ScreenRant sat down with the developers of Monster Hunter Stories 3 to discuss the evolution of its world, characters, and monster designs.
Published Jun 1, 2026, 9:00 AM EDT
Lee D’Amato is a writer born, raised, and based in Queens, New York. With collective thousands of hours in games like Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, Elden Ring, and The Legend of Zelda, he's now writes game features, guides, and reviews for Screen Rant, but has covered a wide range of topics, including ancient history, affordable travel, and overall health.
Monster Hunter Stories 3 represents a significant departure, both from the previous entries in the Stories subseries, and from the overarching identity of Monster Hunter as a whole. Featuring a revamped graphical style, more mature characters, and a turn-based battle system, it's markedly different from everything the series has done before.
And the changes were welcome: ScreenRant's Austin King called Stories 3 "the best yet" in his glowing review. It felt like a breath of fresh air for the franchise, especially after the controversy surrounding the latest mainline entry Monster Hunter Wilds.
ScreenRant's Lee D'Amato sat down with Monster Hunter 3's director Kenji Oguro, art director Takahiro Kawano, lead game designer Daisuke Wakahara, and executive producer Ryozo Tsujimoto to discuss the thought process behind the game's development, and how its characters, world, and monster designs evolved over time.
A Clear Vision
In part, the visual style of Stories is a way to distinguish it from the main series. Its distinct, anime-inspired art reflects the tonal and story differences between the mainline series and the spinoffs. Monster Hunter is all about hunting monsters; Monster Hunter Stories is all about befriending them, and restoring their ecosystem through careful stewardship. Monster Hunter is an action RPG that emphasizes the chase and challenging real-time battles; Monster Hunter Stories is a turn-based game that's more about exploration and party building.
But more so than that, the change in visual style between Stories 1, 2, and 3 was a matter of necessity. "For Stories 3, we actually changed the development to RE Engine," Kawano explained, referencing developer Capcom's proprietary game engine that has been used for Monster Hunter Rise and Wilds, as well as all major Resident Evil releases since Biohazard.
"We actually had to redesign all the assets from scratch. We couldn't use the previous assets since the game was going to run on a different frame," Kawano continued. "But with the technological advancement of the RE Engine itself, the team was able to achieve the graphical fidelity they were aiming for."
But throughout that redesign, the team had a clear idea of what they wanted Monster Hunter Stories 3 to look like. At the beginning of development, they put together a test stage with a few basic assets: one character, one monster, and one area. Although the final product is more polished, the color palette, lighting, and texture style are immediately recognizable.
And even though the art style is so different from the previous games, it feels like a natural evolution. Stories 1 and 2 targeted a younger audience, with more cartoonish aesthetics and simple coming-of-age plots that saw characters growing up alongside their Monsties. But, with Stories 3, the developers attempted to draw in mature players with a complex story and an adult protagonist.
To that end, Monster Hunter Stories 3 focuses less on one character's personal development, and more on the Riders as a concept: who they are, what they do, and what they mean to the world around them. So, the game begins with an adult character who's already an elite Rider from the very start, immediately creating a different tone and allowing the team to delve more deeply into what it means to be a Rider.
That kind of mature story requires a more mature art style, so the simple cel-shading of Stories 1 and 2 give way to the moodier, more realistic (yet still decidedly stylized) look of Monster Hunter Stories 3. Monstie size was also scaled up to match the protagonist's grown-up dimensions.
Making classic Monster Hunter creatures fit into the new style wasn't always easy. The team struggled while adapting Zinogre from the mainline series into Stories 3. In the main series, Zinogre is one of the most detailed monsters: it has multiple overlapping layers of scales, and thick fur around its head and forelegs. In the main series, you can pick out almost every individual strand of hair, which wasn't working with the more stylized graphics of Stories 3.
So the team experimented with different ways of rendering Zinogre's fur. Ultimately, instead of drawing each individual hair at a time, they settled on a sort of off-white brush, instead rendering multiple tufts that, when grouped together, make up Zinogre's mane. They also went through several iterations of its color palette, settling on a much brighter blue than in its mainline appearances to match Stories's overall aesthetic.
Character Development
One thing that wasn't always obvious, though, was how the characters would look, act, and sound. Perhaps no character's evolution reflects this better than Kora's. Early concept art for her, depicting a middle-aged, barrel-chested man, can be seen above, employing an archetype the team referred to as an ojisan, or an uncle-like character.
