Why are some Monster Hunter fans upset about a new game in the series?
It's complicated...
A short while ago, Capcom announced it'd be bringing Monster Hunter XX, the latest instalment of its long-running series that released for the 3DS this March, to Nintendo's Switch, and all was well with the world. Soon after, it announced another, all-new Monster Hunter that'd be coming to PS4, Xbox One and PC early next year called Monster Hunter World. And all of a sudden things don't seem quite so rosy. Why is that?
Part of it's down to fan expectation. Since 2009 Nintendo has had a stranglehold on Monster Hunter, and the success of the 3DS can be partly apportioned to its ties with a series that's nothing short of a phenomenon in Japan. The two most recent entries - Monster Hunter X and XX - have effectively been 'best of' compilations, serving as a stop-gap until Capcom gave the series a proper push forward with Monster Hunter 5.
And now we have Monster Hunter 5 - only it's called Monster Hunter World and there's no word of a version for Nintendo hardware.
Monster Hunter World is directed by Kaname Fujioka and Yuya Tokuda, who both previously worked on Monster Hunter 4 and its follow-up Ultimate, and is for all intents and purposes the next mainline entry in the series. For Capcom, it's a chance to make a serious play for the series in the west - where it's always struggled to find a foothold - though it seems to be at the expense of its more traditional audience. And Capcom's taking the opportunity seriously as well, with Monster Hunter World set to be the first simultaneous global release for the series. Yet for some there's still reason for concern.
So why are fans upset? Some of it's down to the expectation that Monster Hunter 5 would be coming to Switch, and part of it's down to the confusion that surrounds the launch of the Monster Hunter that is coming to Nintendo's hybrid, with Capcom telling Gamespot it has no plans to localise Monster Hunter XX before clarifying that it hasn't announced any plans to localise the game - leaving the door open for an announcement further down the line.
There's also the feeling that Monster Hunter is a series that belongs on portable systems, and on Nintendo's hardware - though it's worth remembering that the series first started out on home consoles, and on PlayStation hardware no less. The truth, then? As ever with Monster Hunter it's a little complicated, but one thing we do know is that there's plenty more of this exceptional series coming over the next 12 months. Let's just be happy with that for now.