Monster Hunter World becomes first Capcom game to ship 15 million

Capcom says Monster Hunter: World has become the first game in its history to exceed 15 million units shipped.

The company’s best-selling title of all time released in January 2018 and reached the latest sales milestone on January 2, 2020.

The hunting action game has now sold double that of Capcom’s second best-selling title, 2009’s Resident Evil 5, which has sold some 7.5 million units.

Monster Hunter World: Iceborne, a premium expansion which also requires the base game to play, has now shipped four million units worldwide with recent sales driven by its PC release on January 9.

Iceborne released for PS4 and Xbox One in September 2019 and shipped 2.5 million units in its first week.

The Monster Hunter series launched in 2004 and cumulative sales exceeded 61 million units as of January 15, 2020.

In terms of lifetime sales, Monster Hunter is ahead of Street Fighter and second only to Resident Evil, franchises which had sold 43 million units and 93 million units respectively as of September 30, 2019.

Capcom is scheduled to report its third quarter financial results on February 4 when it should provide updated sales information for its popular games and series.

“Moving forward,” the publisher said on Wednesday, “Capcom plans to carry out a number of initiatives to build excitement for the series across a wider audience, including the Monster Hunter World: Iceborne XR Walk attraction, which is scheduled to run at Universal Studios Japan starting in March 2020, as well as the first Hollywood film adaptation of the Monster Hunter series.”

Ryozo Tsujimoto, head of Capcom’s consumer games development division 2 and producer of the Monster Hunter series since 2007, told VGC last year the publisher is “not giving up” on the idea of creating new original game series, despite its recent focus on core franchises like Monster Hunter and Resident Evil.

Capcom released a new Resident Evil 3 remake trailer focused on the Nemesis creature on Tuesday. The game’s set for release in April and will include new asymmetric multiplayer mode Resident Evil Resistance.

VGC’s Monster Hunter World: Iceborne review called it “a monster-sized expansion that builds on and enhances Monster Hunter: World in every way”, and “an essential upgrade for hunters craving new monsters, challenges, and gear”.