Wild Hearts – a different kind of monster hunter (pic: EA)
The studio behind Dynasty Warriors explains how its collaboration with EA came about and the difference it makes working with a AAA budget.
Hearing that developer Omega Force, makers of the infamous Dynasty Warriors franchise, would be teaming up with EA to make a Monster Hunter clone was one of the stranger news stories of last year. Western publishers have increasingly little contact with Japanese developers and yet, to EA’s credit, they made no attempt to sanitise the origins or dumb down the gameplay of Wild Hearts.
The end result was a game that’s arguably on par with Capcom’s Monster Hunter: World and, unlike so many other clones, has some genuinely new ideas of its own. The most notable of these is the Karakuri crafting system, that allows you to build equipment ranging from a small crate that can act like a trampoline to a hidden trap in the form of a giant mallet, but the monster design is also engagingly weird and different.
The other benefit of Omega Force working with EA is that they actually did some international press for the game, and so we got to talk to co-directors Kotaro Hirata and Takuto Edagawa about what difference it made to work with a Western publisher and a much larger budget than usual…
GC: I’m glad to have this interview as I find the entire existence of this game very interesting. I’m fascinated to know how it came about and who got in contact with who first?
KH: As a little bit of background, Wild Hearts started out as a project to build a new pillar for the company and in the beginning Koei Tecmo [owners of Omega Force] was working on this alone, to build this new hunting action game, and we were developing a lot of builds in the course of our work.
But we wanted to bring this game to the fans and players all over the world and sometime down the road our corporate management had a connection with EA and we had an opportunity to show our build, at that time, to the EA side and that’s how it started.
GC: We often hear how Japanese developers have trouble with budgetary constraints, working on games they fear will only appeal to a local audience, so how was it working with a much bigger budget on Wild Hearts?
Both: [laughs]
TE: In terms of budget, we wanted to sell the game to fans and players overseas, so it did have a larger budget compared to some games that target a domestic audience. So, yes, the money was there. And also, what’s important is the development time. Because the time you spend on development, that impacts quality of the game directly, as well.
GC: If I’d been told that you were working with a major Western publisher, on a project like this, I would’ve assumed that they’d demand you strip out any obvious influence from Japanese culture and make sure there were Western protagonists, but Wild Hearts isn’t like that at all. Apart from the budget it feels like exactly the sort of game you would’ve made anyway?
TE: The game Wild Hearts is staged in Japan and you feel a lot of Japanese life in the game and that’s because that is the kind of game we wanted to develop and EA happened to show interest in that.
The game is published under the EA Original label and one thing that stands out about this label is that EA really wants to bring the best out of a developer and they trusted us to do what we wanted to do. Although they gave us advice and support along the way we basically did what we wanted, and they allowed us to do that.
Wild Hearts – the world’s scariest porcupine (pic: EA)
GC: Did they help in terms of development, perhaps technical issues and things like the online features – which Monster Hunter: World struggled with at times?
TE: One example I might say is the cross-play. We got big help from EA for our cross-play feature; they were very passionate about implementing it and we also used EA’s server for this, and we couldn’t have done it without the help of EA. It’s also something Monster Hunter hasn’t implemented.
Obviously, we wanted to make the online features as seamless as possible, and better than what else is out there, and so we made a suggestion, EA gave us advice, and they helped us to brush up the features and that’s how it came about.
GC: In terms of the creature design, which is very different to that of Monster Hunter, I couldn’t help think of something like Zoids or Beast Wars, where you have to decide which real-life animals can be made to look threatening or cool and which are just too cute to work. Did the design of the monsters come first or were you searching for a long time to see what the theme would be for them?
KH: Thank you for referencing games like Zoids! You’re not mistaken in finding similarities with those games and when we started out developing this game… we wanted the monsters to be familiar and recognisable by people all over the world. So the creatures that we hunt have to be something familiar but also something we fear.
After much consideration and discussion we decided on using animals fused with nature, so there are a lot of Kemono [the game’s term for the monsters – GC] appearing in this game, like porcupine based and rabbit based and badger based, and we try to make them threatening and at the same time interesting.
But to go back to your question, it’s definitely the Kemono first, because things like the world design and field design and the whole Karakuri system, that all expanded from the Kemono.
GC: I was thinking more of the Zoids toys, I’m that kind of nerd.
Both: [laughs]
Wild Hearts – Karakuri can come in all shapes and sizes (pic: EA)
GC: You mention the Karakuri there, but was that always intended to be the key differential from Monster Hunter? I really like the concept because it seems to be quintessentially Japanese, in that it’s not very grounded, it’s just there because it makes the game more fun and interesting.
KH: There was a clear set of rules in creating the different kinds of Karakuri; obviously, if you had a Karakuri that you can do anything with that’s not going to be very believable, it’s not going to be very convincing.
Karakuri is a very Japanese, traditional art of crafting and obviously we wanted to make this believable. So, take the crate, for example. If you spawn a crate it doesn’t just appear, you can see how it’s built with the pieces and the threads and we really focused on the mechanism of each Karakuri and how it’s built from nothing. The entire Karakuri system is obviously a fiction but we did set a bar for ourselves, that this is the line of fiction that we cannot cross.
GC: Were there any ideas that you discarded because they were too out there?
KH: We may have had some ideas in the rough concept stage, that didn’t materialise, but the Japanese staffers were pretty much on the same page. We had the same common understanding when it came to the Karakuri so, really, nobody suggested anything super extraordinary, like Karakuri with magical abilities or excessive power.
GC: I’m sure you’re very pleased with the game’s critical reception but is there anything you feel, in hindsight, could’ve been done better about the game? I think my main complaint would be that it is much harder playing on your own than in co-op.
KH: If I had to say, I think the camera work could’ve been improved but there is room for improvement that we intend to work on through updates.
GC: So what is the future of Wild Hearts? Will you continue to produce major content updates and DLC? Is there any talk yet of a sequel or working with EA again?
TE: We want to focus on Wild Hearts updates going forward and what is certain is that we will be releasing updates to improve the gameplay and we’re not gonna charge anything for that. We will be releasing additional weapons and armour, and Kemono, and these will come for free. As for a sequel, we’ll have to see how this title evolves and if the fans love it that may be on the horizon.
GC: Excellent, thank you very much for your time.
Both: Thank you!
Formats: Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC
Price: £69.99
Publisher: EA
Developer: Omega Force
Release Date: 17th February 2023
Age Rating: 12
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The studio behind Dynasty Warriors explains how its collaboration with EA came about and the difference it makes working with a AAA budget.