Why Barking Up the Wrong Tree Won't Get Us Monster Hunter Remakes

I've been playing Monster Hunter since the Freedom Unite days on PSP. Generations Ultimate is still my favourite. I've written enough about what I miss, what frustrates me about Wilds, and what I think we've lost along the way that nobody should mistake this for me suddenly becoming Capcom's defence lawyer.

I want the older games to remain playable. Properly playable. On hardware people actually have, with multiplayer people can actually use. But wanting that and understanding how we might get it are two different things. We keep getting stuck on the first one.

A conversation on Twitter today put that into words better than another argument about whether Wilds is dead ever could. Katsuhiro Harada was talking about Bloody Roar. People have apparently spent years asking him about a series he has nothing to do with. He explained that a revival needs a business case, the right timing, and somebody inside the company who can actually push it forward. His advice was to direct the request to the company that owns the rights, positively, instead of repeatedly asking an unrelated developer.

He also pointed out that a project needs to make financial sense for the size of the company funding it. That's the part people don't like hearing. I don't particularly enjoy it either. But disliking the answer doesn't make it irrelevant.

One response argued that publishers have become so focused on expensive productions and financial metrics that smaller, more passionate projects get squeezed out. There was a useful point in there: what fans want preserved is not necessarily what a publisher imagines when it hears the word remake. A beloved game doesn't automatically need to become the biggest production the company has ever attempted.

But Harada pushed back on treating passion and commercial decisions as enemies. Somebody still has to finance the work. Somebody has to approve it. Keeping a project financially sustainable doesn't prove the people making it stopped caring.

None of this was an announcement about Monster Hunter. Harada isn't speaking for Capcom. But the conversation is relevant to how we talk about bringing the old games back. Because sometimes we seem more interested in proving that we're right to be angry than explaining what we actually want made.

I understand why people want pre-World Monster Hunter. I'm one of them. My attachment to those games isn't just a list of returning monsters. In my love letter to the series, I wrote about learning fights, finding people to hunt with, and why MHGU means so much to me. Arts, Styles, fashion, the freedom to make a weapon feel like your own. Those things matter. And World is one of my favourites too. This has never been as simple as old good, new bad.

When I wrote More Monsters, Less Reason to Hunt, my frustration was about progression. I want hunting a monster to lead somewhere I care about. I want its equipment to be something I use, not mainly an appearance I put over another endgame weapon. Adding a familiar monster doesn't automatically restore that relationship. That's why returning monsters alone won't satisfy every request for old MH. The game around them matters. Bringing back a creature from 4U isn't the same thing as making 4U available again.

But even among people who agree on that, we're asking for different things. Look at this discussion about a classic collection. People want Freedom Unite, Portable 3rd, 3U, 4U, and GU on current consoles and PC. Some want crossplay. Others mainly want to play on a bigger screen. In another thread about 4U, the request is for PC access, official online play, and the ability to enjoy it on a Steam Deck. Then you have people imagining a rebuilt 3U with modern underwater combat.

Those aren't the same request. A faithful rerelease and a complete modern remake can share a title while being very different projects. Do we want the old combat preserved? Do we want modern movement? Are we asking for cleaner graphics, or rebuilding every area? What happens when the changes that make it comfortable for one player remove the exact thing another player wanted back? We can't keep saying “just remake it” as if we've already agreed on all of that.

And yes, these threads prove that people are asking. They don't tell us how many people would buy the finished game, at what price, or with which compromises. A Reddit discussion is useful for understanding the request. It isn't a sales forecast.

The older games weren't commercial nobodies, either. According to Capcom's figures as of 30 June 2026, Freedom Unite sold 3.8 million units, Portable 3rd sold 4.9 million, and 4 Ultimate sold 4.2 million. Generations Ultimate, counting the listed 3DS and Switch versions together, reached 5.4 million. But Rise reached 19.3 million. World reached 30.4 million when including Iceborne Master Edition. Wilds stood at 11.8 million. These are lifetime product figures, not unique players or profits, and the games had different platforms and years on sale. Still, the difference in reach is hard to ignore.

