Monster Hunter is heading to Nintendo Switch, to Japan’s delight

The action role-playing megahit Monster Hunter is making its Nintendo Switch debut, to Japanese fans’ delight. Capcom announced that Monster Hunter XX (read: “double cross”) will be the first game in the series to be available on the console.

Monster Hunter XX was released on Nintendo 3DS in Japan earlier this year. It’s an expansion of the 3DS game Monster Hunter X, which is better known to Western players as Monster Hunter Generations. We were fans of Generations when it launched stateside last July, calling it both a tribute to the series’ past and “a stellar step forward into its future” in our review.

Monster Hunter’s particularly huge in Japan, where previous portable entries have dominated the sales charts for months on end. The reveal that the series would be available Nintendo’s new hybrid home and handheld system seems to have been well-received, according to analysts — soon after Capcom announced the Switch port of XX, Nintendo’s stock hit a nearly nine-year high.

“Shares of the Japanese firm closed up at 33,510 yen ($300.72), marking a 5.48 percent rise from the day before,” CNBC reported this morning. “This is the highest level since October 2008. Nintendo added $2.2 billion to its market capitalization as a result of the share price move.”

That’s a huge bump that the outlet attributes directly to Monster Hunter. A release date for the game hasn’t been announced for either Japan or the West; we’ll see how Nintendo’s investors react when that happens.