Tencent Is Shutting Down Monster Hunter Online

Long before Monster Hunter World, Tencent and Capcom partnered up to produce the China-only MMORPG Monster Hunter Online. Now that experiment is coming to an end.

Built on the CryEngine, Monster Hunter Online first released into open beta in 2015. The game was poorly supported and the launcher required to play the game came loaded with Chinese malware. Despite these hurdles, Youtube is filled with videos of intrepid Westerners giving the game a try.

While all new registrations and payments have already been disabled, the servers will stay up until December 31, 2019. Monster Hunter World is still not available in China, but the closure of Monster Hunter Online may the first hint that Tencent and the Chinese government have settled their disagreements over the game. With ChinaJoy 2019 4 months away, we may get an announcement soon.

The official reason given for the closure is that Tencent's license with Capcom has expired, but considering Tencent was the agreed upon publisher of Monster Hunter World before the government blocked its release, its safe to assume the two companies are still on good terms.

Check out the official closure notice below, but be ready to use Google Translate as it is written in Simplified Chinese.

Further Reading: Closure Notice

Monster Hunter Online Gameplay - Gumble's Grumbles