《怪物猎人：荒野：Ascendance》不会新增第15种武器，但所有猎人获免费武器调整与新动作

Announced during the Summer Game Fest 2026 showcase, Monster Hunter Wilds: Ascendance is CAPCOM's attempt to regain momentum on the latest chapter of its most popular series.

After the astounding commercial results registered by Monster Hunter World and Monster Hunter Rise, Wilds broke new records for the publisher at launch, selling over 10 million units in its first month on the market. However, it didn't take long for players to realize the game's several shortcomings, which led to a drastic slowdown in sales momentum. Last December, Director Yuya Tokuda even pleaded with lapsed players to return to the game and check out the post-launch improvements.

Ascendance is CAPCOM's best chance to recapture the momentum. Taking place several years after Wilds, the expansion begins with the colossal Elder Dragon Lao-Shan Lung suddenly appearing in the Forbidden Lands and overwhelming the Expedition Team, with the story properly picking up years later, once the Madoi Stronghold is ready for a rematch. Along the way, hunters will explore a brand-new locale, the Skybound Eyrie, home to sky islands and floating ruins, and face new monsters like the Elder Dragon Gundoraja, known as the Black Sky’s Wrath, and the bird wyvern Araketa, alongside returning favorites Kushala Daora, Teostra, and Khezu. Master Rank quests and the new Boost Bracer mechanic round out the headline additions.

There's a new face at the helm, too. Takuro Hiraoka took over as director from Tokuda, having worked on the series since Monster Hunter Portable 3rd and served as lead game designer on Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate and Monster Hunter World: Iceborne. Monster Hunter Wilds: Ascendance launches at some point in 2027 on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, and will also arrive on Nintendo Switch 2 after the base game debuts there on December 4.

At Tokyo Game Show 2026, I sat down with Art Director and Executive Director Kaname Fujioka, Director Takuro Hiraoka, Series Producer Ryozo Tsujimoto, and Switch 2 version Producer Genki Sunano to discuss the expansion's goals, the Boost Bracer, the possibility of new weapon types, and the challenge of bringing Wilds to the Switch 2 system.

Bringing a game of this scale to Switch 2 must have been quite a challenge. What were the main difficulties?

Genki Sunano: Just getting it to run on Switch 2 was extremely difficult in itself. Of course, that meant reviewing all of the game’s internal processing, everything happening moment to moment in the game and in the engine running in the background, and seeing what we could tweak, tune, optimize, and adapt to the hardware. But our concept was for people to enjoy Wilds naturally on Switch 2, so we didn’t want to undermine the Wilds experience. It’s not as simple as saying, “Why don’t we just lower the quality?”

If there was something we had to lower, we had to decide where to cut and what we absolutely had to protect, scrutinizing every element one by one. That steady, painstaking work was the most difficult part. Hopefully, in the end, it never feels like a massively compromised version of the original game’s vision, just a very natural experience on Nintendo Switch 2. It’s been a lot of work to get to this point, but if you’ve played the demo version, I hope you’ll agree we’ve done a good job bringing the game to the platform.

Is it a Game-Key Card, or is the full game on the cartridge?

Kaname Fujioka: The Switch 2 version of Wilds is a Game-Key Card.

Can you tell us about the overall concept and approach for Monster Hunter Wilds: Ascendance, and what you wanted to achieve, including what makes it more than just the addition of a Master Rank?

Takuro Hiraoka: When we started making Ascendance, the concept, or goal, we set was a natural evolution of Wilds. That meant properly building on what was good about Wilds, and properly improving the things that could be, or should be, improved. The idea was to use Wilds as the base and create a powered-up version of it.

On top of that, there are many aspects, but for the story, for example, we wanted to dig deeper into the parts we couldn’t depict in Wilds, including some we deliberately didn’t tell at the time. For the action, we thought about what mechanics and systems we could add so that players could enjoy the action that was so well received in Wilds even more. With Wilds as the base, we considered all kinds of content, thinking about how to achieve a natural evolution that players would be happy with.

Looking back at Wilds, with its world and the environmental design of the Forbidden Lands, we now have a chance to look at the history of that world, including its Elder Dragon-related aspects, and that’s something we can explore now that we have this new place.

Which Elder Dragons will appear in Ascendance?

Kaname Fujioka: We can only talk about the ones we’ve revealed so far: Lao-Shan Lung, Kushala Daora, and Teostra, which we announced yesterday and which you can play in the demo right now. There’s also Gundoraja, a new Elder Dragon we created for Ascendance. Beyond those, we definitely want to feature Elder Dragons properly in Ascendance.

Monster Hunter Stories 3 introduced a number of new subspecies to the series, monsters that hadn’t appeared in previous games. Did you ever consider bringing some of those into Monster Hunter Wilds: Ascendance?

Ryozo Tsujimoto: To be frank, in Stories, the final boss is a completely new Stories monster, and besides that, there are new variants, stronger versions of existing monsters. Those are positioned as powerful characters within Stories, as part of that game’s systems. If they were brought into the action-focused Monster Hunter games, they might come in a different form... how should I put it, I probably shouldn’t say too much. So you can think of those as subspecies that were added through that kind of system precisely because it’s Stories. Stories 3 is a very different genre, with a different development team working on it, and adding those variations was their approach for that game.

