Monster Hunter Rise director reveals how the Sonic collab came about

The Monster Hunter franchise has had all sorts of unique collaborations in the past, and Monster Hunter Rise is no different. We’ve already seen a host of different franchises get tied up with Monster Hunter Rise, and one of the most surprising was Sonic the Hedgehog.

Ever wonder how that interesting collaboration came to be? The gang at Nintendo Dream magazine did, which is why they spoke to Yasunori Ichinose, director on Monster Hunter Rise. Ichinose was more than happy to reveal how it all came about, including the approvals process when working with SEGA.

The collaboration was made possible through our producers approaching SEGA. The design was done by Sonic fans on our team, and I think they did a great job with a lot of smaller details. We submitted a number of ideas to SEGA, they approved a lot of them and we made them a reality. We also submitted the songs we wanted to use in-game – it was great to be able to have Sonic music playing while out on a quest. There was also the idea of a hunter in a Sonic suit, but that didn’t work because of concerns we had about body shape among other thing.

[Yasunori Ichinose, director on Monster Hunter Rise]