Kora's design took a different direction when Wakahara asked, "Don't we have too many ojisan characters in one party? Shouldn't we have more variety?" The team agreed, and decided to test some alternate designs for Kora.
Even then, though, they weren't settled on her personality. Early sketches retained elements of the original middle-aged man design. The team later experimented with more of a femme fatale look for Kora, but over time, trended more towards the stylish-yet-practical version that made it into the final game.
Simon, the player character's closest friend, also underwent certain changes during development. Originally, the team wanted to give him a "quirkier" look:
However, because of certain plot points we won't spoil here, the developers eventually decided to make Simon as likable as possible from the very start, in the hopes of appealing to a broader audience. On seeing the updated designs, Tsujimoto, who has overseen the development of all three Stories games, congratulated his team on making "the most handsome character that you guys have designed for the Stories series."
Nor did Thea, the rookie Ranger who joins the protagonist's squad early in the game, ever have a design that was set in stone. Original concept sketches showed Thea as a boy, but at some point during the development process, she became a girl, while still maintaining a kind of tomboyish innocence.
Oguro called Thea his favorite human character in the game, not just because of her design, but also because she's closer to the protagonists of the previous games. "She's basically like the newbie Rider we used to play as in Stories 1 and 2, but now that Stories 3 is more mature, we still have that little detail of a newbie Rider joining the corps and having fun."
The Deviljho's In The Details
When choosing which monsters to include in Stories 3, the developers took a two-pronged approach. For each monster, the team would ask: how does it fit with the story and the core gameplay loop, and how does it contribute to a balanced roster, avoiding an overabundance of monsters with any one particular element or body type?
As a result, not every monster the team wanted made the cut. At some point during development, the team discussed the possibility of including Ahtal-Ka, the insect monster who served as the final boss of Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate, but has failed to appear in the series since.
The team thought Ahtal-Ka, which takes the form of a giant praying mantis that spins webs to create a fortress, would make an incredible setpiece battle for a turn-based RPG like Stories. Unfortunately, the development cost proved prohibitive, so the team ultimately made the difficult decision to scrap it.
And besides, Oguro wasn't having it. Wakahara is a big fan of insect monsters, but Oguro hates bugs. Wakahara often pushed to include more insect types in Stories 3, Ahtal-Ka included, leading to many debates between the two of them.
But everyone has a favorite monster, and the team admitted that they went to great lengths to make sure theirs were included. Wakahara in particular was motivated to include classic monsters he was nostalgic for, but who hadn't gotten much play in the mainline series.
That includes Yama Tsukami, the giant Elder Dragon introduced in Monster Hunter 2. Yama Tsukami has been largely absent from the mainline series since, however, as its enormous size and limited gameplay elements make it difficult to incorporate into an action RPG.
However, since Stories 3 is turn-based, Wakahara thought Yama Tsukami would be a great fit both visually and mechanically. He says he "negotiated" with Oguro to ensure it, along with his other nostalgic favorite, Nibelsnarf, made it into the game.
Wakahara also professed a preference for Canynes, the dog-inspired monsters that first served as the player's companions in Monster Hunter Rise. Since Wakahara worked on Rise and the Sunbreak DLC, he said, he was very attached to the Canynes' design, and the team took special care to ensure some of the customizable aspects from their debut still made their way into Stories 3.
Notably, Wakahara pointed out, Canynes' physical features, not just their colors, change with their elements. Of the different elements, his favorite is the water-elemental Canyne, because of its "little ears."
Kawano, meanwhile, prefers the Kulu-Ya-Ku. As the storyboard artist for the monsters' kinship skill animations, he found Kulu-Ya-Ku's especially funny, and so cited it as one of his favorites. Tsujimoto says he preferred Brachydios for similar reasons, and has enjoyed watching how its kinship skill animation has evolved throughout the Stories subseries.
Oguro likes dragon types the best, and called Velociprey his particular favorite. During development, he would often create a party solely of Velociprey, each one of a different element, then take them all to fight the final boss.
The result was the balanced, visually distinct, and intricately plotted RPG we have today. The developers' passion for the series shines through in the care they contributed to designing its characters and monsters, and their clear vision for the world of Monster Hunter Stories 3.
Systems
Released March 13, 2026
ESRB Teen / Fantasy Violence, Mild Suggestive Themes, In-Game Purchases
Prequel(s) Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin, Monster Hunter Stories
English (US) ·