Dedicated fans of Capcom’s long-standing Monster Hunter franchise, which has spawned over 20 titles in as many years, are increasingly finding themselves sidelined as Capcom shifts its focus to align with globalist ideologies, driven by BlackRock-backed ESG financing that prioritizes diversity and inclusivity in gaming.
Once a trailblazer in the industry, Monster Hunter remains one of Capcom’s longest-running franchises. This unique action RPG centers around players stepping into the role of a Hunter, tasked with tracking, battling, and defeating massive monsters, renowned not just for their strength but also their sheer size.
The series places a strong emphasis on preparation, skill, and strategy, requiring players to carefully study their target’s behavior, strengths, and weaknesses. Success in the game depends heavily on choosing the right armor and weapons to match the challenge.
The Monster Hunter franchise enjoys immense popularity in Japan and has garnered a significant global following. Capcom’s “Super Election” survey highlighted this, with Monster Hunter ranking as the most popular franchise in Japan, though it placed fourth globally behind Devil May Cry, Mega Man, and Resident Evil.
Its influence on the action RPG genre is considerable, inspiring numerous similar titles and helping to establish the “hunting” sub-genre within gaming.
For gamers who appreciated the strategic depth of the original games, it’s unfortunate that Capcom has drastically altered the direction of the franchise. Influenced by societal factors such as adherence to ESG ideology and DEI initiatives, these changes have led to the bastardization of series like Dead Rising, resulting in a remake that is modernized, with reduced difficulty, excessive hand-holding, and various forms of censorship.
Capcom has increasingly focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion in character design over the past few years. This shift is evident in the progressive and polarizing character designs in Street Fighter 6 and has also extended to re-releases of classic titles like SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos.
Such re-releases now include disclaimers apologizing for the lack of diversity and the “offensive” portrayal of attractive women in fighting games, emphasizing that such content no longer aligns with Capcom’s current policies.
Capcom has shifted its focus away from creating games specifically for Japanese audiences, instead designing them for global appeal. In this process, the games have been sanitized to cater to a broader audience, often simplifying content and reducing difficulty to make it more accessible to people from all backgrounds.
The 2018 release of Monster Hunter: World essentially marked a turning point for the franchise, as Capcom significantly altered the game’s design and incorporated microtransactions. For example, players could purchase “tickets” to alter the appearance of their character, with some customization options available for free, while others required payment.
Monster Hunter: World streamlined many of the series’ complex and intricate mechanics, such as introducing auto-crafting and a greenhouse for growing ingredients. The difficulty of hunts was noticeably reduced, with “journalist-tier” weapons readily available to give players an easy advantage over their foes.
Overpowered weapons were accessible almost from the beginning of the game, and the inclusion of Iceborne’s starting armor set provided immense defensive capabilities that should not have been available to players so early on.
While multiplayer wasn’t new to the series, Monster Hunter: World introduced a more seamless online integration, making it easier for players to join each other’s hunts, even in the middle of a quest. This was a significant improvement over previous games, where connecting with other players could be cumbersome. The game also featured more open-world environments, making multiplayer hunts feel more dynamic and fluid compared to the segmented maps of earlier entries.
Overall, Monster Hunter: World disappointed true fans who valued the series’ integrity and difficulty. The game was designed to be easier and more accessible, appealing to a broader audience, which led to its massive popularity.
As of May 14, 2024, the Monster Hunter franchise has sold over 100 million units globally. In comparison, the original 2004 release on the Sony PlayStation 2 sold over 1 million units worldwide.
The Monster Hunter series started with humble beginnings, initially appealing to a niche audience and gradually building a dedicated fanbase. It wasn’t until later entries, particularly those on portable systems like the PSP, that the series began to gain widespread popularity.
Monster Hunter: Freedom Unite, released in 2008 for the PSP, sold over 3.5 million units in Japan alone, with no official sales figures available for international markets.
The 2013 release of Monster Hunter 4 for the Nintendo 3DS further boosted the franchise’s success, selling over 8.3 million units. However, everything changed with the release of Monster Hunter: World, which revamped the series, making it more accessible and appealing to a broader audience.
