I wouldn’t have thought that the Venn diagram representing fans of the beast-slaying Monster Hunter series and lovers of Animal Crossing’s cosy community-building would have too much overlap, but promising action-RPG Monster Fantasy may well prove me wrong. At a recent BiliBili Game First Look event in Shanghai, I got hands-on with a very early build of this hybrid adventure that gives players the flexibility to choose whether they want to seek the thrilling challenge of big game beast-hunting or the laid back chilling of just catching bugs and good vibes with their fellow villagers. It’s only early days in Monster Fantasy’s development and there’s clearly still a lot of work to be done, but so far this combination seems like it could be as pleasant a surprise pairing as the first time I dipped a french fry into my thickshake.

Monster Fantasy is an action-RPG of many contrasts. That much was apparent as soon as I laid eyes on the art style, which takes adorable Chibi-style character designs and juxtaposes them within a series of realistic and detail-rich biomes, from rolling hills to desert plains and intimidatingly vertical volcanic areas that make up a kingdom called Eldoras. These monster-riddled expanses are accessed via the large teleportation crystals found around the main village hub, though the bulk of them were locked in the build that I played, restricting me to the exploration of a woodland area pockmarked with caves to explore and small streams to navigate.

There are four character classes available in Monster Fantasy, with Chinese developer Jotoyo hinting to me that a fifth might be added before the game’s eventual release. The classes are largely self explanatory – there’s a warrior, a swordsman, an archer, and a mage – but the differences between them are quite substantial, and you can switch between them on the fly simply by swapping out your currently equipped weapon. Unequip your sword and shield and replace them with a staff, and you instantly switch movesets from warrior to mage, for example. Although given that the inventory menu doesn’t pause the action you need to ensure you’re out of harm’s way before you take a moment to change up your approach.

Warrior seemed like the most approachable class for beginners, seeing as though it allows you to block incoming attacks with a shield to minimise damage and, if you nail the timing, perform perfect guards that make you temporarily invulnerable so you can deliver a series of uppercut sword slashes and shield bashes without putting yourself in danger. If you’d prefer to dodge rather than block, then the swordsman class might be more your speed. It equips you with a pair of katana for rapid horizontal and vertical slices, and each perfect dodge you nail introduces a doppelganger of your character into the arena, who can eventually be triggered to attack your monstrous prey in one simultaneous assault from all angles.

I also dabbled with the archer, who’s able to deliver barrages of homing arrows from afar, but my favourite of the two ranged classes available was definitely the mage. By holding down the right trigger the mage can hover in the air, which makes it the most mobile of the classes, but it can also cast spells by chanting combinations of four different elements mapped to the controller’s face buttons. You can volley shards of ice or blast swirling tornado attacks, but you can also perform more defensive magic such as conjuring up a crystal-like wall to absorb a single enemy attack. Charge up a combination of fire, water, earth, and wind, and you can blast a sustained energy beam at your imposing opponent that steadily strips health off it in a spray of hit point numbers. I was serving up more earth, wind, and fire hits than a casino lounge cover band.

I was serving up more earth, wind, and fire hits than a casino lounge cover band.“

While the full game will feature over 50 monster types, the build that I played was limited to just three major bosses: a grizzly bear-sized squirrel, a large rhino beetle covered in stony plates of armour, and an enormous griffin that was able to unleash a combination of fierce assaults both from the ground and in the air. While I was able to make light work of the squirrel, whose rolling attacks were clearly telegraphed and quite easy to counter, my battles with the beetle and griffin were far more drawn out in comparison, but also much more satisfying to complete. I particularly enjoyed blasting the armour plates off the beetle in order to deal additional damage to the exposed flesh underneath, frantically unloading as many attacks as I could before it could burrow into the earth and emerge with its stony shell repaired.

Besting that beetle took a full 20 minutes, and my reward was merely the sense of triumph I gained by watching its freshly conquered corpse collapse in a heap. However, in the full game you’ll be able to capture each monster and convert them into mounts, as well as cultivate rare crafting ingredients from their dead bodies in order to assemble stronger weapons and armour in a quicktime event-based forge system.

Once you beam yourself back to the safe confines of your village, the soundtrack shifts from up-tempo metal to an eminently more laid back flute and acoustic guitar pairing, with the gentle chittering of wildlife sounds further enhancing the relaxing atmosphere. In the settlement I explored in the demo build, there were countless homes, mills, and vendor stalls, as well as a bulletin board for quests, fields dotted with scarecrows and haystacks, and a tavern to potentially sink a few ales in after a hard day of griffin griefing. Aside from the NPCs peddling their wares in the village’s market, there wasn’t much in the way of interactivity here, but I’m told that in the finished game you’ll be able to completely customise the layout and gather resources to expand the township as you see fit.

I’m also assured that every villager will have their own personality and pursue their own hobbies, but since the build of Monster Fantasy that I played was entirely in Chinese – and there was only so much of juggling a controller in one hand and pointing the Google Translate app on my phone at the screen in the other that I could manage – I’ll have to take the developer’s word for it for now. I was also told that the team is currently exploring the inclusion of romance with your fellow villagers, should you wish to take a break from taming dragons found in the wild in order to tame your neighbour’s heart instead.

I was also told that the team is currently exploring the inclusion of romance with your fellow villagers, should you wish to take a break from taming dragons found in the wild in order to tame your neighbour’s heart instead.“

In fact freedom of player choice is core to the Monster Fantasy experience. If you want to try and slay every behemoth that stalks its game world then you’re free to do so, but if you’re a more peace-loving player then you can just fish, mine, cut down trees, and catch exotic butterflies, and focus on growing your township by inviting NPCs you meet throughout the world to move in, much like Animal Crossing. Even if you require a certain exotic ingredient for crafting, such as the teeth that can only be claimed by killing one of the aforementioned super squirrels, you don’t have to actually get your hands dirty – you can just task one of the more battleready villagers to go on a hunt in your stead. Just don’t send anyone you’ve become too attached to, because there’s always the risk they might not come back in one piece if you happen to send them to stalk a particularly powerful beast. Alternatively, you can recruit NPCs to come and hunt alongside you, or band together with up to three other friends via Monster Fantasy’s four-player co-op system.

Monster Fantasy doesn’t yet have a confirmed release date, and given the early state of the build I played I wouldn’t anticipate the finished game any earlier than mid-2027. In the meantime, the developers told me to expect a public beta test for the PC version to go live in the coming weeks. That beta test will feature a full English translation, and will also include a comprehensive tutorial not present in this preview build to get players up to speed with Monster Fantasy’s systems much faster. Getting Monster Fantasy into the hands of the fans early seems very important to the development team, because it indicated to me that it will be relying on player feedback to help sculpt everything from the design of the game itself to determining the monster that will appear on the game’s cover. Clearly Monster Fantasy is focussed on fostering a healthy community, both within the game itself and in the fanbase that follows its development, and I’m definitely keen to see how the experience evolves from here.

Tristan Ogilvie is a senior video producer at IGN's Sydney office. He attended BiliBili Game First Look as a guest of the organisers.