Monster Hunter Stories 2's Biggest Feature May Give It An Advantage Over MH Rise
Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin is a month away, and it looks like Capcom is finally going to start releasing substantial information on it. This game will feature co-op and monster collecting, alongside the chance to fight alongside friendly monsters with MH's signature giant weapons. With a wide variety of costume options, including some save synergy with Monster Hunter Rise, it looks like Monster Hunter Stories 2 is going to be a pleasant time.
With that said, a lot of Monster Hunter fans are going to be curious about how this game measures up against Rise. The most recent mainline game in the series, Monster Hunter Rise just recently received an update that added a more climactic-feeling ending to its story and single-player hunts. That won't last long, as more substantial content updates are guaranteed to drop, but it does bring up a rather large point of difference between Rise and Stories 2. These games have similar, yet very different approaches to story and how it's presented, and Stories may have the advantage.
Much of this difference in storytelling comes from these games’ vastly different genres. Monster Hunter Rise is a dyed-in-the-wool hunting game where the sole focus is hunting monsters and crafting successively more powerful equipment from their parts. Monster Hunter has always had an eye for the ecology of its monsters, but that is often revealed as a by-product of hunting and slaying them. It also always makes a point of having some sort of framing device, and this time that's the mysterious "Rampage" affecting Kamura Village. It's all just in service of setting up interesting gameplay scenarios though, and giving the player character a reasonable justification for all their hunting.
Rise brought back the split between single and multiplayer missions, so those who want to go all-in on hunting over story can. That shows pretty definitively where Monster Hunter Rise's priorities lie, but it does make the effort to sprinkle some character in. No matter how one chooses to play the game, they'll be interacting with the inhabitants of Kamura Village. Aside from the Housekeeper, every one of them has a unique name and voice, and their own well-defined role in assisting Hunters. They participate in the story, but aside from the twins Hinoa and Minoto, the townsfolk don't have a terribly large impact on what happens in the plot.
Monster Hunter Stories 2, meanwhile, is defined by its focus on story. The vast majority of content seen in trailers thus far has been cutscenes, and it’s clear that this time around, interpersonal conflict is going to be in focus alongside the usual hunts. Players take control of Riders who raise and fight alongside Monsties, smaller breeds of Monster Hunter’s many creatures. This fact alone radically recontextualizes the game as a completely different genre, with that genre allowing for more long-term adventuring like Pokemon instead of one-shot expeditions.
Stories 2 also hits the ground running with its plot. In the midst of mass global Rathalos disappearances, the player character has a fateful encounter with a white-haired wyverian girl named Ena. She has been entrusted with a Rathalos egg, which hatches into a flightless Rathalos with small black wings. These are the titular Wings of Ruin, and are said to bring ruin to the world in time. This Rathalos is shown to be capable of incredible destructive power, and participates in the story as the player’s main Monstie. Aside from monsters going berserk as usual, there are also several factions and characters at odds with the player due to their use of this Rathalos. For players who look for games that tell a story, Monster Hunter Stories 2 may end up being a better introduction to the Monster Hunter universe than any of the comparatively plot-light mainline games.
Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin will release July 9th on Steam and Nintendo Switch.
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