Monster Hunter Stories 3’s character creator is officially revealed — and it features a cosmetic that’s normally paywalled in the mainline games

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At Gamescom Asia last weekend, Capcom revealed new footage of Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection, the next installment in the Monster Hunter role-playing game series.

The gameplay was almost exactly like the demo shown at Tokyo Game Show 2025, featuring the same exploration and combat. However, there were a few important changes.

We got a glimpse of gameplay featuring the playable female main character, and saw the game’s detailed character creation tools for the first time.

Shortly after the event, Capcom shared the character creation gameplay footage on their official Monster Hunter X (formerly Twitter) account, allowing everyone to get a look. Initial impressions are very positive.

Compared to creating characters in recent Monster Hunter games, older Monster Hunter Stories titles had a simpler character creator. You could choose things like hair and skin color, and there were also some options to change your character’s facial expression, which suited the series’ anime-inspired look.

Monster Hunter Stories 3 will have twice as many character customization options as earlier games. This is likely to bring the level of detail in line with the impressive character creation tools found in Monster Hunter World and the upcoming Monster Hunter Wilds.

You can personalize your character with tons of options, including eye shape and color, jawline, hairstyles, lip shape, skin tone, tattoos, and other cosmetic details.

You can even customize your character’s hair with styles inspired by famous monsters from games like Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin.

I was really excited to see that you can get Wyverian Ears as a cosmetic item – they let you dress up like the elf-like Wyverians from Monster Hunter!

It’s notable that this cosmetic item is typically something you’d have to pay extra for in games like Monster Hunter Wilds and Monster Hunter Rise.

Players who preferred to play as a Wyverian rather than a human character in Monster Hunter had to spend additional money to do so.

It’s great that Monster Hunter Stories 3 lets you use this cosmetic item right away just for purchasing the game. Capcom should definitely offer this perk more often.

Let us fight for our cosmetic rewards, not pay for them.

I think Capcom has become too focused on making players pay extra for things like character skins and animations, and they really need to reconsider this practice.

We’d like to see these items obtainable through regular gameplay – either by completing quests, tackling challenging event quests, or at a more reasonable price. Currently, buying them all can be extremely expensive.

I’m getting off track, but even expensive downloadable content won’t keep me from enjoying Monster Hunter games – unless the gameplay itself is a letdown, like with the initial release of Monster Hunter Wilds. I’m especially excited about Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection, as it looks fantastic so far.

I really enjoy the Monster Hunter Stories games – they’re among my favorites in the creature-collecting genre, similar to Pokémon, on PC. I’m especially excited about the upcoming third game, which looks like a major leap forward not only for the series, but for all games of this type.

Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection will launch on March 13, 2026, for Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC through Steam.

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2025-10-21 15:10