Despite the fact you’re fighting enormous beasts that are covered in fangs, barbs, or shoot poisonous globs of toxic goo, there really isn’t a whole lot of death in Monster Hunter. The player only ever gets knocked out and never actually eaten, and damage caused by 7-foot-long swords never seems to produce nearly as much blood and guts as you’d expect it to.
Now, that’s all due to Monster Hunter being aimed at all ages, and judging by the success of Monster Hunter Rise, it’s been very good for sales.
But what if Capcom gave the Monster Hunter license to someone with a very different take on the franchise? Like, say, maybe Nier creator and creative director Yoko Taro. What might a Nier Monster Hunter game look like?
Well, buckle up, because this is going to be a wild ride. Yoko Taro shared his take on Monster Hunter Rise on Twitter, which was then helpfully translated by Monster Hunter streamer Gaijinhunter (which all comes to us courtesy of Kotaku).
For those who haven’t played, the story of Monster Rise is pretty simple. You get promoted to Hunter at Kamura Village and then get tasked with building your skill to prevent the village’s destruction by rampaging monsters. After that, you go out to discover what causes monsters to rampage in the first place, which gets into the meat of Monster Hunter Rise’s story.
In Yoko’s Monster Hunter Rise, everybody just f!@$ing dies. Almost. Here’s the translation:
I mean, it certainly feels like an epic story, but damn does it get dark fast.
After the tutorial there is a rampage and the buff old man acts as a shield to save everyone but dies. In fact, he dies due to a mistake made by the player.
Either the dango girl or the buddy plaza kid dies. The one who doesn’t falls into darkness and sets fire to Kamura village. The chorus from the buddy plaza BGM no longer plays.
The last boss arrives but nothing you can do will harm it, but you can sacrifice one of the twins and make a weapon out of her that will damage it. You the player has the choose which of the girls. After creating the weapon, there is no longer singing in the village BGM.
As main characters die out, they are replaced by the store generic NPCs, and they start to come to the conclusion that the player is a danger to the village. They start restricting items and weapons, making the game more difficult.
During a super hard quest, the target monster is able to talk. They tell you the “true meaning” behind the monsters and Kamura village, and we learn the reason why our hunter has a voice in this game.
After clearing all the village quests, the village is left asunder. You can only play online multiplayer. The players, who have lost everything, can only go on killing monsters in this cold and barren world. (Title of the game is shown)
If you’re looking for a little bit of help to keep you from getting knocked out (not outright killed like in Yoko Taro’s version of Monster Hunter World), then we got guides that’ll get your skills up. Maybe not to the level where you’re cutting the tail off of Chameleos while in mid-air, but close.
