Monster Hunter: World – Use of McGuffin’s in player narrative

‘Monster Hunter: World’ is an action RPG developed by Capcom in which you travel to a new land to explore and hunt monsters. In terms of McGuffin’s however the games best example is its loot mechanics and how they interact with the players narrative.

The way that loot works in Monster hunter is that you have to hunt and kill monsters to gather resources in order to craft your equipment. This then allows you to hunt stronger monsters and gather new resources in order to create better equipment. This basic gameplay loop is an excellent example of a McGuffin within the players narrative as each time the player finds recipes for new equipment, they embark on their own player driven narrative in order to gather the supplies in order to get that item. However, once they have upgraded all of their equipment the game presents them with a new recipe that makes their items obsolete. Whilst these McGuffins don’t necessarily act as catalysts for games overall narrative, they do act in a very Hitchcockian way of thinking for the player narrative as the loot becomes unimportant as the story progresses. Whilst the same argument could be said for multiple games with loot mechanics, the monster hunter franchise is an especially good example as they give the player clear goals in the form of equipment and make them struggle and work for it, creating a sense of satisfaction once they obtain the item despite the fact that it will become useless down the line.

Whilst this gameplay style is very fun and addictive it does however require a looser story to properly shine. This is best seen within the game itself as whilst there is an overarching plot, there is very little emotional stakes for the player as their character doesn’t have any real identity outside of being a hunter and whatever personality the player projects onto them. This is because of two things. Firstly, is the fact that the story isn’t the main appeal of the monster hunter games. Secondly, is the fact that if the player had a deep emotional investment in the story and there was suddenly an impending threat on their loved ones, the player wouldn’t want to engage the games primary loop of grinding for equipment as there would be a strong ludonarrative dissonance. For the Monster hunter game design to work with an engaging narrative they would have to either making it so that the equipment you grind to collect still has a significance to the story (like a building mechanic in a civ game) or make the game play loop far less grindy so that the player doesn’t have to spend too much time away form the main narrative.