Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate producer explains Sonic and Nintendo collaborations
Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate is jam-packed with collaborations with other franchises. Recently, SEGA announced that the game would see a crossover with Sonic the Hedgehog. Players will be able to dress felynes in Sonic armor, and there’s also a guild card based on the Green Hill Zone.
Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate producer Ryozo Tsujimoto explained to Siliconera how the collaboration with SEGA came to be. He said:
“There are actually a few people at Sega that we’re pretty close to. We were chatting and thinking if there was something we could do together—some kind of collaboration. Then we settled on Sonic, ultimately, because he’s not only popular here in Japan, he’s also extremely popular overseas.”
“Since we’re doing an overseas version of this game, it made sense to do some sort of collaborative crossover that would make sense globally. So I had an associate of mine at Sega introduce me to the person in charge [of licensing]. We shook hands, made the deal, and there you go.”
Tsujimoto additionally commented on the Nintendo crossovers in Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate – specifically Zelda and Mario.
“As you know, Nintendo helped a lot with development and they’ve been very good partners, so we wanted very much to take some kind of a Nintendo IP and do some sort of crossover that seemed to make sense from our point-of-view. And of course, with us on the development side, when you think of Nintendo, the first thing you think of are Mario and Zelda characters. Certainly, for those of us on the devteam that are in our 30s and 40s, that’s exactly the first thing that comes to mind.”
“So, we started to think of what we could do with Mario and Link-type characters. It occurred to us… as you know, in Monster Hunter, you’ve got a Sword and Shield, and Link is the same way, so it would be a perfect match. So, we went over to Nintendo, discussed, got permission, and went ahead and did it.”
