A1. I was happy to see the response to the Palamutes was extremely positive, not just in Japan, but overseas as well. A lot of people asked to what extent you can customize your trusty Canyne.
We already revealed this information, but in case you missed it: you can change the shape of their ears and tail, and the color of their coat. We hope you create your own unique Palamute and treat it with as much affection as you would your Palicoes!
I’ve been using my own customized Palamute for checking the game, and it’s grown on me a lot.

We received a lot of reactions to the Buddies, but the monsters were very popular as well.
We introduced 4 new monsters (and a few others): Magnamalo, Aknosom, Tetranadon, and Great Izuchi. We only showed their names and what they look like, but people came up with lots of speculation for each creature and it’s all been really interesting to read.
I’ve seen a lot of fan art on social media as well, which makes all of us working on the game very happy. Thank you, everyone!

This game has a very Japanese/Asian-flavored setting, so initially I was a bit worried what kind of response that would elicit, but people reacted very positively to this as well, so we’re all very satisfied.
We want to create something new while maintaining the core Monster Hunter experience, so we hope you look forward to future information.

A2. There’s still a lot of things we haven’t talked about yet, so we’ll keep bringing you new announcements as the release date draws closer. Of course there are still plenty of monsters, both new and familiar, that we haven’t shown yet. And there’s some new player-related systems apart from the Wirebug as well...
In terms of stages, we’ve only shown the Shrine Ruins so far, but of course there are a few more.
Some of them may even bring back some fond memories.

A3. Yes, everyone’s a target.
Buddies will be attacked as well, but not quite as often as hunters.

A4. Yes, it does.
We’ve looked at past titles for reference and tweaked the settings to fit this game the best.

A5. Outside of the regular quests, we have some quests that allow you play without a time limit as well, so if you want to focus on exploration and gathering materials instead of hunting, you can do that to your heart’s content.

A1. Tanaka: I’m Kosuke Tanaka, the Sound Director.
I’m in charge of designing and overseeing the general sound concepts, as well as schedule management.
I do some actual production work as well and, to give a few simple examples, I created the sound effects for the Wirebug and the Title Screen.

A1. Hori: I’m Satoshi Hori, the Lead Composer.
I’m in charge of supervising all BGM-related elements of Monster Hunter Rise, creating musical concepts for each monster (deciding the sense of scale of each piece, and which instruments to use, etc.), and directing the other composers.

A2. Tanaka: The general theme for the sound was “catchy and easy to understand.”
If the sound design for Monster Hunter: World and Iceborne could be described as “Art with delicate layers,” then I’d say the sound design for Monster Hunter Rise is “to convey everything with one concentrated effect.” That’s what we were going for.
Also, we wanted to treat past titles in the Monster Hunter series with respect, so although there are a lot of new sound effects in this game, we’re intentionally using some nostalgic sounds as well.

A3. Tanaka: Yes, in order to make the new stages, like the Shrine Ruins, feel as realistic as possible, we went out and did field recordings in a variety of places. The songs of birds, the chirping of cicadas, ambient noise in caves, the bells of a temple, and lots and lots of other sounds. We’ve put a lot of “real sounds” into the game like that. As a result, we’ve managed to create a soundscape that feels like a living, breathing ecology, which adds to the realism, I think.

A4. Hori: Oh yeah, we recorded a whole bunch of traditional Japanese instruments: shakuhachi, shamisen, shinobue, and koto of course, but also biwa, hichiriki, ryūteki, taiko, atarigane, Kagura suzu, and horagai. There’s even some very unusual instruments in there that you normally wouldn’t hear outside of special occasions.
On top of these Japanese instruments, we also recorded live orchestral performances in order to convey the strength of the monsters and the scale of the world in a way that you would expect from a Monster Hunter game. The orchestral performances were carried out in Japan, LA, and London, depending on where the music was going to be used and which monster theme we were recording. For particularly fearsome monsters and music that required a large sense of scale, we mainly used Abbey Road in London.
Apart from the huge collection of instruments, we also recorded several songs in a variety of genres.

