When playing Monster Hunter World’s massive Iceborne expansion, it’s amazing to see just how much work Capcom put into it. There’s also lots of post-release content including Rajang, Stygian Zinogre, Safi’jiiva and the upcoming Raging Brachydios and Furious Rajang. Just how many people have been working on the game?
As it turns out, over 300 according to producer Ryozo Tsujimoto. In an interview on Capcom’s official site, he stated that, “It depends on the phase, but we have over 300 people working on the game. Capcom’s game development is split up into two large groups, and the Iceborne team is part of Consumer Games Development Division 2, which has around 700 people, so you can understand the scope of World’s team from that.”
There isn’t just one person leading everything though. “Instead of one person managing the project by themselves, each section has their own leader managing things. We’re also creating an environment where we can develop our staff. Each year, our company welcomes over 100 new university graduates, so the leaders of each section help with their training,” said Tsujimoto.
Monster Hunter World has sold over 15 million units worldwide, making it Capcom’s best-selling title by long shot. Iceborne has also done considerably well with 4.5 million units in worldwide shipments. Nevertheless, Tsujimoto considers it a “relatively young series” compared to other Capcom IP and wants to “keep pushing the brand further.”
“Compared to Capcom’s other major IPs, Monster Hunter is still a relatively young series. I don’t presume that everyone in the world knows about World or Iceborne. Even in Japan, we’ll have a new generation of players. Since I started my involvement with the series, I’ve wanted to take Monster Hunter beyond games, and make it prevail globally. For the last 15 years we’ve been working hard, but we still haven’t reached our goal. From events to movies and more, we’re going to keep pushing the brand even further.”
Monster Hunter World: Iceborne is currently available for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. You can check out our reviews for the console version here and the PC version here.