After Monster Hunter World brought huge numbers of new players to the long-running series, Monster Hunter Wilds added a new open world and plenty of new monsters to hunt. While there’s a lot to do in Monster Hunter Wilds, a game meant to be endlessly replayable needs to keep growing, and Capcom already announced a schedule of event quests earlier this spring. Now, its biggest event yet is on the way, and it brings with it another series tradition: a wild crossover with another Capcom game.
Starting May 28, Monster Hunter Wilds is bringing Street Fighter 6 into the game. It starts with a new side quest, Ultimate Strength, which features Street Fighter’s Akuma. You need to be at least Hunter Rank 21 to tackle the quest, but the event doesn’t have an expiration date, so you’ve got all the time you need to get there.
Completing Ultimate Strength unlocks a new armor set that transforms your hunter into Akuma and adds an entirely new fighting style. With the set equipped, you can pull off some of Akuma’s moves, like his Gou Hadoken. A trailer released with the announcement shows Akuma locked in hand-to-claw combat with some of Wilds’ beasties instead of tackling them with comically large swords like we’re used to, and it looks like a fun way to play the game.
We won’t know exactly how fleshed out his fighting style is until the update launches, but it does seem to be complete with familiar combos and finishers. The trailer also shows off arm-wrestling contests, and even a nod to Street Fighter’s most famous minigame, with Akuma beating up a defenseless wagon.
Along with an Akuma disguise for your hunter, you’ll be able to outfit your Palico with a Blanka-chan costume, which looks like an absolute nightmare, although its convincingly felt-like appearance is impressive.
If it sounds like Street Fighter 6 and Monster Hunter Wilds are an extremely strange match, that’s sort of the point. Some of Monster Hunter’s prior collaborations have been with The Witcher 3 and Final Fantasy XV, which at least brought over monsters that could somewhat plausibly live alongside the likes of Rathalos and Zinogre. But the most bizarre crossovers come from other Capcom games, like when players were awarded armor to turn their Palico into a tiny pixelated Mega Man.
Along with the free crossover update, Monster Hunter Wilds will also be getting a new paid DLC on May 28. It features two new costumes for the NPC Alma modeled after Street Fighter’s Chun-Li and Cammy, plus other cosmetics and gestures for your hunter.
These kinds of collaborations can get out of hand. Fortnite largely exists to sell licensed skins at this point, and players recently rebelled at the idea of a Destiny 2 DLC revolving around Star Wars. It can be distracting to have famous characters pop up in unrelated games, but Monster Hunter has so far avoided adding so many that they get in the way. There’s just something charming about how bizarre some of its crossovers are, and when Capcom goes as far as adding a whole new fighting style, it’s hard not to be at least a little into the idea. We’ll find out just how effective it is soon.
