The Monster Hunter franchise has been averaging more than a game per years since its 2004 debut. Its last two entries—Monster Hunter Rise and Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin—were both touted as some of the best RPGs of 2021. The series made its first foothold in the mobile space with the 2011 releases of Monster Hunter Dynamic Hunting and Monster Hunter Exploration Journal: Phantom Island. This duo was followed by a 2012 TCG Monster Hunter With Everyone: Card Master. Capcom also ported hit 3DS game Monster Hunter Stories to Android and iOS in 2018.
Regarding the specifics of this newly confirmed Monster Hunter game, there’s not much to go on as of right now. The joint announcement simply states that the title will offer a “new” experience unique to the mobile format, but the only other thing it reveals is that hunting monsters will unsurprisingly still be part of the core gameplay loop. Whether that means the game won’t be an action RPG in the vein of mainline Monster Hunter games remains to be seen. And while none of this is to say that Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin won’t eventually follow its predecessor to mobile devices, whatever this TiMi Studio project is, it’s definitely not a port of the hit 2021 game.
The largely positive receptions of previous Monster Hunter mobile spinoffs and TiMi Studio’s impressive track record—ranging from Arena of Valor and Call of Duty: Mobile to Pokemon Unite—both inspire confidence in this newly announced project. At the same time, existing fans of the core series are currently making a case for Monster Hunter World 2 and not another mobile game, so today’s announcement is hardly in line with their hopes and expectations.
But since Capcom isn’t developing this title internally and has instead enlisted help from Tencent’s flagship mobile subsidiary, the project’s target demographic probably doesn’t have much overlap with the pool of people who are already familiar with Monster Hunter console and PC games. Or more specifically, the companies are likely hoping to deliver an experience with a much wider, global appeal. Fortunately for Capcom, the massive success of Call of Duty: Mobile shows that global appeal is precisely what TiMi Studio specializes in.
Monster Hunter is in development for mobile devices.
MORE: 6 Things A Monster Hunter World Sequel Must Introduce
