DS, a console that had gained a sizable foothold in Western markets. While Monster Hunter's popularity in the West was still to a niche group, Capcom saw the potential for more growth there and took steps to better localize the next few titles to make the series more attractive; Monster Hunter 4 was the first game in the series to break one million sales in Western markets.[11] Capcom recognized there was still room for further growth of the series there; in an October 2016 interview, Capcom chairman Kenzo Tsujimoto said they were looking towards increasing the popularity of the games in the Western markets, recognizing that gaming consoles like the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One have dominance in these regions over handhelds.[13] Monster Hunter: World, the series's first major entry targeting home consoles and computers, was developed to be more alluring for Western markets without trying to make the game simpler.[12] A number of changes in gameplay were made that took advantage of the consoles' new technology; notably, while the prior games had split each hunting area into different zones as necessitated by limits of the console hardware, World's used seamless zones, and several changes to gameplay were made to account for this.[3] World became the series' best selling game, achieving more than 16 million units sold by 2020 and making the Monster Hunter series Capcom's best-selling series following Resident Evil.[14]

With the success of the changes to the formula defined by World, Capcom decided to continue this approach with the series' next major title, Monster Hunter Rise for the Nintendo Switch.[15]

Below is a list of games in the Monster Hunter main series. Each generation has a number of entries that are derivative of the original release. While the first four main titles were numbered, the subsequent installments, starting with World, use a keyword instead of a number to reflect a central concept for that game.[16]

Since the series debuted, Monster Hunter has sold more than 66 million units across all titles by December 2020; it is Capcom's second highest-selling series, following Resident Evil.[14]

In the three days after release, Monster Hunter: World shipped over five million units (including digital sales), according to Capcom, and bringing the total series' sales to over 45 million by the end of January 2018.[28] By early March 2018, World had reached a combined retail and digital 7.5 million units shipped, making it Capcom's best-selling game in its history.[29] By mid-August 2018, following World's release to personal computers, the title had shipped more than 10 million units, and bringing total sales in the series to over 50 million units.[30] More than 70% of World's sales were outside of Japan, a major milestone for Capcom and helping to lead its profitability during the 2018 fiscal year.[31] The release of World's major expansion Iceborne had more than five million sales by March 2020, alongside total World sales to 15.5 million.[32]

Total worldwide sales for Monster Hunter games exceeding 1 million units, through December 31, 2020, are listed below:[33]

• List of Japanese role-playing game franchises
• God Eater, a video game franchise with a similar gameplay mechanic
• Freedom Wars
• Soul Sacrifice
• Toukiden
• Dauntless, a free-to-play game with similar gameplay mechanic

• Official website
• MonHun Nikki Girigiri Airū-mura Airū Kiki Ippatsu (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia