Monster Hunter still remains one of the world’s most popular video game franchise. Behind the success of its great line-up of video games under this popular title are dedicated people who made Monster Hunter to where it is in the game industry today. One of these people is Shintaro Kojima, the series producer who really worked closely with the Monster Hunter games as well as other titles like Dai Gyakuten Saiban (the Meiji-era prequel game for the popular Ace Attorney video game series that was released in July 2015.)

On Monday however, Kojima officially announced that he has left CAPCOM and said that he is forever grateful with the company that he has worked with for years. He will continue to support CAPCOM as a fan. It was revealed that the main reason for his leave in the company is to rest. This makes sense because imagine all the hardwork he has done for these popular games. He deserves that break and we can never be thankful enough.

Kojima has been the producer of the Monster Hunter game since it was first released on the PlayStation 2 back in 2004. He has been producing titles for the franchise since. Without him, Monster Hunter wouldn’t have not reached this kind of popularity all around the world.

Monter Hunter: World is officially one of the most successful video games in the Monster Hunter franchise as a quarter financial report of CAPCOM revealed that the game has sold more than 11 million copies worldwide. The said tally includes the sales from the PlayStation 4 (both Physical and Digital), Xbox One, and PC via Steam.

The game won the Quadruple Platinum Prize in the PlayStation Awards 2018 in Japan for the game has sold more than 4 million units (including downloads) in Asia alone. The awards ceremony happened via live-stream by Sony Computer Entertainment Japan Asia. This has been an annual awards event for the company since 1995. The game has also won the PlayStation Network Award for being one of the top three best-selling games in the PlayStation Network, (from October 2017 to September 30, 2018 release period) as well as the User’s Choice Award (from October 2017 to September 30, 2018 release period).

The Monster Hunter franchise began in 2004 and as of February 2018, more than 46 million copies of the games were sold from its first game until the recent.

Monster Hunter: World officially released worldwide on both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on January 26. In its first three days, around 5 million copies have been shipped worldwide which officially set a new record for the franchise.

The game’s new expansion Monster Hunter World: Iceborne was released in September 6 for both PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One. A PC version of the game is slated to be released in PC via Steam in January 2020. Iceborne features a new story that starts after the main events of the first game.

This year, Monster Hunter: World has broken sale records in the franchise selling 12 million copies worldwide as of May 10. A PC version of World was released in PC via Steam in August this year.

Since we are talking about Monster Hunter, let’s also discuss about its upcoming Hollywood film adaptation. It was reported this year by entertainment news website Deadline that the live-action film adaptation of the popular Monster Hunter video game franchise now has an official premiere date—set to open in September 4, 2020. It was previously reported the production has finished filming as of December last year.

The film will be centered on two protagonists who come from different worlds and they must work together to fighting these monsters in order to survive. It stars Resident Evil star Milla Jovovich as Captain Artemis and Ong Bak martial arts actor Tony Jaa as “The Hunter”. Ron Perlman play the Admiral, the leader of The Hunter’s crew, T.I Harris will play as a sniper named Link, and Diego Boneta will play as Sergeant Marshall. Josh Helman and Meagan Good will also have roles in the film.

Filming for the movie began in October which is ambitiously budgeted at around US$60 million with its primary film location in Cape Town, South Africa. TOHO will be distributing the film in Japan, Tencent Pictures for China, Sony’s Screen Gems for United States, Constantin Film for German-speaking countries, and Sony Pictures for international release.

Now that Kojima has left the company, the future for the upcoming Monster Hunter games still remains uncertain until this day. We hope that the team working closely with him previously will continue to guide them in producing more games for hunters around the world. As of this time, we still don’t know who will be replacing his spot—but we can only hope that it would be someone as awesome as his predecessor. We wish Kojima-san all the best in his future endeavors.

Source: Siliconera