Why Capcom Brought Creepy Spiders Back to Monster Hunter

The whole point of Capcom's Monster Hunter series is to fight screen-filling creatures of all shapes and sizes, but for the most part, those creatures aren't spiders (or spider-like). The one exception is the enemy Nerscylla, who debuted in Monster Hunter 4 but was nowhere to be found in Monster Hunter World. There is, of course, a reasonable explanation for this: spiders are creepy. Worth of respect? Sure, but from a distance—a long distance. And who wants to fight a giant spider over and over again for more weapon and armor parts? Not me. 

As someone skittish of spiders but without a full-blown phobia, it's been nice to avoid this issue with Monster Hunter. (Last year, I wrote about spiders as an accessibility issue.)

However, a recent trailer for the upcoming Switch-bound Monster Hunter Rise contained a horrifying secret: a new spider enemy named Rakna-Kadaki. Not only does Rakna-Kadaki have the ability to send hordes of tiny spiders at the player, but they're also capable of spitting fire and temporarily stunning players in a web. It's a really unfortunate development.

At E3 2019, Capcom was promoting the major World expansion Iceborne, and I had a chance to interview some of the game's developers. As part of that (very fun) conversation, I touched on the lack of arachnids in the Monster Hunter series, and charged the Capcom developers with being too scared to add more spiders to their game. The explanation from executive director and art director Kaname Fujioka was insightful about Capcom's process: 

Fujioka then left me with a tease: "We'll try and get one in there eventually." 

Eventually, apparently, meant the very next major Monster Hunter game from Capcom.

I recently sent a few questions about Rise to producer Ryozo Tsujimoto, who was also part of my last interview with the Monster Hunter team. At the time, Tsujimoto sat silent when confronted with my inquiries about Capcom being too afraid to add spiders to their game.

No more silence.

Waypoint: At E3 2019, I interviewed you about Iceborne. One of the questions I asked was about the lack of spider creatures in World and Iceborne, and you told me it wasn't because the team was scared of spiders, but because they were technically complicated and their models often couldn't be reused. A recent trailer for Rise, however, has a spider enemy. Did Capcom have a technological breakthrough? What prompted the inclusion of a spider? 
Ryozo Tsujimoto: Monster Hunter Rise is the first Monster Hunter game that uses the RE Engine and we’ve created models from scratch. We know that bug based monsters are popular worldwide, and since many of the monsters in this game are based on yokai, we decided that we’ll include a monster that’s based on the spider type yokai called jorogumo.

In that same interview, we talked about your preference for the hammer. 1) When the team sits down to talk about updates to old weapons, do you exert your influence to make sure the hammer gets priority? 2) What do you specifically like about the hammer in this game?
I love the hammer, but no, we don’t prioritize updating it specifically, haha. There are special weapon moves called Silkbind attacks that exist for every weapon type in Monster Hunter Rise. Of those, there’s one for the hammer called “Silkbind Spinning Bludgeon” that I like and pull off often.

I understand Rise development has been out of the office and over Zoom during COVID, which brings up this very important question: What's your favorite Zoom background? And when you first started using Zoom, did you rearrange your space so it looked nice on camera?
We’ve used Zoom and other tools for online meetings when working from home. In one of the calls, everyone used the same default background that looked like a room so that it feels like we’re all in the same room having a meeting. But otherwise everyone uses whatever backgrounds they like, some people would show their actual room at home, or use backgrounds that look like the outside, or beautiful scenery.

The Monster Hunter series has changed a lot over the years, but I constantly think about how people used to play with the "claw" method. Is that how you used to play the game, too?
In the past titles in the series, there would be people doing the “claw” method (in Japan it’s called the “Monhun hold”). There were people in the dev team using that claw method as well, but through each title we’ve released, we’ve constantly improved the button configurations and implemented shortcut functions.

Rise has been primarily designed for a console that's also portable. Did that influence the design of the game? For example, did the length of monster encounters and other quests change because the assumption is that people might be playing on a train or a bus?
We’ve developed the game for handheld and console in mind, which are the features of the Nintendo Switch hardware. As you mention in your example, we provided players with options to traverse using the Wirebug and riding on the Palamute’s back so they can get to the monster quickly from the start of the quest. For those who would like to take time and play, they can explore the field for power buffs or collect endemic life that will be useful for the hunt. For those who want to play on the go and if they’re playing solo, they have flexibility to pause their quest. 

Rise is coming to Switch first, a machine that's not as powerful as an Xbox or PlayStation. Did the technical capabilities of the Switch influence the AI behavior of the creatures? Do they act certain ways because it plays to the strengths of the Switch hardware itself?
We’ve started and developed the game with the Nintendo Switch in mind. So, it’s probably more accurate to say that we’ve considered monster AI along with many other features and balanced them all out, rather than a feature influencing the way we developed the game.

At the time that I'm writing this, there's a Godzilla vs. King Kong movie coming out soon. Do you think any of the creatures in Monster Hunter could defeat them? Who has the best shot?
The flagship monster in Monster Hunter Rise, Magnamalo, is so strong that it eats other monsters, so I think he will do pretty well, even if he has to compete with Godzilla and King Kong, who are bigger.

A recent trailer for Rise announced a feature people had been really excited for: the ability to pet a dog and to pet a cat. Can you talk about the creative process of adding these features?
We just thought it would be great if we could interact with Palicoes and Palamutes just like we interact with dogs and cats in the real world, which those Buddies are based on. There were some requests internally for that feature, and we had some strong demands from our non-Japan offices, so we decided to include that interaction feature.

What is a tiny detail about Rise that you're proud of, something that people would overlook in a trailer, or even while playing the game? The kind of detail only you might notice.
There’s a lot, but I’ll give a few examples here. We’ve redesigned some of the consumable items’ icons in the game—not just colors, but shapes for better visibility during handheld mode. We’ve made it easier to understand that when your weapon sharpness goes down a level, there’s now an animation and sound effects to indicate it needs to be sharpened. 

In terms of monsters, if you have honey in your inventory, and if the bear-like monster Arzuros attacks with a certain move, he will take your honey away. We’ve added an animation where Arzuros will start eating the stolen honey on the spot and he won’t care to look at the hunter.

Follow Patrick on Twitter. His email is patrick.klepek@vice.com, and available privately on Signal (224-707-1561).