Capcom has a much bigger demonstrated audience for modern Monster Hunter than it had for individual older entries. I can prefer MHGU and still understand why that affects where the company puts its people and money. Sales don't make my opinion of a game wrong. They do make it harder to argue that the obvious business decision is to prioritise the version I prefer.

That doesn't mean a remaster needs to sell thirty million copies. Its costs could be very different. We don't have a budget or a break-even figure for a hypothetical 4U rerelease, and I'm not going to invent one. The originals also didn't have the same platform reach. A larger audience today could include plenty of people interested in seeing what they missed. There is room for an argument here. We just don't get to replace the missing information with “obviously it would sell.”

Nor am I going to pretend Wilds has met every expectation. In July 2025, Capcom acknowledged that its April–June sales fell short of expectations. By July 2026, it reported improving sales following technical improvements and continued to aim for lifetime sales beyond World. That's an ambition, not an achievement. But it does tell us that Capcom still sees a future in this game. My disappointment hasn't made that investment disappear.

We've also had an explanation from the Monster Hunter team itself. In an Arekkz interview, as transcribed by GamesRadar, Ryozo Tsujimoto discussed how the older games were built around the online capabilities of their time. Updating an early game to feel right today could require substantial changes. He described adding features to new games, such as crossplay in Wilds, as a better use of resources, while leaving future possibilities open.

I don't have to like that priority. But it's an actual answer, and “they forgot we exist” doesn't really address it. His example concerned a game from 2004; it doesn't tell us exactly how difficult a 4U port would be. It does explain why the decision involves more than finding the old files and pressing Export.

The strongest argument for bringing these games forward, to me, is that access keeps getting worse. Official Nintendo 3DS and Wii U online services ended on 8 April 2024. The offline games didn't disappear, but a major part of how people experienced them became harder to access. Community efforts deserve credit for keeping old games alive. They shouldn't have to carry the entire responsibility for preserving a publisher's history.

I've also written about Monster Hunter MADs and the creative culture around them. I care about people doing something with these games beyond discussing whichever build currently wins. Making videos, putting together fashion sets, learning an unfamiliar weapon, getting friends into a gathering hall. Keeping a game accessible gives people somewhere to do that. A remake won't recreate the internet we had then. It won't bring every old friend back. But giving people a supported way to play the game is still worth asking for.

So I'd rather see a clear request for a faithful 4U rerelease on current hardware, preserving what makes it 4U and restoring supported online play, than another vague demand to make Monster Hunter great again. That has something concrete at its centre. We can discuss the changes we're willing to accept instead of discovering halfway through that we all meant something different.

I also don't think this means fans owe Capcom purchases. I'm not buying something I don't want to prove that I deserve something else. Criticism isn't a debt we have to pay off with loyalty. But “I don't enjoy Wilds” doesn't tell Capcom whether I want a 3U remake, a 4U remaster, or a new game built around older ideas. We can be right about a problem and still be unclear about what we're asking for.

And being clear doesn't require turning every request into an insult. Harada's advice about speaking to people positively isn't a demand that we pretend everything is wonderful. There are people receiving those messages. Making them the target of every frustration we have with the series isn't helping someone inside the company argue for the project.

I want old Monster Hunter to have a future. I don't want MHGU and 4U reduced to recommendations followed by a paragraph explaining all the obstacles to playing them. I want someone who started with World or Wilds to be able to find out why I still care about these games so much.

We should keep asking. But let's ask Capcom for something specific, and give the people who might want to make it a case they can actually take into a room. I want to send people a game recommendation and an invitation to hunt. It shouldn't need a workaround attached.

Featured image: Monster Hunter 20th Anniversary artwork © CAPCOM.