MONSTER HUNTER WORLD

Developer/publisher Capcom Format PC, PS4, Xbox One Release 2018

Change is everywhere in Monster Hunter World, which initially led some to worry that Capcom was dumbing down a series which, while colossally successful in Japan, has never really taken off elsewhere. Those that love it, really love it; many more simply ignore it, while others bounce hard off a game that can often seem to have been designed specifically to repel them. Monster Hunter World suggests that Capcom has belatedly realised that there was much about its game that was needlessly fussy and, in places, archaic.

Series fans have heralded as transformative a set of changes that simply make Monster Hunter feel contemporary. A fast-travel system that lets you return to base camp wherever you are; the ability to change gear at said camp; radial menus for item selection, and so on. These are, for the hardcore, some wonderful quality-of-life changes. To everyone else, they simply bring Monster Hunter up to modern-day speeds.

Still, there’s plenty else here to lure in the uninitiated. For a start, after making its name as a portable game – and spending its last few iterations confined to 3DS – now Monster Hunter is back on a powerful home console, and it shows. It will be a simultaneous worldwide release on PS4 and Xbox One, and the game’s potential for emergent hijinks was a constant source of chatter on the E3 show floor. The demo played out differently every time; the highlight was an impromptu battle between three huge beasts. How Capcom chooses to market such a famously impenetrable game remains to be seen: a public beta could do wonders for a game that has the potential, at least, to push this overlooked series to the success it has long deserved.