Hunting and slaying giant monsters has been getting more popular in recent years with Capcom's Monster Hunter series gaining wider fame and EA's new IP, Wild Hearts muscling in on the territory. ZeniMax, the parent company of Skyrim creator Bethesda, may be entering the genre in the near future.
ZeniMax recently filed a trademark suggesting it might be developing a new title featuring gargantuan beasts. The company filed a patent with the phrase "GIANT MONSTER NEWS." Reading through the patent, there isn't much information as to what ZeniMax plans to work on.
This isn't the first time the company has courted kaiju, even if past patents didn't amount to anything. The studio filed a patent with the same phrase several years ago. Nothing was ever revealed about the project, whatever it may have been.
Fans have been speculating as to what the new patent would be used for. Bethesda does not have much experience working on monster-hunting games. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim does allow players to hunt large dragons but it doesn't have the complexity of Monster Hunter World or the ingenuity of Wild Hearts.
If Bethesda does end up making a new game featuring giant monsters, it will be the second new IP from the studio in recent years. Starfield is set to be the first new IP from Bethesda in the last two decades as it isn't part of the Elder Scrolls or Fallout series. The space exploration RPG is set to release in September.
Capcom's Monster Hunter series is probably the biggest name in the genre. Its most recent title, Monster Hunter Rise is the first game in the series to be released on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo at the same time. Rise has sold over 12 million copies since its release on the Nintendo Switch in March 2021. The Sunbreak expansion has shipped over 5 million units since June 2022.
Capcom is expected to announce its next title later this year. Fans expect the next title to be a successor to the bigger Monster Hunter World. Many assume that the next game would be available on PC, Xbox Series X, and PlayStation 5.
The Monster Hunter series will be moving to mobile devices with the announcement of Monster Hunter Now. The upcoming mobile title is being developed in collaboration with Niantic Labs, the studio behind the very successful Pokémon Go game.
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