Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection Developers Comment on New Locales Trailer, More | IGN FanFest 2026

Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection’s merchandise day is close astir the corner, and IGN had the accidental to talk to the developers successful extent astir a marque caller locales trailer released astatine IGN Fan Fest. We’ve got never-before-seen conception creation of the 3 main bases successful the crippled – Azuria Castle, Shepharden, and Galyad – and insightful commentary from manager Kenji Oguro, creation manager Takahiro Kawano, and pb crippled decorator Daisuke Wakahara.

Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection is shaping up to beryllium a beauteous game, which is wholly supported by the divers scenery you’ll brushwood connected your travel arsenic an environmentalist Ranger. The Monster Hunter Stories 3 squad allocated a batch of clip and probe into making the locations enjoyable for players, and their attraction to item shows. You tin ticker the caller locales video with commentary nonstop from the developers above, or, if you’d similar to immerse yourself successful the scenery with nary commentary and a fewer bonus scenes, cheque retired the trailer below.

Azuria

If you’ve played the escaped demo mentation of Monster Hunter Stories 3, you’ve seen Azuria. This onshore features fields, forests, and picturesque mountains connected the skyline with a castle municipality connected a lake, lending a classical storybook backdrop.

“In the plan process, we wanted to marque the stereotypical phantasy castle benignant of plan to picture however peaceful Azuria is, and to picture the beauteous quality of the satellite of Azuria and the castle itself,” Kawano said.

The squad had immoderate real-world inspiration that made its mode into the conception creation for the surrounding country of Azuria and its castle, specifically, a Spanish castle called Alcazar de Segovia. This wouldn’t beryllium the archetypal clip the castle has inspired a creator – arsenic portion of its 100th anniversary, The Walt Disney Company revealed successful 2023 that it was the inspiration for Snow White’s castle. A magical locale, indeed.

Kawano besides described however the wing-like flags correspond the wings of Rathalos to signify the peculiar enslaved Azuria has with the endangered species. The municipality adjacent has a runway of sorts for monsters to instrumentality flight, thing uniquely logical for the Stories series, wherever Riders signifier bonds with monsters called Monsties and, arsenic the sanction suggests, thrust them.

The attraction to item successful the scenery carries into the transportation of Twisted Reflection's communicative arsenic well. The main catalyst of the crippled successful Stories 3 is the “Crystal Encroachment,” a improvement with chartless origins affecting some the situation and monsters, but the Egg Quartz it leaves down is utilized by the residents of Azuria and elsewhere arsenic a root of light.

Shepharden

Shepharden is the 2nd locale the protagonist and the rangers volition visit, and if you’ve played a definite introduction successful the regular Monster Hunter lineup, you whitethorn admit the lush environment.

“One cardinal diagnostic of [Shepharden] is that monsters from Monster Hunter Rise inhabit the country astir it,” revealed Kawano. “So based connected Monster Hunter Rise, arsenic you whitethorn person known, it has a precise Eastern, Asia-like taste. So Shepharden and the surrounding country is besides designed aft that creation style.”

You mightiness besides announcement a operation astatine the basal of the stairs to the colony elder’s spot inspired by Japanese torii gates, intelligibly recognizable arsenic orange, angular arches. Right beneath that torii gross are masks stuck into the ground, which correspond the graves of the erstwhile elders of the village, explained Kawano.

Another Shepharden item the squad had to see is that this colony is not built for Riders the mode Azuria is. As such, determination aren’t stables – truthful Ratha, the protagonists’ Rathalos, is stuck into a precise tiny abstraction that’s portion of an unused residence.

Galyad

Galyad is simply a bustling, prosperous municipality surrounded by godforsaken and comparatively desolate lands compared to Azuria and Shepharden. It’s covered successful decoration, stones, and jewelry, somewhat fueled by the residents’ palmy commercialized of Egg Quartz. Kawano described that arsenic you get deeper into the metropolis of Galyad, you mightiness observe a bound betwixt the prosperous residents and the not-so-fortunate residents, and find slum-like areas.

The city’s architecture and plan is really inspired by Mediterranean regions and adjacent has a Lagiacrus fountain successful the metropolis center. It's particularly absorbing fixed the godforsaken situation – Lagiacrus is, aft all, a Leviathan monster known to inhabit the water.

“Galyad utilized to beryllium an water larboard metropolis that was floating connected apical of the ocean,” Kawano explained. “So each the jewelry and the decorations were based disconnected of the Mediterranean oversea theme, but desertification has caused the metropolis to suffer each the h2o and it is presently barren, sandy. So that is the crushed wherefore there's a quality betwixt the decorations and the existent cityscape itself.”

Monster Hunter 3: Twisted Reflection Q&A

Of course, I had to instrumentality vantage of the clip I had speaking with the Monster Hunter 3: Twisted Reflection developers, truthful I asked a fewer questions unrelated to the caller trailer I thought mightiness beryllium interesting. We got into the game's much mature protagonist, the limb availability, the situation restoration mechanic, and dual-element monsters.

The interrogation beneath has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

IGN: I'd accidental situation restoration is 1 of the biggest caller gameplay mechanics successful Monster Hunter Stories 3. Can you picture the inspiration down gathering the strategy and wherefore you included it?

Kenji Oguro: The archetypal crushed we wanted to instrumentality this diagnostic into Stories 3 is due to the fact that of the protagonist. He oregon she is the skipper of the Ranger Corps and their nonsubjective is to support and sphere the environment. So we wanted to explicit the preservation of the environment, not conscionable lone successful the storyline, but successful the existent gameplay rhythm itself.