This title alone achieved over 25 million sales globally a massive increase that has severe ramifications for its intended demographic as it became Capcom’s best selling game in decades.
Normally, this would be a time for cheer and celebration, but that’s not the case here. When a niche becomes mainstream, especially in the world of Japanese animation and manga, the massive influx of new consumers begins to dictate how the franchise evolves as consumers run their fucking mouths and demand problematic elements be changed or removed.
These newcomers take over beloved franchises, demanding changes that cater to their lack of self-identity and inability to think independently, which conveniently aligns with Capcom’s ESG-driven focus.
The 2021 release of Monster Hunter Rise only worsened the situation, selling over 15 million units despite Capcom’s increasingly egregious use of microtransactions and post-launch DRM. Now, with the upcoming release of Monster Hunter Wilds, the franchise seems poised for further subversion with a modern and inclusive direction.
At Gamescom 2024, Capcom showcased the upcoming title with a livestream that introduced Monster Hunter Wilds and unveiled various new details about the game.
In this new installment, players will explore an open-world environment called the “Forbidden Lands” as lead hunters. The game will feature dynamic climate changes that continuously alter the environment. Additionally, the ecosystem will include not just small monster packs, as seen in previous entries, but also large monsters that form groups.
Producer Ryozo Tsujimoto, Art Director and Executive Director Kaname Fujioka, and Director Yuya Tokuda presented the game, with Tokuda demonstrating the gameplay while discussing its features. A notable new addition is the ability to equip armor regardless of character gender.
This feature has been a staple of the franchise and one of the most requested changes following the release of Monster Hunter World. Previously, armor sets were genderlocked, meaning designs of armor were only available to male or female hunters.
For today’s modern audience, specifically queers and those who identify as transgender, the traditional practice of giving female characters more feminine versions of garments and outfits is often seen as highly offensive and even “sexist,” especially when female hunters show more skin compared to their male counterparts, who are typically clad in full armor.
These modern players, who advocate for gender fluidity and inclusivity, have demanded the ability to choose their character’s gender and wear any armor pieces regardless of their character’s sex. In response, Capcom has made these changes to accommodate these “fan” demands.
While there will still be two types of armor, male and female, players can now choose either type regardless of their hunter’s gender.
In a move toward cultural sensitivity and inclusivity, long-time Monster Hunter fans can now look forward to switching between male and female versions of armor sets that both fully cover their characters. This change ensures that even the most progressive female characters in the game don’t reveal any skin.
Capcom is clearly committed to gender equality with Monster Hunter Wilds.
On the topic of gender, as is now standard in modern game design, similar to what we’ve seen with Palworld, Elden Ring and Old School RuneScape, using traditional male and female labels is considered exclusionary and offensive.
In line with this trend, Monster Hunter Wilds eliminates not only gender-locked armor but also gender categories altogether, opting instead for a more inclusive “Body Type” option, continuing the approach introduced in 2021’s Monster Hunter Rise.
These changes may appear “small” and “insignificant,” but they align with Larry Fink’s hedge fund-backed ESG agenda, which pressures corporations to alter their hiring practices and operational methods.
The removal of gender terminology also reflects Capcom’s direction, as revealed in leaked documents from a 2020 ransomware attack, which exposed a series of progressive corporate initiatives and strategies.
The slides likely circulated through Capcom’s corporate hierarchy, illustrating concepts like “gender equality,” “excessive sexuality,” and “appropriate” LGBT representation. They criticized characters like Princess Peach from Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. for embodying the “damsel in distress” trope, where a woman exists only to be rescued by a man.
In contrast, they praised LGBT representation in games like Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us Part 2. Capcom’s internal materials emphasized the need to align with Western policies and sensitivities, particularly focusing on LGBT representation.
This included allowing male characters to equip customization options traditionally considered “feminine,” and contributing to the “desexualization” of female characters by fully covering them up, while male characters remain overtly masculine and rugged.
