Monster Hunter Stories 2 will have a demo on June 25 and progress will carry to the full game

Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin isn't out until July 9, but players will be able to jump in early with the trial version that is coming on June 25. Even better, the progress you make in this demo will carry over to the full game—though we don't know how big the demo will be.

Announced during Capcom's E3 2021 showcase, the free demo is just one of the bits of news we learned about Monster Hunter Stories 2. Before the announcement, Capcom showed a brand new story trailer that is the most comprehensive look at the game so far, showing us bits of the battle system and, perhaps most importantly, the narrative.

You can watch the trailer above, but it looks like the gist is that you play a hunter named Red who has inherited a baby Rathalos that is prophesied to bring about some kind of apocalypse. A major theme in the story is your ability to form relationships with monsters without butchering them and skinning them for cool armor. Being friends with monsters isn't something the other characters in the story look upon too fondly.

It's basically the plot of Dreamworks' How to Train Your Dragon, which I'm perfectly okay with because that movie rules.

This isn't the first new trailer Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin has received this week, and you can check out the first one here. MHS2 will release on July 9. The free demo drops June 25.

Steven Messner

With over 7 years of experience with in-depth feature reporting, Steven's mission is to chronicle the fascinating ways that games intersect our lives. Whether it's colossal in-game wars in an MMO, or long-haul truckers who turn to games to protect them from the loneliness of the open road, Steven tries to unearth PC gaming's greatest untold stories. His love of PC gaming started extremely early. Without money to spend, he spent an entire day watching the progress bar on a 25mb download of the Heroes of Might and Magic 2 demo that he then played for at least a hundred hours. It was a good demo.