Tthe 2nd crushed we implemented situation restoration is to grow connected the Monster Hunter Stories bid formula, wherever deepening bonds with the monsters is precise important. In the erstwhile entries, you would cod monster eggs from dens, hatch them, and rise them, but the places wherever you could get those eggs were precise constricted and were the aforesaid crossed each players. But for Monster Hunter Stories 3, by implementing this situation restoration feature, each subordinate volition person their precise ain environment. So your situation and my situation mightiness disagree a lot.

By restoring the monster populations and sending them disconnected backmost to the wilds, you mightiness beryllium capable to find immoderate uncommon eggs with dual-element monsters, arsenic good arsenic Deviant Monsters. [Deviant Monsters] are fashionable monsters from the erstwhile Monster Hunter mainline bid games. You mightiness beryllium capable to find eggs of the Deviant monsters by raising the ecosystem fertile wrong the situation restoration feature. We wanted to reward players for helping to support the situation and restoring the endangered taxon and increasing their colonisation successful the satellite by providing uncommon monsters that mightiness hatch from the eggs.

IGN: In the archetypal Monster Hunter Stories, changing a Monstie’s constituent worked differently, and was achieved by swapping genes to alteration their stats. Can you archer america the crushed down changing this method to the caller one?

Kenji Oguro: In the archetypal Stories game, erstwhile you alteration the genes of the monster and get a dual-element monster, the constituent that monster possesses wholly changes. So that mightiness extremity up arsenic a disadvantage for a subordinate if you get the incorrect combination. But for Stories 3, the squad wanted to grow the user's options much and besides marque situation restoration much unique. So they implemented situation restoration and by raising the ecosystem fertile and getting the uncommon eggs, you are rewarded with the dual-element monster.

For Stories 3, the dual-element monster volition clasp their archetypal element. So if the archetypal monster has a occurrence element, they volition support the occurrence element, and connected apical of that, they'll get their 2nd caller element. So successful the combat, players mightiness privation to support the archetypal occurrence constituent and get a caller constituent connected top.

This gives players an vantage and much options erstwhile they are forming their parties. Usually for RPG games, players thin to spell for the strongest quality oregon strongest monster with the highest stats and abilities. But processing Monster Stories 3, with the dual-element feature, you get peculiar monsters with antithetic appearances. One of [my] favorites is the Velocidrome imbued with the dragon element. So you get a transportation achromatic Velocidrome, precise badass. And that was [my] favourite monster wrong the improvement cycle.

After uncovering [my] favourite dual-element monster, [I] recovered that, "Hey, possibly I tin conscionable play with my favourite monster alternatively of focusing connected the stats oregon the quality skills." So that's 1 of the ways that the players tin bask the game. It's not conscionable going for the strongest, astir almighty monsters, but alternatively uncovering a existent spouse that you emotion and privation to enslaved with.

IGN: I played the Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflections demo, and I did announcement that the Long Sword was added to this game. It hasn't been successful Monster Hunter Stories yet. But I didn't spot the Sword and Shield successful my bag. Can you archer maine if the Sword and Shield is successful Monster Hunter Stories 3, and wherefore you decided to adhd the Long Sword?

Daisuke Wakahara: So archetypal off, we implemented the Long Sword due to the fact that the Long Sword itself passim the Monster Hunter bid is precise fashionable amongst hunters and riders. However, we did person immoderate occupation implementing the limb itself into the RPG look successful the erstwhile games. But successful Monster Hunter Stories 3, we were capable to travel up with a look to person the Long Sword articulation the limb roster.

In presumption of Sword and Shield, unfortunately, it is not going to beryllium included successful Monster Hunter Stories 3.“

And successful presumption of Sword and Shield, unfortunately, it is not going to beryllium included successful Monster Hunter Stories 3 this clip around. The crushed wherefore we came to this determination is due to the fact that we had to cautiously deliberation astir the limb balance.

When looking astatine the wide limb roster for Stories 3, we person Slash, Blunt, and Piercing limb types. And having some Long Sword and Sword and Shield would alteration the roster to spell towards the Slash limb types a small excessively heavily, truthful we had to instrumentality retired the Sword and Shield from the roster, unfortunately.

IGN: The main quality this clip astir is much of an big than the erstwhile protagonists successful the Monster Hunter Stories series. Can you archer maine wherefore you made that determination to marque the protagonist much mature this clip around?

Takahiro Kawano: We wanted to differentiate this with the erstwhile introduction stories, Monster Hunter Stories and Monster Hunter Stories 2, wherever the absorption was connected a kid increasing into a young adolescent. We decided to commencement the communicative disconnected with a full-grown big arsenic the elite rider. So successful presumption of the mounting for Monster Hunter Stories 3, the protagonist really starts disconnected already grown up arsenic a prince oregon a princess of Azuria, and is an elite rider.

IGN: Is determination thing other you privation to accidental to the fans watching earlier we fto you go?

Takahiro Kawano: As you've seen successful the video, we enactment a batch of effort into the inheritance quality designs for Monster Hunter Stories 3. So we’d similar to person the players person amusive and bask the beauteous scenery and the characters successful Monster Hunter Stories 3.

Daisuke Wakahara: Thank you to each the players for supporting the Monster Hunter Stories bid from the archetypal title. You'll beryllium amazed astatine however overmuch the Monster Hunter Stories bid has evolved passim Stories 2 and the newest entry, Monster Hunter Stories 3. We are precise assured successful this crippled and that immoderate subordinate tin bask it arsenic an RPG title. So adjacent if you haven't tried retired the Monster Hunter Stories bid yet, we highly promote caller players to effort retired the Monster Hunter Stories series.

Casey DeFreitas is Deputy Editor of Guides astatine IGN, and is simply a archetypal fleet Monster Hunter. Catch her connected Socials similar Bluesky @ShinyCaseyD.