With Monster Hunter Rise hitting PlayStation and Xbox after its initial Switch release, you might be wondering if it qualifies a mainline game.
There’s certainly a lot of talk about whether Monster Hunter Rise is a mainline entry or a spin-off and not everyone is in agreement. Capcom is no longer numbering Monster Hunter games, which muddies the waters a little. So, for our sins, we’re going to dive into this debate.
The short answer is, yes, Monster Hunter Rise is a proper series game and a follow-up to Monster Hunter World. Producer Ryozo Tsujimoto referred to it as “the latest game in the Monster Hunter series” during 2020’s Monster Hunter Direct.
The game even draws upon elements from Monster Hunter World, so why the confusion? One common perception is that developer Capcom has two Monster Hunter teams, one the “main” team, the other the “portable” team.
However, as revealed by this interview with Tsujimoto, featured on Capcom’s site, it’s not as straightforward as that. Yes, there are two teams but Capcom doesn’t necessarily see them as “main” and “other/portable”, at least not so much that they’d admit it.
So the excuse that the “portable” team made Monster Hunter Rise and therefore it’s not a proper Monster Hunter game doesn’t really stick. Besides which, having two teams doesn’t mean they’re static, that staff don’t cross back and forth.
So we’d consider Monster Hunter Rise a mainline game. It’s now available on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Xbox Game Pass and Nintendo Switch – check out our review here.
