The Godzilla Vs Kong trailer only shows about four seconds of the upcoming monster movie, but I have to admit it's got me hyped to see my favorite lizard boy back on the big screen. The Legendary movies haven't really captured the true essence of Godzilla, but seeing those two giant monsters throw haymakers at each other is already enough to win me over. As studios like MachineGames and IO Interactive bring legitimacy back to licensed video games with Indiana Jones and 007, respectively, the door has been opened for more movie franchises to get the AAA game treatment. My pitch is simple: the Capcom team that developed Monster Hunter World could make an amazing Godzilla game about hunting Kaiju in giant robot mecha, Pacific Rim style.
A good Monster Hunter game needs exactly two things: lots of monsters to hunt and tons of gear to craft. The two are halves of a whole obviously, as you need all of the monster bones, scales, and hearts to make all of the powerful weapons and armor.
As far as monsters to hunt, the Godzilla universe has plenty. Several Kaiju like Mothra and King Ghidora were featured in the 2019 film Godzilla: King of the Monsters, but there are literally hundreds of Kaiju to choose from in the Godzilla franchise. From the first Shōwa movies made in 1954, Gojira has fought countless monsters of all shapes and sizes.
Variants are a major part of Monster Hunter, and there have also been plenty of variants of the most popular monsters beyond just Mecha-Godzilla. Just like Rathalos has Azure and Silver variants, Mothra has variants like Fairy, Cloud, and Aqua. Monster Hunter may call its creatures Wyverns, but the series draws a ton of inspiration from the Kaiju genre, particularly Godzilla's giant cast of monstrous characters.
As far as gear goes, we may have to look outside of Godzilla for inspiration. Another popular Kaiju franchise, Ultraman, has been using the Kaiju's power against them for decades. In the recent Marvel series, The Rise of Ultraman, a secret government organization called the United Science Patrol battles the Kaiju that come to earth and uses them to improve their technology. Everything from their high-tech research facility to the K-rays (guns) they use is made with Kaiju parts.
In this Godzilla X Monster Hunter game, hunters could kill monsters and use their energy to improve and customize their giant mech suits. Each armor piece would be imbued with properties of the monster it's made from. The parts from a flying Kaiju like Mothra could be turned into leg armor with boosters, while parts from the multi-headed King Ghidorah could be turned into a missile salvo that fires from the mech's shoulders. There's no distinction between armor and weapons on a mech, so each monster could provide hyper-specific armor pieces that add a variety of offensive and defensive abilities.
Ultimately, what I'm really after is live-action Kaiju battles just like Monster Hunter's turf wars. Anyone that has seen the ape-like wyvern Rajang grab the Godzilla-like Deviljho by the tail and slam him into the ground can imagine just how cool a "Godzilla Hunter" game would be. Fighting Kaiju in giant, customizable mech suits in giant city arenas would make this game quite different from Monster Hunter, even if the wyverns are essentially just miniature Kaiju. The Monster Hunter team at Capcom has perfected the formula over the years, so it would be awesome to see what they could do with the Godzilla IP.