With the PC port of Monster Hunter Rise finally arriving a lot of players are about to jump from the Switch version to the PC port. The new Sunbreak expansion also is enticing players to hop back in after they wrapped up their initial time in the Switch version. But with these games designed to be played for dozens of hours, players sometimes feel annoyed with switching versions. So there’s a burning question about Monster Hunter Rise crossplay that needs to be answered.
Plenty of PC games support cross-save support for their Switch and PC variants. The classic RPG Divinity Original Sin 2 is one great example. But that won’t be a thing this time. There may be many reasons for this, so let’s talk through some possibilities.
Monster Hunter Rise crossplay would be a nice feature to have, but alas, it won’t be a thing. There’s a few logistical and technical reasons for this. Capcom and Nintendo may not have been able to find a solution to the challenge of combining PC and Switch server infrastructure. If there was no way to make the two systems play nice with each other, then cross-platform play was nixed.
There’s also the conundrum of cheating and modding. While modding the game is often acceptable on the PC side, consoles are a breeding ground for cheaters to ruin the experience due to lax anti-cheat. Capcom has implemented sanity-checking and a custom anti-cheat solution to the PC port, which may have made it impossible to work alongside the Switch crowd.
With all that considered, it’s a bit of a bitter pill to swallow. World players who were waiting for the RIse PC port to jump back in will probably be disappointed about the fragmenting of the playerbase. This isn’t too big a deal for public games at launch, but as the player numbers drop in a few months, the Rise PC community may be in trouble. It would also be bad news for those who have friends who play on Switch. You won’t be able to team up without someone in this hypothetical group sacrificing their save and progress by switching platforms.
