In Nintendo’s Treehouse @ E3 stream, some of the developers over at Capcom came to the event and showed two hunts from Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate for 3DS. Let’s recap what was shown off.

The first mission shown off was a 2 player hunt against an early game monster called the Tetsucabra inside a giant cave system. The monster itself looked like a cross between an Anklyosaurus and with the tusks of a mammoth, who mainly attacked by throwing rocks at the enemy or swinging its giant tail around. The demo itself was tuned for 4 players so the devs did not actually succeed, but they showed off a fair bit of gameplay.

This monster certainly means business, even for a low level one.

One of the main things shown was the emphasis of vertical movement and climbing. In the stream, one of the devs was seen climbing on the Tetsucabra, jumping on its back and stabbing it repeatedly to deal major damage. It seems very similar to Dragon’s Dogma, another Capcom RPG, with players trying to jump on monsters and attacking weakspots while other players trying to distract. At one point, one Hunter was even seen to leap off a wall to do a jump strike on the monster, showing the greater movement options available in MH4U when compared to MH3U. One of the devs also used one of the game’s new weapons, the Insect Glaive which not only works as a giant bladed staff with great mobility and reach, but can launch an insect at enemies which can steal up to 3 buffs from enemies to buff your character.

The Gore Magala is MH4U’s flagship monster and it looks damn scary.

The second mission showed off M4HU’s flagship monster, the Gore Magala which looks like a cross between a Deviljho and a Rathalos, to create a terrifying black wyvern. In this hunt, what was mainly shown off was how this fight will work, with the devs trying to take out this monster by jumping on its back and using the new vertical movement in the game. In the game’s story, the Gore Magala takes on a big role like the Lagiacrus in MH3U, by threatening your village with a mysterious virus.

In battle, this virus works by slowing infecting the player with spores coming from the monster’s fur or breath attacks. If you leave the virus unchecked for too long, you will take a massive hit to your damage and defenses, even negating red health recovery. You can stall the virus by using a status healing item but if you keep attacking the Gore Magala, you can actually cure yourself of the virus and gain a boost in affinity and can actually make you immune to it for a short time. This hunt shows you some of the ‘risk/reward’ tactics on show in MH4U and how the game is pushing you to go on the offensive during a battle.

Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate will release in early 2015.