http://www.glixel.com/interviews/monster-hunter-world-leads-answer-all-the-big-questions-w488101
How do you view the relationship between Monster Hunter: World and the other Monster Hunter games? Is this a spinoff, or a main title?
Ryozo Tsujimoto:
This is the next main Monster Hunter game. Our Osaka team is working on it.
We've brought in some people who are more familiar with next-gen technology to come in and help us adapt it for the current generation of consoles.
When you have a series that runs into the higher numbers, I think the numbers themselves start to become off-putting.
New players might think, "Oh, I've missed four games already, I can't possibly join at this point." Just because we've taken the number off the title doesn't mean it's not a main Monster Hunter game.
We just wanted to have "world" in the title because it speaks to the concept of the game in a variety of ways. This is the first simultaneous worldwide release for the game, and the servers are global this time.
How do you view the relationship between Monster Hunter: World and the other Monster Hunter games? Is this a spinoff, or a main title?
Ryozo Tsujimoto:
This is the next main Monster Hunter game. Our Osaka team is working on it.
We've brought in some people who are more familiar with next-gen technology to come in and help us adapt it for the current generation of consoles.
When you have a series that runs into the higher numbers, I think the numbers themselves start to become off-putting.
New players might think, "Oh, I've missed four games already, I can't possibly join at this point." Just because we've taken the number off the title doesn't mean it's not a main Monster Hunter game.
We just wanted to have "world" in the title because it speaks to the concept of the game in a variety of ways. This is the first simultaneous worldwide release for the game, and the servers are global this time.