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Monster Hunter Wilds director aims to push hardware 'to the max'

Draugoth

Gold Member
Monster-Hunter-Wilds-Gemma.jpg


Long before he was the director of Monster Hunter Wilds, Yuya Tokuda was a Monster Hunter fan. His first credited game in the series after joining Capcom was the third, 2005's Monster Hunter Freedom. But even before then he apparently knew exactly what drew him to Monster Hunter.

"My background with the series is I hadn't yet joined Capcom when the first Monster Hunter came out. I was so bowled over when I saw the trailers for that game: I was impressed with how it was already, from the very first title, trying to depict a convincing ecosystem where the monsters were part of a world and it wasn't just bosses on a game stage, so to speak," Tokuda said in an interview at Summer Game Fest.


Tokuda served as a planner, aka designer, on five Monster Hunters before being promoted to lead planner on Monster Hunter 4: Ultimate. Then on World, and now Wilds, he moved up to director, where he's focusing on the part of the series that I'm particularly excited to see Capcom explore more fully.

"To be honest, it was always clear in my mind that was the direction I wanted to take it," he told me. "Any Monster Hunter game where I'm director is always going to be focusing on the ecosystem element. As the hardware generations we're working on get more and more powerful, I want to use the specs of the hardware to the max in order to depict as convincing a living, breathing world as I possibly can."

Source
 
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At least from the trailers, the tunnelling monsters didn't leave any kind of terrain deformation, they just pop a sandy smoke vfx, and I don't recall seeing any kind of footprint from either the hunters or the monsters.
I'm waiting to see more biomes, and perhaps what I've said can be added for the final build
 

lh032

I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
unstable 30fps on console then.
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
Not graphically, that's for sure.

I'm curious to see how much they push the ecosystem, if they actually make something that no one ever did, i'm ok with lesser graphic, if it is just group of monster walking together, occasional big predator hunting small dinos and just the monster fighting each other when they are close, we already see all of this stuff in other games, i want something noticeably more advanced and dynamic.

I'm gonna be super surprised if they even get on the level of the actual king, rain world.
 
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Schmendrick

Member
I´ll be looking forward to seeing that "hardware pushing" because so far all we`ve seen is mediocre PS4 level graphics.
So I guess the hardware is being used for world simulation then?
 
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HerjansEagleFeeder

Gold Member
It's super easy to push hardware to the max. Every braindead beginner dev can do that, super easy. Don't optimize for shit, overload your stack with tons of assets that don't fit your performance/resource budget, dial everything up to eleven in your engine config. Done.

Talk to me about efficiency and optimization, maybe then I'm impressed. God is swear in the late 90s, the best developers were proud their cutting edge games could be configured to run on relatively weak hardware. Quake 3 looked better than anything else at the time it released and still was able to run on semi old computers of configured correctly.
 
Badly optimised Unity games also often push the hw to its limits while looking a gen or two older.

Such a statement implying some advanced tech and subsequently nice visuals, would have more value if given concrete numbers on how much more triangles and longer complex, yet more efficient shader code or whatever it pushes than another comparable game from same gen does.
 
Any Monster Hunter game where I'm director is always going to be focusing on the ecosystem element. As the hardware generations we're working on get more and more powerful, I want to use the specs of the hardware to the max in order to depict as convincing a living, breathing world as I possibly can
This is exactly what I want to hear from developers and this is one of the reasons I love MH World. Using graphics to bring living and organic worlds. And sadly this is only seen in japanese games, not western developers. In the west they usually increase inorganic (rocks, vegetation, buildings) details in a mosty dead and uninteresting environment.

It's super easy to push hardware to the max. Every braindead beginner dev can do that, super easy. Don't optimize for shit, overload your stack with tons of assets that don't fit your performance/resource budget, dial everything up to eleven in your engine config. Done.

Talk to me about efficiency and optimization, maybe then I'm impressed. God is swear in the late 90s, the best developers were proud their cutting edge games could be configured to run on relatively weak hardware. Quake 3 looked better than anything else at the time it released and still was able to run on semi old computers of configured correctly.
What they have done on base PS4 with MHW is super impressive. One of the most technically impressive game IMO on that console, considering the hardware.
 
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Pejo

Member
I got lots of laugh emojis in the recent trailer thread, but I think that environmental animation is going to absolutely bring PS5s to a crawl framerate-wise., with all those sand particles and weather effects. No doubt that they'll tone it down a bit if it's too big of a performance hit, but as presented I don't think PS5 has enough horsepower to push it. Hopefully they don't also make the LoD mistakes they made with Dragon's Dogma 2 since this game is open world as well.

I think the game looks good but outside of the environment/weather stuff there didn't seem to be much that was 'wow'-ing me from a graphics perspective. The monster models look good from far away but suffer a bit when you see them up close in still shots.
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
This is exactly what I want to hear from developers and this is one of the reasons I love MH World. Using graphics to bring living and organic worlds. And sadly this is only seen in japanese games, not western developers. In the west they usually increase inorganic (rocks, vegetation, buildings) details in a mosty dead and uninteresting environment.


What they have done on base PS4 with MHW is super impressive. One of the most technically impressive game IMO on that console, considering the hardware.

You should play more western games.

Rdr2 has a great animal ecosystem, far cry primal has a great animal ecosystem (and latest fc games have some sort of ecosystem aswell ), rainworld has the best ecosystem in gaming, even the latest assassins creed have some sort of ecosystem, All of these are not japanese games.