A5. Hori: We used a chorus of 24 people for “Proof of a Hero: Rise Version.”
I think we’ve managed to create a quite unique version of this fan favorite by combining the usual orchestra with traditional Japanese instruments, and vocal music.
For this game, we wanted “Proof of a Hero” to symbolize the people of Kamura Village fighting against the onslaught of the Rampage, encouraging themselves and the players through song, in order to protect their homes.
There are parts in this piece where the themes of Kamura Village and the Rampage are both played simultaneously as well, so keep your ears open for that as well!

A5.5. Hori: We haven’t made any huge changes to the original music. We made sure to pay the proper amount of respect to the Monster Hunter series by preserving the quality of the original pieces, while also adding a catchy twist to them to better fit the themes of this game.
Mr. Ichinose wanted to have vocals for every piece, so it’s not just the completely new monster themes that will have vocal performances in them, but the arrangements of existing themes as well.

A6. Tanaka: If you want to know the exact number, you’ll have to play the game, but there are enough choices for you to be indecisive over.
As you said, the hunters don’t just grunt anymore, they have actual dialogue this time, and each voice type represents a certain “personality.” Our script writer had to come up with different settings and a whole bunch of lines for each voice type, but we think he did an outstanding job. It really speaks to the imagination: “A hunter with a voice like this probably lives their hunting life in such and such way,” you know? I really think players will enjoy mulling over which voice they’re going to pick.

A6.5. Tanaka: We wanted to use the hunter’s voice as a communication tool between players.
For most of the past entries in the series, players used to gather together with their portable consoles and just talk to each other in real life, and we wanted to recreate this sense of excitement for people living in an environment where it is not so easy to get a group of players together in a physical space. So we figured that maybe we could pull this off by borrowing the hunter’s voice.
Using in-game player voices also removes the necessity for companion apps, which significantly lowers the hurdle for communication.

A7. Tanaka: Each player will hear the voice language that they selected in the options.
The dialogue spoken by other players will play back in the voice language you selected, so there should not be any trouble communicating. We hope everyone will use this VO to make friends with people from all over the world.

A1. I made the ink-like illustrations, and some decorations for Kamura Village.

A2. The biggest themes were “ink” and “dyed fabric.”

- Monster Icons
The in-game lore is that Guild Master Hojo draws all of the monster sketches used on the quest notices, so I made them look a bit soft, with swift brush strokes. I can imagine he had to draw them in a hurry while they were charging at him.

- Kamura Decorations
I made these in the image of a dyed fabric style called “Katazome.”
(A dyeing method where you use a small blade to cut a figure out of thick paper and then dye it.)
I included some imagery of the village itself, the “castle town” style look, the steelworks, and of course ninjas... There’s a lot of strong motifs, even for this series, and I gave everything a heavy, sharp look.

A3. When designing the UI, I made sure to keep legibility in mind in handheld mode. The chat stickers, for instance, are on the small side with a relatively large transparent area so that they don’t get in the way when you interact with monsters.
At the same time, I wanted to have enough variation in the layout and keep everything tidy, so I paid special attention to the size and coloring of the characters as well.

And when you look at the village map, this is actually the only instance where you can see the village in its entirety on one screen, so I focused on conveying the atmosphere more than anything else.

A4. I use Photoshop and a graphics tablet.

A5. I can’t think of anything particular off the top of my head, but I do remember being deeply impressed with the response to our first trailer. Some fans had illustrations ready as soon as the next morning, and it was great to see how excited everyone was about the new Canyne companion, and how much they liked the characters. It reminded me of how excited I was myself when I got assigned to this team.
As I was going around to look at people’s reactions, I also found out about accounts that tweet out monsters’ thoughts, and that was very lovely as well.