Monster Hunter Outlanders sets its mobile launch for 29 October
Capcom's flagship hunt moves to iOS and Android as a free-to-play release at the end of October, with TiMi Studio Group building it.
Monster Hunter Outlanders will land on iOS and Android on 29 October, Capcom has confirmed, taking the company's flagship hunting series onto mobile as a free-to-play release.
The game is being built by TiMi Studio Group, the Tencent Games subsidiary behind a long list of mobile hits, and Capcom is treating it as a way to grow the hunting audience rather than a side project. The wider series has now passed 131 million units sold, a figure Capcom dates to 30 June.
What you actually do in Outlanders
Outlanders is billed as survival hunting action. Players track and fight monsters, explore open fields and gather companions from different regions to hunt alongside them, with the controls rebuilt around touchscreens rather than a gamepad. Capcom's pitch is that the result stays flexible without becoming fiddly.
The mobile market is the point
Capcom is refreshingly blunt about the motivation. The company says it will keep leaning on its biggest brands to broaden recognition of its intellectual property and wring more value out of its catalogue in what it calls the growing global mobile games market. Mainland China gets its own version from 2027 onwards.
Our opinion
Mobile Monster Hunter has always been a different animal. Monster Hunter Now asked you to walk to your hunts, while Outlanders looks as though it wants the full ritual in your pocket. The Tencent connection is the tell: this is a play for the enormous audience that has never bought a console, and Capcom would rather rent them its signature monster than sell them a boxed copy.