A Case Study in Worldbuilding — Monster Hunter Wilds
WARNING: In this article I’ll be discussing spoilers for the opening chapters of Monster Hunter Wilds. If you’re yet to play this game and wish to do so totally unspoiled, I’d highly recommend you do so before reading this.
It might seem like an odd choice to do a case study on the worldbuilding of Monster Hunter. After all, the franchise isn’t exactly known for it’s deep and nuanced worldbuilding. The gameplay loop of the Monster Hunter games (at least the main series, Stories sub-series and various spinoffs notwithstanding) has never really extended to much beyond “Kill Monster, use it’s skin to make a hat, wear that hat while killing a bigger Monster” but with Wilds, Capcom have tried something new.
There are a myriad of structural changes that set the title aside from the earlier entries in the franchise, but the one that I think struck me the most was that the “essential” quests for the game’s Low-Rank portion, that in the past would be listed in a quest board among countless optional quests (or in the days of the older titles, not signposted as essential in any way other than a 50,000 word GameFAQs guide complete with ASCII Art courtesy of someone called xXRathalosHunter69Xx), have instead been stitched together into a more traditional linear story format, complete with cutscenes and voice acting for all characters, including your hunter.
Above screenshot from a walkthrough for Monster Hunter Freedom (PSP) — Available at: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/psp/928336-monster-hunter-freedom/faqs/60591
Longer time players of the franchise will know that this change of structure is quite a departure from the way the series has been approached in the past, but what this has done more than anything I think is give the world space to breathe.
The World
When I first started playing the Monster Hunter games in around 2005 I was initially drawn in — as I think most teenage boys would be — by the big swords, the terrifying Monsters, and the “Kill-loot-kill-repeat” gameplay loop the put the Monsters and the player’s skill at the forefront. Over the years though, and in subsequent instalments, I became more and more endeared to the world of Monster Hunter. After Freedom Unite released on the PSP, I took somewhat of a hiatus from the franchise due to not owning a 3DS or WiiU, and it wasn’t until Monster Hunter World on the PS4 that I finally stuck my toes back into the water with the series that I’d loved so much as a teen.
At this point in my life creativity was at the forefront of my mind, so needless to say my interest was piqued more than ever before by this world of anachronistic technology, sailing ships suspended from enormous hot-air balloons, and Chef Cats cooking delicious meals. The world of Monster Hunter had continued to deepen while I’d been away from it, and coming back to it felt like tucking myself into a warm, familiar bed. Of course in Monster Hunter World and the later Monster Hunter Rise on the Switch, the focus was — as it should be — on the Monsters, but focusing entirely on the hunt to the exclusion of taking time for worldbuilding always felt to me like missing a shining opportunity.
This is a world in which human beings can wield enormous swords, but carrying a Monster egg would slow them to a crawl. A world in which Bowguns and Gunlances were commonplace and steam-powered forges create their ammunition, but motorised vehicles of any kind — even things like trains — were a pipe dream.
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Monster Hunter’s World has always felt deep and nuanced in a way that many titles don’t manage, but so much of the worldbuilding felt like window dressing meant for not much more than to enable you to deliver on the franchise’s core promise: Hunting Monsters.
The Turning Point
Enter Monster Hunter Wilds. The first game (that I’m aware of) in the franchise to put the story front-and-centre, to focus on characters and their struggle against a harsh and unforgiving land, and to go some way towards explaining the strange anachronisms and seeming inconsistencies. The piece of worldbuilding I want to talk about though, the thing I noticed that made me change my entire plan for this week, discarding the article I had planned and and setting me off down the track of analysing this game’s worldbuilding came early in the story.
In the opening hours of the main campaign, we meet a village full of people who have absolutely no concept of what a weapon is. They see the enormous blades the Hunters are carrying and assume that they’re “tools” (which is, in a way, true I suppose), but they have no idea what a weapon is. This results in the main character’s Guild Handler, Alma, needing to explain to them that Hunters are highly trained individuals who are permitted by the Guild to carry weapons and slay Monsters, with the understanding that they will never be turned on another human.
Just have a think about that for the moment.
This is a world in which The Hunter’s Guild studies and catalogues endemic wildlife to ensure that the balance of nature is maintained, where weapons are carried only by the most highly trained individuals, where humanity strives for nothing more than peaceful coexistence with the world around them, and where the general populace have no concept of or need for weapons of any kind.
It sounds almost… Cozy doesn’t it?
How This Explains Everything
I’ve mentioned before that the world of Monster Hunter is one that would feel anachronistic to the average 21st Century person, but when you stop to think about the implications of this one seemingly simple piece of worldbuilding, many of these anachronisms fall into place.
Take the juxtapositions in technological advancement for example; this is a world that has mastered steam power and uses steampunk forges and technology to forge weapons and armor for their hunters, but trains are seemingly nowhere to be seen. Where people have prescription glasses, but there’s not a radio in sight. The reason for all of this, in my opinion at least, is simple: War doesn’t exist.
Monster Hunter asks us to imagine a world in which “weapon control” isn’t a conversation that needs to exist because the average person simply has no use for weapons. Where population centres are diligently protected by highly trained individuals wielding weapons of untold power, who would never imagine turning on their fellow human. It implies that crime, at the very least violent crime, doesn’t exist because many people likely use or carry knives for their work, but not one of them seems to consider the possibility of a knife being used as a weapon.
Small details like this are the beating heart of an interesting world, and I’d encourage anybody who’s building a world at the moment to find opportunities to put things like this into your own work.
“The Guild authorises you to hunt this Monster” isn’t just a cool line of dialogue, it’s a nod towards a benevolent organisation you serve that wants nothing but the best for humanity. It’s an acceptance that even though Hunters put themselves in harm’s way to face down terrifying creatures, they do so for the good of something beyond themselves. More than anything it suggests a world in which the primary driver of progress is discovery. Not war, not self-defence, purely the desire to learn more about the world around you and to grow your knowledge and appreciation of nature.
I think that’s a world we’d all like to live in.
