The release of Monster Hunter World: Iceborne might be just around the corner, but Capcom promises it hasn’t been pushing its staff too hard in an attempt to get the sizeable expansion out the door. In an interview with Eurogamer, director Kaname Fujioka said the company is “serious” about work-life balance.
When asked about Capcom’s approach to crunch, Fujioka said that “there’s always the tough periods at the end of development, in particular, where there’s a lot of work to do and not much time left to do it in, but as a company we do value people having core time; you come in the morning and you’ve got time to go home, you try to get the work done as much as possible in that time.”
Fujioka points out that an element of overtime is something of an inevitability in the late stages of development, but that “the company is really serious about people making sure they’re keeping their work-life balance in check, and as long as you’re getting the work done, nobody’s being tied to their chair.”
The director said that much of the responsibility for avoiding crunch falls to him and his development peers: “You have to make yourself make the balance, as well, on both sides. Part of our jobs as the heads of the development team is to make sure no-one’s overdoing it and causing themselves health issues or anything like that.”
The official Monster Hunter World: Iceborne release date is September 6, so console players will be able to explore Hoarfrost Reach this weekend. On PC, we’ve got a little longer to wait, as Iceborne isn’t expected to arrive on our platform until January. Still, that should offer Capcom plenty of time to pull off the port without resorting to a whole lot of crunch.