Monster Hunter Goes Mobile, TiMi Studios to Develop

Here are all the details for the upcoming Monster Hunter Mobile Game developed by TiMi Studios in collaboration with Capcom.

TiMi Studio X Capcom

It was just announced that Capcom would team up with Call of Duty Mobile and Pokemon UNITE developer TiMi Studio to develop a brand new game set in the Monster Hunter franchise for mobile platforms.

While we don't have any details of what the final product will look like, Monster Hunter is the kind of franchise that would be well-suited for mobile platforms. The Franchise rose to fame, especially on handheld platforms, with its focus on grinding out missions for gear and Coop, which still remains a strong point of the series to this day.

Today Monster Hunter is Capcom's second biggest franchise next to Resident Evil, with a total of 88 million sales across all platforms and it isn't even the first title to be released mobile. Monster Hunter Explore was a spin-off title that was released in 2015 only in Japan and was wildly successful. The game is actually still running today.

TiMi Studio, a subsidiary of Chinese gaming giant Tencent was a no-brainer decision to bring Monster Hunter back into the mobile space. Both their most recent releases, Call of Duty: Mobile and Pokemon UNITE have been very successful, especially in the Asian market.

Recently we've seen more and more spin-off titles of Monster Hunter, the Monster Hunter stories, for example, which are JRPG-Esque adventures with a tight story and focus on single-player content. The mainline titles seem to hold on to their big console releases now. Monster Hunter World, which was released in 2018, was their most successful entry yet, with an expansion a year later.

Monster Hunter Mobile

So what can Monster Hunter Mobile look like? If TiMi Studio's previous work is anything to go off by, they are a Studio very good at bringing an AAA to feel to a mobile title Call of Duty: Mobile remains super popular across many regions despite the holdover someone might have over it being a mobile title.

And if we had to make any guesses, it'll probably end up as a kind of free-to-play version of the early portable titles like Monster Hunter Freedom. A game with excellent linear progression was based around short missions you could undertake with other players while also building out your home base. Just the concept of free-to-play is something that'll worry a lot or especially western fans.

In Asia, players tend to be less offended by the monetization of those types of games they are often geared towards charging a premium off power users, while players that only play a little once a day can enjoy a casual experience. This is a little different in titles with competitive aspects like Pokemon UNITE, which was heavily skewed towards players who invested a lot of money into it. Call of Duty: Mobile, on the other hand, focused its premium aspects more on customization options instead of plain gameplay advantages.

The fear is that Monster Hunter Mobile will go for a similar model to Blizzards Diablo Immortal in which paying a premium will not only let you progress way faster than a free-to-play player. It'll also affect the rewards you get from playing. Monster Hunter is a game that's very focused on gaining better equipment and in a cooperative game, giving players a lot more value for less work is a quick way to disgruntle your casual audience even further.

And while games like Diablo Immortal do well financially, they are also somewhat of a black mark on their developers in the public eye.

But we'll, of course, keep you updated on everything Monster Hunter and more here on ESTNN