Upcoming Mobile Game Monster Hunter Outlanders Looks Suprisingly Faithful, but Its Biggest Test Is Yet To Come

By Elijah Gonzalez  |  September 24, 2025 | 10:30pm
Video Games Features Monster Hunter Outlanders
Upcoming Mobile Game Monster Hunter Outlanders Looks Suprisingly Faithful, but Its Biggest Test Is Yet To Come

After a hands-off presentation for Monster Hunter Outlanders, an upcoming free-to-play entry in the series headed to iOS and Android, I’ve got good news: it very much looks like Monster Hunter, at least at a glance.

Developed by TiMi Studio Group, the team behind Pokémon Unite, Call of Duty Mobile, and more, it’s a third-person action title where you play an Adventurer armed with classic weapons like the Great Sword, Long Sword, Dual Blades, and more. The camera angle looks familiar, many well-known monsters are here, and these weapons feature the longstanding abilities they’re known for.

To drive home the similarities to the mainline series, in one clip, we saw the playable character perform an Iai Spirit Slash with the Long Sword, while in another, they did that cool spinning finishing strike with the Dual Blades that makes you look like Levi from Attack on Titan. Despite controlling via touchscreen buttons, the footage we saw implied that the battles play out at least relatively similarly to its predecessors, with many of these weapons’ nuances seemingly present. I’m honestly not sure how all of these inputs will work on a touchscreen, but we will see—a press release for the game reads “familiar actions can be comfortably activated with a single button press,” which sounds like it may oversimplify things, but we’ll see if that control scheme is optional or not.

As for the story setup, the game follows monster-hunting Adventurers from across the world who congregate in Aesoland, with the player creating a customizable avatar called the Fated Adventurer—the game apparently doesn’t take place in the overarching Monster Hunter continuity, and is instead set in a separate world with lots of similarities.

Beyond the Fated Adventurer, players will also be able to unlock new Adventurers who specialize in specific weapons, such as the Long Sword wielder Midori. Each of these combatants will apparently come with different abilities and roles. While only the Fated Adventurer will be playable in the social hub areas, these unlockable Adventurers will be usable in most other types of battles.

Adventurers will come in three classes: assault, disruptor, and support. Meanwhile, each of these classes is paired with a specific type of Buddy, with assault getting Palicoes, disruptors partnering with monkey-like creatures called Rutacos, and support with birds called Trillians.

As for other additions, the game will feature a new type of monster variant called the Radiant Species, which can enter a frenzied state during battle. Classic monsters, like Ratheons, Aptonoths, and more, will return and can presumably be afflicted by this status.

As for other features, the game will include four-player co-op with an emphasis on teamwork, as repeatedly attacking the same part of a monster can trigger a state that causes massive damage. There will also be a hub world where players can congregate. While many of the details around how the game’s open world will work are still vague, we did get a confirmation that players will be able to build facilities in the wild while adventuring.

This brings us to the biggest lingering question around the game: how will its monetization work? TiMi Studio Group didn’t comment on whether these Adventurer characters will be tied to a gacha system where players roll to try and get specific characters or weapons, but they have previously stated that the game will feature in-game transactions in some form, so it seems that something like this is quite likely.

As for questions that TiMi did answer, they clarified that the game is currently only planned for mobile, with no immediate intention of a PC or console release. They also confirmed that it will feature customizable graphics settings, which is fairly important given that the game looks quite visually intensive for a mobile title. They’re also planning to add controller support.

While there are still lingering questions about what could prove Outlanders‘ biggest dealbreaker, its monetization, it will be interesting to see if the game can successfully bring the deep gameplay this series is known for to mobile. We’ll most likely learn more when the game’s Closed Beta Test begins this November.

You can view the trailer for the game here.

 
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