With Monster Hunter Stories 3, there’s the impression this is a more mature take on this spin-off JRPG series. After all, we’re seeing some advanced Riders who are Rangers tackling a major situation in this stand-alone installment. After getting to sample the early hours of the adventure, Siliconera had the chance to talk to Executive Producer Ryozo Tsujimoto, Director Kenji Oguro, Lead Game Designer Daisuke Wakahara, and Art Director Takahiro Kawano about the development of this installment and what made it unique.
Jenni Lada: Monster Hunter Stories 3 is quite a departure in tone from the shonen anime-style approach to the previous two games. What led to the change in direction for this installment and how did you adjust the narrative and character designs to suit the shift?
Ryozo Tsujimoto: So first of all, monster, when we were thinking about the concept of Monster Hunter Stories 3, after releasing Monster Hunter Stories and Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin, we were thinking about what we wanted to do. Because It was an RPG series, and with RPG at Capcom in general, we haven’t had much experience working with it. But because we released Monster Hunter Stories and Monster Stories 2, we wanted to make this next installment a stand-alone, a very strong RPG title, that could not only be a representative of an RPG title from Capcom itself, but also as a Monster Hunter IP.
And when we thought about the concept of Monster Hunter Stories 3, we wanted to really focus on making it more RPG-like than it was. [The] JRPG [genre] is very well known overseas, but we wanted to really focus on making it a very strong RPG title. And if that was going to be the case, for Monster Hunter Stories 1 and 2 the story basically focused on the Riders. With the Rider being a very newbie and growing throughout the story, and you kind of grow alongside with them.
But for the scenario of Monster Hunter Stories 3, we wanted the protagonist to be an elite Rider, a more experienced Rider, from the very beginning. As you progress through the story, the player would travel with their friends and their companions and can continue to grow with them, but also have a very serious story. So, to align with that, we wanted more mature characters and relationships to illustrate that world and the setting of the game, which led to more mature and non-shonen-like graphics and character designs.
Speaking of relationships, for the first time in a Monster Hunter Stories game we’re getting relationship-building elements with the substories. What led the team to decide to implement these additional quests with your fellow Rangers in Monster Hunter Stories 3, and did fan feedback and requests to connect more with human characters influence the decision?
Kenji Oguro: We didn’t really base it upon fan feedback or user feedback, not so much, but because we wanted to focus on making this title a JRPG. That was the biggest influence on wanting to illustrate the characters’ relationships with the protagonist for this title. In the past titles, the relationship between the protagonist and the monsties monsters were always important, but we want to expand on that a little bit and focus on the journey of traveling with your friends, companions, because looking at other JRPG titles, that was a very big focus. We felt that we wanted to expand on that.
Up until now, we did have subquests within past Monster Hunter Stories. But rather than focusing on the quantity, having a lot more side quests and subquests, we want to focus on the quality of each of them. So a deeper connection to each of them.
We may not have as many side stories as compared to the subquests that we had in the past, but each of the side stories that are prepared for the characters are a lot deeper and [offer] a deeper connection.
Also because the story is a little more serious, a little bit more mature, we wanted to illustrate who the protagonist was, how they felt, [and] what were they thinking, and for the players to really understand that was an important factor. So we decided to make the protagonist be able to speak for this title so that we could understand what they are feeling, how they’re feeling, what they’re [hoping] to do in the future, and we want to express that through each scene that the player is playing through.
As a result, because the protagonist is allowed to speak in this title, we were able to illustrate a deeper connection with the companions and the protagonist itself.
When you first start the habitat restoration and conservation tutorial in Monster Hunter Stories 3 in the Azuria area, it starts by bringing Rathian back to the region, and we get to also understand how mutations work. How did you first come up with the idea of having this implemented into the game with the Rangers and is there any particular monster variant you can talk about that you were especially excited to include as part of this additional feature?
Kenji Oguro: Because the protagonist is a Ranger, and as a Ranger, their main activity is to recover and replenish the whole ecology that’s gone into turmoil, we didn’t want to just illustrate that within the story, but also implement it within the game cycle to link it with each other and make it a game experience for the user. Within the game, the big part of Monster Hunter Stories is to raise your monsters to not only just build a strong connection, but raising them and battle alongside with them.
