If you ask players what gets them excited about the Monster Hunter series, some will surely bring up making new equipment utilizing materials gathered on their hunts. Just about every hunter has felt the joy of completing a head-to-toe armor set with a matching weapon after hunting the same monster again and again.
Equipment in the Monster Hunter series has followed a certain concept ever since its earliest games: Beat the monsters and take on their power through equipment crafted from their remains. Players rely on their own strength to slay powerful monsters, then make those monsters’ abilities their own to grow even stronger.
In an interview with IGN, Monster Hunter Wilds Executive Director and Art Director Kaname Fujioka explains the concept behind Monster Hunter’s equipment. “While the range of our designs has now grown broader, we used to be very conscious of the kind of idea that if you’re wearing Rathalos’ equipment, you’ll look like Rathalos.” This new title sees new monsters as well, each bringing its own colorful equipment. For example, Rompopolo, a monster whose design is meant to evoke a mad scientist, has a unique piece of head armor that looks like a plague doctor’s mask. You can see the armor set in the hunt video below.
But among all of these distinctive sets of monster equipment, the developers say they want players to pay special attention to the various pieces of starting equipment that your hunter begins the game wearing.
“I designed the starting weapons for all 14 weapon types from scratch,” says Fujioka. “That’s the first time I’ve done this, as far as I can remember. Until now, players would begin the game as a new hunter, and so they would tend to start with truly primitive and simple weapons. But as the protagonist is a chosen hunter in this game, it actually wouldn’t feel right for them to be carrying a plain weapon. I wanted to make it feel like you’re a bit of a star, even when you’re only carrying starting equipment.”
Monster Hunter Wilds Director Yuya Tokuda adds, “Incidentally, weapon designs in Monster Hunter: World generally retained a certain form, but they featured a customized appearance based on which monster materials were used. However, in Wilds, each weapon has its own unique design.”
These starting weapons are designed in order to reflect the story that you are an experienced hunter, selected to investigate the Forbidden Lands. Tokuda adds that the starting armor is also full of attention to detail on the part of the creators so that it matches the story.
“The starting armor for this game is called the Hope series,” he says. “The design looks incredibly cool, to the point where I think you could even use it until the very end and it wouldn’t feel out of place.”
With its deep emerald green base color, the Hope set turns into an outfit with a hooded long coat once completed. Fujioka explains that constructing the set wasn’t simple, with each part standing alone while also coming together to create a full ensemble.
“We’ve actually given more attention to the Hope series than any other equipment in this game,” he says. “Previous games in the series have had separate upper-body and lower-body armor, and we couldn’t actually depict them coming together to create something like a coat. We just had to make each piece its own part due to gameplay design and how the game managed it, but I wanted to see if we could make a single flowing hooded coat. We made that happen in this game by investing a lot of in-game resources into it. Of course, players will find lots of different pieces of equipment as they proceed through the game, and we do also want them to keep trying out one new weapon after the next. That’s why we attempted to make the Hope series one that doesn’t stand out too much but still has a sense of elegant coolness.”
It’s quite a luxury to be able to start a game with equipment that creators have put so much effort and thought into. These 14 starting weapons and the Hope series have been carefully made to look like the kind of equipment that an impressive star hunter would wear. We’re excited to take a close look at all their detail in the finished game.
Monster Hunter Wilds is scheduled for release on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC on February 28. Don’t miss all the other exclusive Monster Hunter Wilds content found in January’s IGN First.
Shuka Yamada is a freelance writer for IGN Japan. This article was translated by Ko Ransom. Casey DeFreitas is deputy editor of guides for IGN.
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