In an odd move, the online servers for Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate on Wii U are region-locked, Capcom have revealed.

Monster Hunter series producer, Ryozo Tsujimoto, shared the information with Gamereactor in a recent interview. This means that American players will not be able to play online with European players, and neither one will be able to play with Japanese players either. Capcom have since confirmed the news on their forums.

It should be noted that Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate for Wii U runs on Nintendo servers, but just what the cause of the region-locked servers is remains unknown. It’s especially odd because Nintendo 3DS games that support online play (note: MH3U on 3DS deoesn’t) allow for cross-region online multiplayer on that system.

Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate will be released on March 19th in North America and March 22nd in Europe.