In the original Monster Hunter Stories and 2, hatching eggs during the Rite of Channeling and building your own team with your favorite monsters was a very big part of the game system. But we wanted to expand on that. Originally, you can find eggs in very set locations, but we wanted to broaden that a little bit by having changes implemented in that area. “What if you were able to advance some of the ecology here and make changes?” You might have an area [where] you have your favorite monsties or monsters, in an area that you really like. We thought that that was a good idea to implement into the game system itself, and from that we had the game designers think of a system that we can implement into the game so we not only raise the monsties, but we actually also make changes to the environment itself.
Daisuke Wakahara: When you do habitat restoration, you will be able to encounter dual-element monsties that basically have elements that an original monster would not be able to have.So for example, if you release a Zinogre into a fire element area, If you find an Zinogre egg from there and hatch it, you might find a fire and thunder dual-element Zinogre. So the body is like originally it would be like a little bit yellow, green, and blue, but it’ll be red because it has the fire elements.
As you continue to do habitat restoration, a specific area may have a monster that hasn’t been introduced yet. Basically, deviant monsters may start to appear in that specific area.
And what kind of monsters you can look forward to is something that the development team would like for everybody to find out on their own, so we’ll keep it a secret for now.
With Monster Hunter Stories 3, it feels like you encourage more constant riding and usage of abilities like breath, flight, and climbing than the previous two games. What led to these more interactive environments and in some cases even more layered maps, and how did the access to more powerful platform opportunities like the Switch 2 affect that?
Kenji Oguro: Because this is an RPG title, we thought the main focus was on the field that you can explore. In Monster Hunter Stories and Monster Hunter Stories 2, and moving on to 3, we thought about [what] were the elements that we really wanted to focus on to show that it was advanced. We thought the main focus would wherever you can explore was… We thought that was a place where we could really show Capcom’s strengths. With the field actions, which are the actions that you can do on the field, how do we make [them] more fun was something that we really thought about. …What can we do with it?
We thought of the Riding actions that we wanted to expand on for Monster Hunter Stories 3. And with that, Wakahara-san basically thought of how he could implement it into the game system. That turned into what we have right now.
In making that decision, specific consoles did not really have an effect on this. We weren’t really thinking of, “Because we’re gonna be having the game on a specific console, we should implement this into the game.” We focused on trying to deliver this game to as many people as possible. So the game is available on not only specific platforms or consoles, but all platforms that we have.
Feral monsters play a big part in Monster Hunter Stories 3. How did you work on their appearance and movesets to ensure they feel different from their typical behaviors, and how did past Monster Hunter variants like tempered creatures influence the feral ones appearing here?
Takahiro Kawano: For the appearance of the monsters, we had the designers kind of have fun designing [them]. …For example, we have feral Arzuros. If you look at it very closely, at the body design, there were like skull marks that you can kind of see in some places. And for other monsters like feral Plesioth, the designer had like a kind of battleship image. So it has a red belly, if you look closely. So the designers had a lot of fun and were pretty free when designing the feral monsters.
Daisuke Wakahara: For the feral monsters, they have crystallized body parts. For the gameplay [we] wanted to put a focus on that. When the players are going against the feral monsters by breaking those crystallized parts, it weakens the feral monsters’ skills, which makes it a lot easier for the players to fight.
If the gameplay was focused mainly on just breaking the parts that that are crystallized, there wouldn’t be much of a difference between normal monsters and feral monsters. I wanted to [add] a little twist to it. So that when you are trying to hit the crystallized parts, the feral monster would would obviously like to avoid it and wouldn’t want you to do that. If you hit it at the wrong time, the feral monster will do a counter-attack and that really hurts. So you can’t always just keep on hitting the crystallized parts. You actually need to strategize and think about, “Oh, right now, I probably shouldn’t hit the crystallized parts or else the monster is going to counter-attack me.”
Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection comes to the Switch 2, PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC on March 13, 2026, and a demo is available. (Editor’s Note: This interview was lightly edited for clarity.)