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Beyond the shadow of a doubt, the Monster Hunter Wilds announcement during The Game Awards 2023 put the series back into the spotlight. Its planned release date sometime in 2025 is a long wait, but Capcom is preparing some nourishment for parched fans. Leading up to the March 2024 Monster Hunter Showcase stream on the series’ 20th anniversary, the company has announced several collaborations with various parties. Nevertheless, Capcom, in its infinite wisdom, decided to pull off some questionable crossover strategies to commemorate the Monster Hunter‘s 20th anniversary.
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
The biggest positive highlight is the MSI Rathalos-themed PC gear collaboration. With the strong PC sales for most of its titles, it’s no surprise that Capcom is eager to dip into the gaming PC market. The monster-hunting series’s mascot is not my cup of Mega Potion but surely veterans are delighted by the selection of Rathalos-printed PC parts and accessories.
Nevertheless, on the flip side, we have weak and weird Monster Hunter crossovers to celebrate the 20th Anniversary.
The Zoids Rathalos and Magnamalo crossover is cool and all, and no doubt the toy line is still going strong in Japan. But I sincerely doubt the mechanical beast toys are distributed officially out of the land of the rising sun. Fans of both series will have to fork even more money to get their hands on them either by importing or purchasing one in Japan.
Internally, on the Capcom side, so far the only announced collaboration is with Exoprimal. Which, unfortunately, is actually not a part of the Monster Hunter 20th Anniversary event and the game itself struggles to find an audience. And since it is an online-only game, I doubt fans can come back to the 10-player raid mission once the server is finally shut down.
Lastly, for some reason, the Street Fighter company thought it would be a great idea to partner with the infamous Raid: Shadow Legends. You can’t argue with the numbers; 62 million installs worldwide and $1 billion in revenue is no pocket change. But does the player base even overlap? Besides, I don’t think even PC and console gamers that tolerate loot box and gacha mechanics don’t consider Raid worthy to be called a game.
As fun as Monster Hunter Now and DMC: Peak of Combat, this also shows Capcom has been fumbling in the mobile market. Both games’ core experience just doesn’t gel with the hard-selling and aggressive mobile gaming monetization system. And I don’t think anyone remembers the Stories mobile gacha spin-off, Monster Hunter: Riders, that crashed and burned in a couple of months either.
Maybe The Signs Were Already There All Along…
You could say that there are more to come for Monster Hunter‘s 20th Anniversary commemoration. But enthusiasts of the series have been seeing some hints that Capcom is lessening the collab effort once the series turns to the global market. It doesn’t help that the in-game collaboration events in Monster Hunter World and Rise have also been relatively lackluster compared to the past games.
Many would assume becoming a mainstream AAA title would entice even more collaborations with other IP holders. But the truth can’t be further than what fans hoped.
In total, World and Iceborne had only 10 crossover events and half are from Capcom’s own IP like Resident Evil and Devil May Cry. Meanwhile, Generations Ultimate collaborated with 43 different franchises, and that’s not counting Macross and Hunter x Hunter, which are Japan-exclusive.
Sure, you could argue that the Behemoth and the Leshen solo questlines are much better than skins for gears. But it’s not like we get at least another full-blown collaboration quest in the Iceborne expansion.
It gets worse if we’re talking about Rise and Sunbreak, where Capcom barely drags out its IPs to help enliven its biggest flagship title. We even only got a port of the Iceborne set for Sunbreak‘s Universal Studios Japan event quest instead of newly designed equipment.
That’s (Not) All, Folks!
Right now, all Monster Hunter fans have left for the 20th Anniversary celebration are the announcement of the fan-favorite Monsters poll result and the March Showcase stream. As grim as the situation currently is, I believe Capcom is going to drum up the hype in the upcoming Monster Hunter March 2024 Showcase. After all, the company managed to turn around the wacky Japan-oriented monster-hunting title into a 95 million units sold global juggernaut.
Still, all in all, I think Capcom could have handled the Monster Hunter 20th Anniversary celebration a bit better.
I won’t expect the developers to make a new expansion or major updates for Iceborne, Sunbreak, or even Stories 2. But I think a more developed synergy for all Capcom titles would’ve been great. As an example, any recent Monster Hunter too should get additional content from a newly announced game. Weirdly, Sunbreak didn’t get any Exoprimal-related content from the many Title Updates despite the game being first revealed in March 2022.
To put it into the Monster Hunter 20th Anniversary scenario, it would’ve been great if either World or Rise got small bonus content from new releases. Such as Street Fighter 6, Exoprimal, Resident Evil 4 Remake, or the highly anticipated Dragon’s Dogma 2. It doesn’t have to be a weapon or quest, I believe even pendants would’ve sufficed. Especially considering the big marketing push for players to “go back to Monster Hunter World.”
On the other hand, Capcom acknowledging that other games would also be getting more Monster Hunter collaboration would be swell too. Teasing new monsters through Teppen, Dragon’s Dogma 2, or that Japanese folklore-influenced Kunitsu-Gami could be an interesting way for a crossover.
In 2022, Magic the Gathering released the Street Fighter Secret Lair to celebrate the game’s 35th anniversary too. I think it’s not a stretch that Capcom and Wizards of the Coast would collaborate again for Monster Hunter this time.
Monster Hunter Wilds should be getting more support from lots of other Capcom’s titles in the future as well. Give players weapons and armor that reference not just household series like Megaman, Ghost ‘n Goblins, or Street Fighter. Even a lip service to Red Earth, Deathstalker, Dino Crisis, and Dead Rising among others would be the ultimate fan service. It could also run a vote to pick which internal title to be used for a collaboration event.
I doubt the company had to clear out any licensing issues compared to if they collaborated with third-party IPs. Still, here’s hoping that the Zoids collaboration won’t be stuck in the real world and cross over to Wilds as well.
Fingers crossed that whatever Capcom is cooking up for Monster Hunter 2024 Showcase, won’t disappoint both long-time fans and newcomers.
