Gaming

Monster Hunter Rise producer reveals 4 Switch-friendly changes

by Jen Glennon
Updated: 
Originally Published: 

Monster Hunter Rise is the sixth game in Capcom’s beast-slaying series. It follows the monumental success of 2018’s Monster Hunter World, which has become the company’s best-selling game of all time.

That’s no small feat for the company behind the Resident Evil, Mega Man, and Street Fighter franchises.

Unsurprisingly, the success of World influenced the team’s approach to the latest game in the series. But Monster Hunter Rise also had to work with the smaller screen of a Nintendo Switch in handheld mode.

Inverse spoke with Monster Hunter Rise producer Ryozo Tsujimoto about making the successor to a blockbuster hit on Nintendo’s hybrid console.

“One of the highlights from Monster Hunter: World for a lot of players was the seamless map during each quest, which really helped immerse players in the hunt. At the early stages of production for Rise, the game had loading in between each area of the map,” Tsujimoto reveals.

“After we saw the amazing feedback for World, we decided to change the game to also have seamless maps,” he explains. “Some of the other features we brought over were quality of life changes like shortcuts, fast travel, and SOS flares.”

“One of the key concerns we wanted to address for players using portable mode was optimizing the game to make sure visibility was clear even on a smaller screen,” Tsujimoto adds.

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The team made four key changes to make the Monster Hunter experience work on the Switch handheld.

“One example of the changes we made are the new icon colors for some of the consumable items, and in some cases we even updated the icon shape for medicine-type items,” says Tsujimoto.

“Another change we made to help hunters stay on top of their weapon sharpness during the heat of a fight was adding sound and visual effects whenever the sharpness goes down,” he adds.

“Another consideration was letting players get straight into the action to avoid being interrupted mid-hunt,” the producer explains. “So we provided players with new options like the Wirebug and Palamute riding so they can head straight to the monster after starting a quest.

“Lastly, if someone who plays on the go or plays solo has to step away, we added the ability for them to pause their quest,” Tsujimoto explains.

Be sure to check out more of our Monster Hunter Rise coverage.

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