Monster Hunter Freedom Unite for iOS is one of the best Capcom releases on the platform thus far. That made it extra painful when the game just plain stopped working after iOS 8.4 hit, not even a year after the game’s worldwide release. Now, Capcom’s had their ups and downs on mobile, but they’re usually pretty good about updating their games if they break, as the Ghost Trick (Free) saga shows. Unfortunately, they also tend to take a while working on those updates, as… well, as the Ghost Trick saga shows. They’re also strangely frank about the whole idea, regularly pinning notices on the App Store descriptions of their games warning people that the games might not work on newer iOS versions, even when they do.
So it was both a little odd and yet business as usual when Capcom finally updated Monster Hunter Freedom Unite‘s description to indicate that they currently had no plans to fix the game. People were rightfully quite upset, as the game wasn’t very old and was relatively pricey. With the announcement of the free-to-play Monster Hunter Explore, many pegged it as a potential reason for Capcom to avoid fixing the premium game. Then, last December, Capcom suddenly updated their Japanese site for Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, indicating they were in fact working on an update and that it would be delivered sometime in Spring of 2016. It was a little broad, but at least it was confirmation that Capcom wasn’t leaving the game behind.
If you were looking forward to resuming your monster hunting by the end of this month, I’m afraid I have bad news for you. Capcom has again updated the Japanese web site, confirming that although they’ve been pushing hard to meet the announced Spring window, some issues specific to iOS 9.3 have made it impossible for them to meet that deadline. They’re not ready to set down a new date at this time, but they assure everyone that they’ll be announcing one soon. They recognize that this has been an awful inconvenience for their customers, and they’re very sorry to those who were looking forward to this update.
Perhaps it’s not the most heartening news to hear for those who want to play the game again, but I think it’s a good sign that Capcom is being straightforward about this and not just leaving people hanging like many other publishers tend to. I just hope that the new date is sooner rather than later, and that iOS 10 doesn’t start this whole song and dance over again. We’ll update you when we hear any further word about Monster Hunter Freedom Unite‘s return schedule.
