Tracking Monster Hunter's future

Ahead of Monster Hunter Wilds next year, two story-focused spinoffs come to PlayStation

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You may find it hard to believe, but it's been more than six years since Monster Hunter: World roared its way onto PS4 and transformed Capcom's once-niche series into a global success. Its momentum has only accelerated in the years since, following the equally excellent Iceborne expansion in 2019, and culminating in the announcement of Monster Hunter Wilds at last year's Game Awards.

Yet between these, much of the series' expansion has taken place away from PlayStation. There was the 2020 movie adaptation (although its star Milla Jovovich did make an appearance in World via a special collaboration event) and the AR-based mobile title Monster Hunter Now, not to mention an appearance in the Oscar-nominated movie Tár that no-one saw coming. But just as Rise got its belated release last year, we're also finally getting another title, or rather two, on PlayStation for the first time.

Monster Hunter Stories and Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings Of Ruin both arrive on 14 June (and they're also available together as a collection). As spinoffs co-developed by Marvelous, with the original developed before World, Stories is a rather different beast to the mainline series - in case the name isn't a giveaway, it has more of a focus on a single-player narrative than the loop of slaying huge, ferocious monsters. In fact, having 'Hunter' in the name is a bit inaccurate as your character is a rider. Rise may have added wyvern riding but that's still a part of the hunt, whereas in Stories riders befriend monsters, forming bonds, or kinship, with them.

"Steal a monster's egg, then form a bond using the power of a Kinship ore when it hatches."