Monster Hunter Wilds lead doesn't watch what similar action RPGs are doing and the results have "sort of spoken for themselves"

Monster Hunter Wilds' lead producer Ryozo Tsujimoto doesn't pay too much attention to what other, similar games are doing. Making a new Monster Hunter game is enough work already, he says, and focusing on evolving the series' strengths has worked wonders thus far.

"To be honest, we don't really keep our eye on other titles when developing Monster Hunter games, it's already plenty of work thinking about making a Monster Hunter game on its own terms," Tsujimoto says in an interview with 12DOVE celebrating the series' monstrous two-decade run. "And our approach as the series has progressed through the years really has been on a title by title basis."

Tsujimoto continues to explain that the team prefers to look inward at what prior Monster Hunters have already done and what they could do in the future, "taking the core elements that we think we have to have in the game, and then building on that and saying: 'Okay, what's our vision this time? What concept do we want to express creatively? Then what kind of gameplay features does that involve, and how are we going to get that across to players and give them the experience we want to have?"

The Monster Hunter veteran says "challenging ourselves" to "evolve the Monster Hunter vision with each game is what has got us to where we are today." And why would they need to ape competitors? The first open beta pulled in over half a million concurrent beast-slayers, and the second Monster Hunter Wilds beta is doing just as well. The team's only mandate, really, is thinking about how to "make the best possible Monster Hunter once again," because "the results have, you know, sort of spoken for themselves."

While we wait for the game to come out later this month, why not check out the best Monster Hunter Wilds weapons tier list.