Arguably, western games do more games with animal ecosystems than japanese devs (basically just capcom).
Like i really don't remember any japanese non-monster hunter game with an animal ecosystem...maybe pikmin? I never played that saga.
 
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SABRE220

Member
I mean something as simple as tetris can push the consoles to breaking point if coded badly, sadly nothing I saw in the trailer seemed to show any real exceptional technical quality. It looked like a good-looking last-gen game.
 
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I mean something as simple as tetris can push the consoles to breaking point if coded badly, sadly nothing I saw in the trailer seemed to show any real exceptional technical quality. It looked like a good-looking last-gen game.
Sometimes I see takes like this and I wonder if people don’t realize how much of a game’s tech is what goes on behind the scenes. It’s way more than just what you’re visually seeing on a screen.

Whether something’s technically impressive or not is far more important than whether something “looks really good” or not. Which is completely subjective and missing the context.
 
He didn't say what hardware he's talking about.
It would have nothing to do with Switch 2. This game’s been in development for years before Switch 2 was even a thing. If a port happens down the line, it would need technical re-working to be able to port. And they wouldn’t even begin to work on that until the main version for current consoles is done and out. As this game was made from scratch with PS5 and Series X specs in mind.
 
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Fabieter

Member
It would have nothing to do with Switch 2. This game’s been in development for years before Switch 2 was even a thing. If a port happens down the line, it would need technical re-working to be able to port. And they wouldn’t even begin to work on that until the main version for current consoles is done and out. As this game was made from scratch with PS5 and Series X specs in mind.

I hope the simulation in wilds is pushing things. Graphics is good enough so I don't care.
 

Klosshufvud

Member
Graphics have been severely underwhelming thus far. Looks worse than World due to the low quality terrain and lighting.
 

StueyDuck

Member
More to a game than just visuals.

If they are pushing ai and simulation etc then that sounds awesome.

Leave the graphics to the linear on rails short games with no gameplay
 
You should play more western games.

Rdr2 has a great animal ecosystem, far cry primal has a great animal ecosystem (and latest fc games have some sort of ecosystem aswell ), rainworld has the best ecosystem in gaming, even the latest assassins creed have some sort of ecosystem, All of these are not japanese games.

Arguably, western games do more games with animal ecosystems than japanese devs (basically just capcom).
Like i really don't remember any japanese non-monster hunter game with an animal ecosystem...maybe pikmin? I never played that saga.
I (used to) play some AC games and Far Cry indeed (stopped at 4). Problem is recent games have not good enough gameplay (for instance RDR games), have become boring to play or are filled with DEI nonsense.
 
I hope the simulation in wilds is pushing things. Graphics is good enough so I don't care.
I think that just based on the three brief trailers, we’ve seen so far and then the hands-off demo that we’re hearing all about from all the press, There’s been an enormous advancement with weather and physics, and AI and other things going on, that will affect the game and significantly enhance the experience while playing. Certainly a generational leap in game design and emergent environment going from World. Monsters hunting in packs, etc.
 
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Raven77

Member
Take your pick:

1
. Incredibly immersive ecosystems with diverse creatures that behave realistically within this world driving unique, always different and interesting, combat and interactions. You ARE a hunter, reading the wind, paying attention to the weather, the migration patterns, tracking your prey. You follow the grass smashed down by the beasts huge feet, ahh, you realize, it headed down to the river, likely to cool off since it's sunny today...

2. Same game world as Monster Hunter on previous generations, like GameCube, but 60 fps.



Serious Joe Biden GIF by The Democrats
 
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Take your pick:

1. Incredibly immersive ecosystems with diverse creatures that behave realistically within this world driving unique, always different and interesting, combat and interactions. You ARE a hunter, reading the wind, paying attention to the weather, the migration patterns, tracking your prey. You follow the grass smashed down by the beasts huge feet, ahh, you realize, it headed down to the river, likely to cool off since it's sunny today...

2. Same game world as Monster Hunter on previous generations, like GameCube, but 60 fps.



Serious Joe Biden GIF by The Democrats
Monster Hunter never was on GameCube. It was on Wii with much less interesting ecosystem, quite smaller maps and was running at 30fps. The game was already good though.

And we already have the first pick (MHW) on current gen consoles at locked 60fps, at least on PS5.
 
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SABRE220

Member
Sometimes I see takes like this and I wonder if people don’t realize how much of a game’s tech is what goes on behind the scenes. It’s way more than just what you’re visually seeing on a screen.

Whether something’s technically impressive or not is far more important than whether something “looks really good” or not. Which is completely subjective and missing the context.
Im sorry but if you can highlight the technically impressive aspects that I'm ignorant of, that would be great . I can only comment on what I am able to see so far and its not very impressive, not bad but certainly not something I would say is a showcase of techincal proficiency. Look at a top tier last gen open world game like rdr2 and show me the next gen leap in systems.
 
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pepodmc_

Member
At least from the trailers, the tunnelling monsters didn't leave any kind of terrain deformation, they just pop a sandy smoke vfx, and I don't recall seeing any kind of footprint from either the hunters or the monsters.
I'm waiting to see more biomes, and perhaps what I've said can be added for the final build
yeah it seems at monster hunter world level of graphics, aside perhaps bigger zones and this generation gimnick of changing the look of the stage in a big way in an instant.


I feel this game will be world with steroids, instead of a real ps5 generation monster hunter game
 
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