Countless AAA games released or announced this year have included hints of loot boxes or similar microtransaction elements, but when it comes to the upcoming Monster Hunter World, the devs say that they already have their own unique take on the loot crate system that’s built into the base game.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Capcom’s open-world monster-hunting game recently got a new trailer during Paris Games Week that’s shown above, and with it came a wave of new questions about the next Monster Hunter game. Loot boxes were nowhere to be seen in the trailer, thankfully, but with so many other games adopting the loot box format that occasionally borders on pay-to-win territory, the question of whether Monster Hunter will give into the trend is no doubt on monster-killing veterans’ minds.
GameSpot asked Monster Hunter series producer Ryozo Tsujimoto about the possibility of including loot boxes in their games, and Tsujimoto responded by saying that, in a way, they already exist.
“I think that Monster Hunter has already built that kind of randomized, item reward into the gameplay,” he told GameSpot. “Whenever you carve a monster after a hunt, you don’t know what you’re gonna get within a certain range. You’ve got certain rare parts that you almost never get. You’ve got some of the ones you don’t need that you get a lot of. And then there are the rewards for the quest as well. There are some [rewards] that are standard, there are some that are randomized, and a bit bigger or smaller chance of getting them.”
While Tsujimoto’s take on the randomized element of looting a downed monster makes sense, it still didn’t fully answer the question of whether an actual take-my-money loot box would be added at some point. But expanding on his loot box stance, Tsujimoto said that it Monster Hunter World doesn’t really need any system of that kind.
“You’ve already kind of got loot as a core gameplay aspect without having to shove a microtransaction version of it in,” Tsujimoto added.
Monster Hunter World launched on Jan. 26 for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, and buyers can rest easy knowing that they won’t be paying for any loot boxes after the initial purchase.
