If you want to make the developers behind Monster Hunter laugh, apparently there’s an easy way to do it: just ask them about the hunting horn.
“I’m always surprised by how much we get asked about the hunting horn when we come here,” said Monster Wilds (and World) game director Yuya Tokuda.
I’m not positive if Tokuda was referring to press events like Summer Game Fest where we held our interview, or if America is a secret hunting horn haven. But I love the hunting horn: it is a silly thing, a giant honker of a weapon that emits musical notes as you swing it. Slow, ungainly, and underpowered in an amateur’s hands, it becomes a mighty useful support tool and decent damage-dealer in the hands of a maestro, with songs unique to different horns that provide buffs useful in battles against different monsters.
Alas, the players of Monster Hunter World gave the hunting horn little respect—it was, at least at one point back in 2022, the least-used weapon in the whole game, which means approximately 98% of World’s players have been missing out.
Perhaps melding a weapon as slow as a hammer with the musical sensibility of a Saxaboom wasn’t the easiest sell…