In the latter part of the broadcast, Capcom also shared details about armor skills in Monster Hunter Wilds. The game will introduce a new system where skills activate based on “specific groups,” moving away from the traditional series skills.
For example, equipping armor from the Beast Dragon species could trigger specific skills. This new approach allows for a wider range of armor combinations to activate skills, offering more flexibility compared to the previous system.
Tokuda also noted that certain offensive skills will now be tied directly to weapons. This change allows players to maintain traditional armor-based skill builds while simplifying the process of skill-building with the new dual-weapon switching system. With skills attached to weapons, players can create effective builds for both melee and ranged combat.
This essentially means that Monster Hunter Wilds continues catering to the modern audience that has overtaken the franchise since Monster Hunter World. Wilds will now have the ability to switch weapons during a hunt and to have weapons imbued with built-in skills and abilities undermines the original essence and appeal of the series.
These changes make the game more accessible, catering to newer players who have recently joined the series rather than the long-time fans who valued its original complexity and challenge.
Gone are the days when you needed to meticulously plan your hunts, choosing specific melee weapons tailored to pierce heavy armor or opting for high-attack-rate weapons with lower damage output. Monster Hunter has always offered a diverse array of ranged weapons, each suited for different situations, and armor crafted from materials gathered from monsters and the environment was essential for resisting specific elemental damage.
The joy of the Monster Hunter franchise was in carefully preparing for each hunt, selecting the right gear based on the monster you were facing. However, with the upcoming Monster Hunter Wilds, this strategic element is gradually being eroded.
The game’s full open-world experience now allows players to switch weapons which are imbued with skills rapidly on the fly, simplifying the gameplay to cater to a more casual audience. This new ability to swap weapons mid-hunt undermines one of the core appeals of the franchise, its emphasis on strategy.
Much like how Fire Emblem has rapidly changed from its original nature with modern installments, Monster Hunter no longer feels like it’s made for the original fans of the series.
With the removal of gender-specific terminology and the elimination of gender-locked outfits, along with the game being continually dumbed down to the point where strategy is becoming irrelevant, it’s clear that Monster Hunter Wilds is heading in a different direction.
You can expect this installment to be filled with microtransactions, much like Dragon’s Dogma 2, and it wouldn’t be surprising if the need for a central “hub” is eliminated entirely in future releases.
Social media and gaming journalists are loudly applauding these changes as Capcom continues to bastardize franchise after franchise with sanitized, progressive games steeped in androgyny and ESG-driven initiatives.
The newly expanded and vocal player base of queer Monster Hunter “fans” can now look forward to covering up the game’s unattractive female characters while dressing male characters in revealing, feminine outfits at least, that would be the dream if Capcom weren’t aiming for a more “realistic” and non-revealing design in the upcoming Monster Hunter Wilds.
The “Conga Armor (Blade)” in Monster Hunter Wilds looks so radically different from its original depiction in Monster Hunter Freedom Unite that they’re nearly unrecognizable as the same set.
While the internet might be in an uproar over Monster Hunter Wilds, real fans have nothing to be excited about. Pre-World Monster Hunter is gone for good, as the franchise has become yet another casualty of cultural shifts, dumbed down to please the influx of casual players who joined the series after Monster Hunter World’s release in 2018.
Monster Hunter Wilds is slated for an early 2025 release on all major platforms except the Nintendo Switch. Given the series’ skyrocketing popularity thanks to the simplification of its complex mechanics, this installment is almost guaranteed to be a massive success for Capcom, selling millions of copies, unlike Dragon’s Dogma 2 whose hype died down quickly after release.
Expect Monster Hunter Wilds to carry a $70 price tag and be loaded with microtransactions for mundane single-player content, further eroding the franchise’s appeal.
The fun has long since drained from the series as it continues to decline, with Capcom prioritizing the progressive demands of homosexual audiences.
True fans have since turned to alternatives like the God Eater series, as Monster Hunter has become a mere shadow of its former self. The once-beloved franchise has been overtaken by the “wholesome” and “loving” left, where any dissent is met with disdain and hostility.
