Meet your new idols.

While gleefully carving a kill or cracking open the post-hunt box, it's easy to forget about the human element of the Monster Hunter series. At its heart Monster Hunter is about people — people who hunt monsters a lot, some of whom get exceptionally good at it. Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate's story will follow one such group of elite hunters, known as the Lead Hunters, as they are presumably hired to travel around the world to troubled locations where no-one else can help. One such place is Dondruma Town, which previously served as the multiplayer hub in Monster Hunter 2, where the main action of Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate will be set.

For gameplay features, difficulty ranks have also been added to both village and multiplayer quests from their earlier limits in Monster Hunter 4. Previously restricted to low-rank quests, hunters may now impress the village's locals by taking on high-rank quests, and the multiplayer hub sees a similar difficulty bump from its previous maximum tier of high-rank quests to top out at G-rank. Monster Hunter series producer Ryozo Tsujimoto and director Kaname Fujioka discuss more of Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate's new features in the video, including a glimpse of a new felyne hunter's helper action:

Can't wait to see the Lead Hunters in action? Want to see them prove that they're all that and a bag of Tanzia chips? Think one of them is absolutely dreamy? Please get commenting!

[source siliconera.com]