Monster Hunter has always been a multiplayer-focused series. Since its early days, it thrived on cooperation, strategy, and the thrill of hunting with friends. However, Capcom’s modern approach to storytelling and cinematics has steadily chipped away at the snappy online experience the franchise once had. While Monster Hunter Rise and Wilds finally introduces skippable cutscenes, Capcom still refuses to fully integrate multiplayer into the core gameplay flow. Instead, unnecessary restrictions and forced segments continue to plague the experience.
First thing first, the online system of previous Monster Hunter games is far from perfect. Basically, the game is split into two parts: Village and Hub. The first half of an entry’s story mode is locked in the offline, single-player exclusive Village Quests. Meanwhile, the latter part is accessible in Hub Quests which can be tackled solo or with friends. However, the monsters are designed to be tackled in multiplayer, and as such, come with a bigger health pool. Recent release that still adheres to this mechanic is Monster Hunter Rise and its Sunbreak expansion.
While it does work if you just want to play with friends, it still comes with its own problem. The most obvious one is that completionists aren’t able to play through the whole game together. You still have to brave the Village Quests alone (or with cats) even if you’re decked in G Rank gears.
But Monster Hunter World and Wilds‘ obsession with cinematic moments and wonky online system are not the answer for that issue.
Both games force players to endure scripted ‘walking-and-talking’ segments, slowly trailing behind NPCs as they deliver exposition or gawk at pretty vistas. Worse of all, even with Wilds adding skippable cutscenes, these parts still cannot be skipped.
This design choice is especially frustrating for people eager to hunt in multiplayer. If one player is stuck in an unskippable exposition dump, others have to wait before they can join a quest. If all of them haven’t watched said segment, then all they can do is hold the analog stick while chatting about anything else over Discord.
These moments are unnecessary and only serve to disrupt the natural flow of the game. In previous games, important information was often delivered through quick text prompts or NPC dialogue, allowing players to continue hunting without interruption.
Funny enough, Capcom has proven time and again that multiplayer cutscenes are actually possible anyway. Since Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, Hub Quests like Akantor and Ukanlos already featured all players’ Hunters appearing in the intro cutscene together. Even in Monster Hunter World, there were numerous instances where multiplayer cutscenes worked seamlessly.
Siege and select Event Quests, such as Behemoth, Ancient Leshen, Safi’Jiiva, Alatreon, and Fatalis, all had group intros. Four players could experience the cinematic moments simultaneously without being forced into the mindboggling watch-cutscene-return-from-quest-then-join method first. The game engine clearly supports this feature, yet Capcom still refuses to implement it for story missions.
At the very least, Wilds does allow players to skip cutscenes just like Rise, which is a step in the right direction. World, for some reason, didn’t ditch unskippable cutscenes like in earlier Monster Hunter games. Nevertheless, there is one big difference. Older games’ cutscenes are just short introductions to the villages or monsters’ ecology, which lasts a couple of minutes at most. I can assure you, World and Wilds‘ long-winded intro segment lengths are still longer than the entirety of Monster Hunter 1 to Tri‘s cutscenes. Discounting credit titles, of course.
Monster Hunter Wilds is also keeping one of the worst changes in the way online multiplayer quests work: Hunter Rank level restriction. In older games, like Generations Ultimate, online play was simple. If you were in Low Rank, you could join any Low Rank quest posted in the Hunters Hub.
In Wilds, however, this freedom is gone. Players are locked to quests based on their exact Hunter Rank level. If you’re a beginner just starting out at HR1, you cannot join HR3 or HR4 quests, even if they’re all still part of Low Rank. This makes multiplayer unnecessarily complicated and frustrating. If a friend progresses even slightly ahead, you’re forced to grind your own Hunter Rank before you can play together again.
This restriction makes absolutely no sense. Monster Hunter is a game about cooperation, yet Capcom is actively making it harder for players to team up. In previous games, veterans could help newer players through harder quests, ensuring a smoother learning curve. Now, the system encourages solo play, further contradicting the series’ core appeal.
It doesn’t help that the Environment Link system functions only for freeroaming investigation instead being integrated to story quests. The SOS Signal is too convenient as well. People can just drop in and out of quests, avoiding lobbies and mingling with other Hunters altogether.
Capcom’s insistence on cinematic storytelling is undermining what makes Monster Hunter special. The series has never needed elaborate narratives to succeed; players simply come for the thrill of gearing up and hunting with friends. While cutscenes and scripted moments can enhance the experience, they shouldn’t come at the cost of seamless multiplayer.
Other online games have found ways to balance storytelling and cooperative play since years ago. Popular cutscene-heavy MMOs, Final Fantasy XIV and GTA Online, allow players to experience cutscenes together in multiplayer instances. Capcom could learn from this approach instead of forcing unnecessary solo segments.
Capcom has shown it has all the tools to make Monster Hunter‘s multiplayer experience even better. Yet, they continue to prioritize cinematic presentation no one asked for over smooth cooperative play. Monster Hunter needs to stop assuming that the oh-so-amazing plot about monsters ruining ecologies for the nth time is the main draw of the series. Sure, the numbers don’t lie; it broke the record for 8 million copies sold in just three days! It’s just that the monster hunting genre barely has a competition, thus this series will always fill a hole despite anything.
Until Capcom admits that modern Monster Hunter’s online experience will continue to suffer due to its weird infatuation with chasing the cinematic crowd.
