Wild Hearts is fun – but it’s not Monster Hunter World. And not a next-gen game.
link to Podcast Content
Electronic Arts is working on its own Monster Hunter – or rather: lets work. Or better yet, sell it as an indie game that isn’t an indie game at all. Because behind Wild Hearts is Koei Tecmo, a Japanese publisher with more than 60 billion yen (400 million US dollars) in annual sales, which includes the Nioh studio Team Ninja. It’s safe to say that Koei Tecmo is not an indie company.
Nevertheless, Wild Hearts will appear in February 2023 in the EA Originals program, which was previously reserved for indie titles such as It Takes Two, Unravel or Lost in Random.
In the podcast, Micha discusses what’s behind it, why Electronic Arts has its fingers in the monster game and what we think of Wild Hearts MeinMMO-Editor-in-Chief Leya and GamePro– Hunter Dennis.
All episodes and formats in the podcast overview
Leya and Dennis have already played Wild Hearts, and Leya has temporarily spent more time in Monster Hunter World than in the real world. The answer why EA is working with Koei Tecmo is very simple for them:
To get a piece of the pie that Monster Hunter parent company Capcom is letting go. Because Monster Hunter World was enormously successful with over 20 million sales worldwide and has significantly expanded the genre target group, but Capcom has not been able to build on it so far.
Neither the Switch and PC offshoot Monster Hunter Rise nor alternatives like the Free2Play hunting game Dauntless or Namco Bandai’s God Eater 3 could really fill the genre vacuum left by Monster Hunter World. A worthy World successor is missing, especially on PS5 and Xbox Series X.
It’s no wonder that EA and Tecmo Koei are thirsting for ringing tills. But Wild Hearts also shows that it’s not that easy to develop a new Monster Hunter.
Because its fascination is not only in the grind for crafting materials, but in simulating a credible ecosystem in which a hunt feels really meaningful…
Wild Hearts: View screenshots from the new Monster Hunt game
More podcasts
We recommend our RSS feed for Plus users, with which you can download all episodes onto your smartphone. A bonus episode is released every Wednesday exclusively for GameStar Plus.
There is also the GameStar podcast on:
We look forward to every comment and positive rating. You can find the regular RSS feed without plus episodes here.
