Former Capcom concept artist Masashi Kageyama has shocked Monster Hunter fans by revealing that he is not credited on Monster Hunter Wilds despite having worked on the game for three and a half years – more than half of its total development period.
The reason why Kageyama has been omitted from the title’s credits is that he left Capcom prior to the game’s launch. According to his LinkedIn profile, Kageyama worked at Capcom for 3 years and 8 months before leaving in November 2023.
During his time at the company, Kageyama did concept art for Monster Hunter Wilds’ environments. While the artist himself did not make any specific comments nor express dissatisfaction – merely letting his followers know of his involvement in the game – his revelation on X has prompted a lot of shocked reactions, as many people were not aware of the practice of companies omitting staff from credits if they leave.
In fact, such cases are shockingly common in the game industry, one notorious example being when over 50 Rockstar North employees had their contracts terminated and were subsequently removed from GTA V’s credits.
Although the practice is frustrating and feels unfair, companies are, in most cases, not legally obligated to credit staff, let alone former employees. This makes it difficult for creators to do anything about being left out or removed from the credits of projects they’ve worked on.
For those who’d like to show support for Masashi Kageyama, you can find a lot of his artwork on X and ArtStation.
