Next Monster Hunter

            Hello hello. So I was watching a recent video from Gaijin Hunter talking about what he would like to see in the next Monster Hunter game. I had done something similar months ago but I wasn’t happy with the video so I scrapped the whole thing, but seeing as how I pretty much agree with everything in his video I don’t have to go over all that. What I will do is talk about what I’d like the game world to be like.

            What I’d like to see the next game do is go open world. Monster Hunter World went away from the normal, area by area gameplay that the previous games had and made a whole zone seamless. I want the next game to go a step further and be a big map, similar to Breath of the Wild, with all the different climates and zones with four or five villages scattered throughout the lands. Monster Hunter 4 and Generations had multiple villages you went and visited and I really enjoyed that.

            I see story quest being relatively the same as they have been and it would be the tool that opens up the games map and the other villages. The way I see the open world work is that there would be scouting balloons all over the place, you know, the things you wave at. Their function would be to “tell” the villages what monsters are in what area. So you would look at your map and see in the forest near you there are three monsters, each one with a timer of say three, six and nine minutes to show how much longer they will be in the area. Once three minutes goes by, if a fight is not initiated with that monster, then it leaves the area and a new monster now takes its place and will be in the area for nine minutes. Then you would pan to the other areas in open world and see the same thing for each area with different monsters rotating in and out. These scouting balloons could be just decorative or they could actually be functional with flashing lights towards each other and the villages when each time increment is met as if they were using Morse code. If you have a story quest or you pick an investigation for a certain monster in an area then the timers could speed up so the first monster to leave would exit the area and the monster you put up a quest for arrives on scene. Towards late game or G-rank I’d like to see roamer monsters that just go from area to area and can catch the hunters off guard. Maybe when these monsters change to a new area the scouting balloons in the area shoot off flares to try and warn hunters in the zone to watch out. These monsters would be something like the Deviljho that just shows up as your trying to do your simple fishing quest.

            I’d still like to see some scripted or set fights like the Jhen Mohran, Dalamadur or Ahtal-Ka, fights that take place off of the open world map. They are their own areas that you can’t normally access. You have to sign up for the quest and depart like most quests are done in the current games.

            I also think it would be real fun during mid to late game to get an airship of your own to fly around in. It wouldn’t be as big as the ones we’ve come to know but it’d be big enough for you and/or your hunting party. Maybe you could even have some palicos in it with you to make you meals before hunts, or you could upgrade it to do so. You could customize it with different paint colors, sails, icons. You and your friends could race each other to find a monster in an area or just split up to find it faster. I think that would be a lot of fun. It could also be a means to find areas with rare nodes or nodes with higher than average drop rates.

            My last point is I’d like to see a few new things. I don’t know about a new weapon and I’m not very good at coming up with ideas for weapons. The only thing I keep coming back to is a chain sword, similar to Ivy’s from Soulcalibur. The one thing that I really want to see is a new element and that element being wind. They’ve added new types of debuffs like slime and bleeding which is cool but I feel like wind needs to be added in. Most other games that have an element system use wind and it kind of perplexes me that it’s still not in Monster Hunter. There are several wind based monsters in the game with Kushala Daora, Paolumu and Nargacuga. I would also argue that monsters like Nibelsnarf and Zamtrios could also have wind attributes to them. In a Monster Hunter manga the main character has wind dual blades and the other characters all say how rare that is or say they’ve never heard of such a thing so I think it’s time to bring it in. (Later add on) Another thing I'd really would like to see is your weapon element can alleviate teammate blights. Your teammate is frozen, BAM, hit them with your fire sword and they're fine. You're on fire and no water to roll into at the moment, go get hit by some water arrows. I, for one, like using elemental weaknesses on monsters. I know a lot of people will only do blast or poison so maybe this mechanic would make some people use elements more. Probably not because, humans, but you know.

            So that’s that I suppose for the moment. I guess what it comes down to is I’d like to still see a more traditional Monster Hunter game along with Monster Hunter World for the people that like that version. Two separate entities that feed off of each other and take what works from one and uses it in the other while keeping some unique aspects to themselves. So what do you think? Want to race airships? What are your ideas? What could go and what could stick around? Let me know with some comments and I’ll maybe have something else for you to read in a month or so. Bye.

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