Monster Hunter Wilds introduces many changes, new features, and quality-of-life improvements to the Monster Hunter series. But did you know the developers were experimenting with ideas for this behemoth of a new installment all the way back during Monster Hunter World’s crossover events? Specifically, suggestions from Final Fantasy 14’s director, Naoki Yoshida, made during the FFXIV crossover and positive reception to The Witcher 3 crossover directly affected new gameplay elements in Monster Hunter Wilds.
In short, conversations with Yoshi-P while collaborating for the FFXIV crossover inspired a change to Monster Hunter Wilds’ heads-up display (HUD): introducing attack names appearing on screen as you perform them. As for The Witcher 3 crossover, players’ positive reception cemented the inclusion of more dialogue options and a speaking protagonist in Monster Hunter Wilds.
How Final Fantasy XIV’s Director Influenced Monster Hunter Wilds
While working together on the Monster Hunter: World and FFXIV crossover, at a reveal event, Yoshi-P told Monster Hunter Wilds Director Yuya Tokuda that players like to be able to see the name of the attack they’re doing as they do it. And so, the new HUD feature was born, which you can see highlighted in the image above.
We got a tiny taste of this feature during the 2018 FFXIV crossover event in Monster Hunter: World. It was a pretty huge collaboration that featured catchable Cactuars, a giant Kulu-Ya-Ku with a crystal hunted to the Chocobo music, incredibly cool Drachen armor, and a lot more. Most notably, the collab featured a notoriously difficult fight in Monster Hunter: World – Behemoth. As in most MMORPGs, you can see boss Behemoth’s moves appear in text on screen as it casts them in the World collab, which you can see in action in the video below.
After completing the repel quest for Behemoth, you unlock the Jump emote, directly inspired by the Dragoon’s movements in Final Fantasy. When using the emote, text pops up on the screen: “[Hunter] performs Jump.” This was the only other instance of an “attack” name appearing on screen in this way before in Monster Hunter, as far as I know.
How The Witcher 3 Influenced Monster Hunter Wilds
Monster Hunter Wilds director Yuya Tokuda mentioned being impressed when some people compared Monster Hunter Wilds’ new dialogue options and some of its gameplay elements to The Witcher 3, because that is exactly what inspired the addition. The team looked at the popular, impressive Monster Hunter: World Witcher 3 collaboration as a “test” of sorts to see how players would react to more dialogue and options in a Monster Hunter.
In The Witcher 3 crossover in Monster Hunter: World, players actually play as the Witcher himself, Geralt of Rivia. As such, he actually speaks to other characters and has conversations, allowing the player to choose dialogue options. This contrasts the innate playable character of Monster Hunter: World and the iterations before it, where the MC is both voiceless and wordless. That’s not the case in Monster Hunter Wilds, where, just like Geralt, your character has a voice and conversations with the NPCs around you.
Tokuda said they weren’t actively developing Wilds just yet back when World’s collaborations were released, but he was just thinking that far ahead about what they could do for the next Monster Hunter. He especially wanted to include a The Witcher 3 collab in World, and sought that opportunity out with the CD Projekt Red team himself–to great success, in my opinion.
We learned this interesting info during our exclusive visit to Capcom’s Japan offices as part of this month’s IGN First. Don’t miss the full hands-on, final preview of Monster Hunter Wilds, new in-depth interviews, and other exclusive gameplay from January’s Monster Hunter Wilds IGN First:
Casey DeFreitas is deputy editor of guides at IGN and has been hunting monsters since the PS2 era. Catch her on socials @ShinyCaseyD
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