EA has high hopes for Koei Tecmo’s ‘incredible’ monster hunting game Wild Hearts

Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson has said he has high hopes for upcoming monster hunting game Wild Hearts.

Set to be published through the EA Originals label, Wild Hearts is being developed by Omega Force, a division of Koei Tecmo best known for the Dynasty Warriors games and its various spin-offs.

It is set in a fantasy feudal Japan, where players battle against giant nature-infused beasts called Kemono with the help of Karakuri, sophisticated mechanisms crafted from a lost, ancient technology.

Players can either journey through the land of Azuma as a lone wolf or pack-hunt with up to two friends in co-op, with crossplay supported across all platforms.

“It started with what felt like a pretty small idea for us internally, and every time we saw the product we were wowed and mesmerised by what they were doing,” EA boss Wilson said during the company’s second quarter earnings call on Tuesday.

“The monster hunter genre is a relatively new genre. It exploded. It is ripe for innovation and creativity and expansion, and what we see the team doing is all of the things the community is asking for in the genre.

“And the response so far has been really, really strong,” he continued. “And so, I don’t want to get out over my skis on this one, but I would tell you, I saw it and I think it’s incredible, the community saw it and they think it’s incredible.

“How big it can be? We don’t quite know yet, but I think there’s a path for this to be a really cool opportunity for us, for the development team and for the community at large.”

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Hands-on: Wild Hearts shows promise but feels far from ready

There’s a lot of potential here for EA's game to be a serious Monster Hunter contender - if it fixes performance issues

Wild Hearts is set for release on February 17, 2023 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC via Origin, Steam and Epic Games Store.

Following a recent Wild Hearts hands-on, we said there’s a lot of potential for the game to be a serious Monster Hunter contender if it can overcome a series of technical issues that were present in the preview build we played.