Monster Hunter: World – Iceborne Interviews and Gameplay Footage

Monster Hunter: World’s upcoming Iceborne expansion will be featured on the cover of Game Informer’s August 2019 issue, and as a result over the course of July, we’ll be getting plenty of Iceborne coverage from the outlet. To start things off, here’s a quick introductory trailer:

Then, there’s this video that showcases a “turf war” between a couple of giant monsters:

And this nine and a half minute long video interview with Iceborne’s director Daisuke Ichihara and producer Ryozo Tsujimoto that boasts a total of 79 rapid-fire questions and is a pretty fun watch:

And with that out of the way, you can watch the game’s developers have some fun playing the expansion:

Finally, there’s this article-style interview that offers a look inside Iceborne’s new hub area. A few sample paragraphs:

The expeditionary force built Seliana with the knowledge it acquired over decades of experience, which isn’t unlike how Capcom approached designing the new hub world. The team took player feedback into consideration when it came time to build Seliana, along with its own expertise in designing spaces. Director Daisuke Ichihara says that one of the big takeaways the team learned from that feedback was that Astera could be difficult to maneuver around and that certain NPC facilities were spread too far apart. “[W]e took great care when creating the new base, Seliana, in Iceborne to address some of those concerns,” Ichihara says.

“Especially the gathering hub,” Fujioka adds. “That was kind of a main focus point of some of the adjustments we made based on player feedback. For example, we really wanted to make the gathering hub a more fun gathering place, a more social-gathering environment for people, so they could communicate a little easier and have a little more fun there. And sort of use it as a social-networking space.”

We were able to explore Seliana a bit during our hands-on time with the game, and it’s striking how different the space feels from Astera. It’s smaller and has a bit of Nordic flair, and it generally has the vibe of being a place that’s on the edge of a frontier. There’s a lot of fun ambient detail, such as the various Palico helpers who carry parcels around the camp or the Poogie who wanders around in a sweater – a tiny icicle dangling from his snout. On the edge of town, you can watch wagons getting loaded before disappearing down the road. These are largely inconsequential details as far as gameplay goes, but they go a long way in selling the illusion of a bustling new community. NPCs like the chef and forge aren’t quite as far away from one another, which is at least partially due to Seliana’s smaller footprint.