The setup EA and Koei Tecmo settled on was already effective but wasn’t quite over yet. “A lot of the creative input and feedback we have given has been around tutorialization, onboarding, and clarity of features and UI to players.” The hunt continues “EA has a great wealth of experience in its user research division, and we were able to provide a huge amount of testing and data to Koei Tecmo that really helped them fine-tune the game and make critical decisions around their feature set,” Harvey said. According to EA Originals Executive Producer Lewis Harvey, this is the aspect of the game Koei Tecmo wanted to work closely with EA on, although EA provided some character and world design input to the Japanese development team at Omega Force as well. The best game openings get right into things, which Wild Hearts successfully does.

Text boxes only appear if players choose to activate them when a tutorial pops up. These are some basic fundamentals in hunting games, but the difference compared to Monster Hunter Rise is that the game isn’t constantly stopping the player with long cutscenes or large text boxes to explain basic things. During this hunt, players will learn the basics of the camera and movement controls, the attacks at their disposal during combat, how to climb ledges with limited stamina, and how to sneak up on an enemy. Soon, a small-time hunt begins as the player spots a deer-like Kemono. Wild Hearts begins peacefully, with a lone hunter walking through a forest rife with small friendly Kemono creatures. We know that our players want to experience the game and world as soon as they can, so that was the fundamental approach we took with the opening.”

“We wanted you to be able to play as soon as possible. “One thing that was very important to us was to not do a lot of explaining and then get into the story and gameplay,” Edagawa tells Digital Trends.

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