Just about every major Monster Hunter game gets an expanded release a year or so later (with the moniker of ‘G’ in Japan, and ‘Ultimate’ in the west). This new release usually updates mechanics, makes smaller QoL changes, adds some new monsters, and adds the vaunted G-Rank to the game.
With Monster Hunter World’s success, and with it being on consoles with digital infrastructures, the ‘Ultimate’ release is likely to be an expansion, right? Well, even if so, Capcom doesn’t want to talk about it for now. Talking to GameSpot in an interview, Yuya Tokuda, director of Monster Hunter World, said that for now, Capcom is more focused on supporting the existing game as is.
“We’re focused on supporting the game as it exists now with ongoing post-launch updates and DLC. We’ll regularly be adding new content and features through updates, and are working on new quests as well. We just released our first major title update which saw the return of classic monster Deviljho, which all Monster Hunter: World players can play for free. There’s plenty more in the works, so stay tuned for more news!” he said.
Asked specifically about whether or not those additions may include the G-Rank, he said, “There’s nothing I can share with you at this time.”
He was also fairly open about discussing QoL changes to Monster Hunter World—while it is an incredibly polished game, some of its systems and mechanics, especially pertaining to how it handles online sessions and play, have received some criticism.
“User feedback is obviously a really important thing to us, as it helps us learn a lot. We often discover new bugs or issues with gameplay that couldn’t have occurred to us, and we’ve tried to respond to feedback as quickly as we can. We made the game as user-friendly as we could within the constraints of development schedule and budget, but we knew there was more we could have done, so we’ve tried to work out what we can improve through updates, what we can alleviate with messaging, and what we should do better with for future titles.”
Hopefully, Capcom fixes what it can with World, and also looks at overhauling how the multiplayer works with World Ultimate, should that be a thing—sharing instances with players in Astera, for example, would be wonderful! Monster Hunter World is out now on PS4 and Xbox One, with a version for PC due out later this year.