In the past, some of the more unique Monster Hunter titles had their own unique weapons. Was there ever a phase where you considered adding a new weapon type this time, for example bringing Frontier’s Tonfa into the mainline series? Or was it decided from the start to stick with the existing 14?

Kaname Fujioka: We think about new weapon types every single time, not just this time. Everyone considers it every time. But whether we put our efforts there, and frankly, whether a new weapon can be played differently enough from the existing 14 weapons, is the most important thing. If it can’t, there’s not much point in adding a new weapon, and I don’t think people would use it. Across a number of titles, and again with this one, we came to the same conclusion: there isn’t a weapon type we could add at this time that brings something new to the game, doesn’t overlap with the existing weapons in a way that makes it redundant, and that a decent number of players would actually pick.

So this time, instead, we introduced a system as a common action. With the existing weapons, you already had the action options from Wilds, like creating wounds and targeting them, and on top of that, this new system broadens the range of strategies and actions, letting players decide when to use what. Rather than adding a new weapon, we tend to add work across the spectrum of the existing 14, whether that’s the Boost Bracer in Ascendance, which any weapon type can interact with, or general gameplay systems like creating and attacking wounds in Wilds. Those are features every player gets to enjoy, regardless of whether they take the step of trying a new weapon.

And I think the addition of a second weapon slot in Monster Hunter Wilds opened so much of the game up to experimentation, where players who may only use a Long Sword or Sword and Shield will finally use a second weapon, because if they feel they’re not being effective with the new weapon, they can still go back to their previous one.

Takuro Hiraoka: That’s right. Adding a new weapon can’t just be about whether it fits the systems of the game we’re making at that time. We have to keep living with it afterwards, so whether it remains a weapon that’s fun to play is really important. We take all of that into account every time we decide whether to introduce one. It’s not a task we approach lightly.

Among the most recent additions, the Insect Glaive brought a completely new type of jumping action that almost overturned the very concept of Monster Hunter.

Takuro Hiraoka: Yes, it’s not an easy choice.

Before we get to the Boost Bracer, can we assume Monster Hunter Wilds: Ascendance includes significant changes to the existing 14 weapons overall, such as tuning, rebalancing, or new skills for specific weapons?

Takuro Hiraoka: It depends on what you consider significant, but yes. With the update from Wilds to Ascendance, besides the Boost Bracer, some weapons receive adjustments, and some receive new actions, such as a new technique for the Sword and Shield.

Will those tuning changes, balance adjustments, and skill additions be available without buying Ascendance? Are they part of an update to Wilds, or features exclusive to Ascendance?

Kaname Fujioka: When Ascendance is released, we’ll also update Wilds. The content added with Ascendance, like the Boost Bracer and the new Master Rank, will require Ascendance to play. However, the improvements we showed at yesterday’s Capcom Spotlight, such as being able to change weapons without riding your Seikret and the revamped UI, as well as the weapon adjustments and new actions we just mentioned, will be available in Wilds even without purchasing Ascendance.

Also, for players starting for the first time, if someone buying World... sorry, Wilds... also buys Ascendance, they can use the Boost Bracer in the Wilds portion of the game as well. So there’s a benefit to buying both Wilds and Ascendance, even for newcomers.

The Boost Bracer is a bit like an extra powerful move each weapon has. Do you intend these special moves to be used in the regular flow of battle, or more as a finishing move when a monster is wounded or staggered?

Kaname Fujioka: It’s closer to being used in the regular flow of battle. The original starting point for adding the Boost Bracer was whether we could create a new way of generating openings during combat, separate from the usual Monster Hunter actions, like players using the environment, traps, or items to create opportunities, or attacking when the monster is exhausted or weakened. Essentially, a lot of Monster Hunter action is about asking, “When can I create a window so that I can hit the hardest?” The Boost Bracer fits into that style. Rather than a finisher you save for the perfect moment, we see it as something that widens how you can attack throughout the fight, including by using it to create those windows.

When I went hands-on, I was certainly using it that way. I played with the Light Bowgun, and I used it both when the monster had an opening and to knock it down and create an opening myself. It was fun.

Takuro Hiraoka: Thank you.

Is each Boost Bracer ability locked to one specific set of actions per weapon type, or can players choose which ones to use, like the red and blue scrolls from Rise?

Kaname Fujioka: It’s fixed per weapon. When you enter the Boost state, new actions are added and some existing moves change, so what we’d like players to think about is simply whether they’re in the Boost state or not. Rather than deciding which actions to add, we want you to consider, “Am I in Boost mode or not?” If you are, then for each weapon, you’ll be aware through the UI that certain actions have been added and certain actions in your combo flow have been changed or upgraded, and that you have a chance to use them, which goes away once Boost mode ends. That’s the kind of thing we want you to do.

Thank you for your time.

About the author: Kai joined the gaming team of Wccftech in 2016 and has since penned over a hundred reviews and interview pieces, covering a bit of everything from one-man indie gems to AAA masterpieces and whatever lies in between. Over the recent months, Kai has expanded into preview and interview coverage of not only the gaming side of the industry but also tech and consumer electronics.

Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.