The Arkveld Conspiracy, The Last Areas, A Strange Conversation, and an Update from Me
I've had a day.
This is gonna be a bit of a ride. So first I want to like immediately rip the bandaid off:
Capcom has basically been doing an enormous misdirection campaign and our assumptions based on what they've given us are most likely faulty. If I'm right about this, then the flagship on the cover, and in the render, is IN FACT FW Arkveld.
So, we have, all along, seen FW Ark. This means too, that the beta Arkveld is indeed FW Ark, at least in appearance. I'm still pretty convinced it's using a toned down moveset for the beta, or that it uses GArk's (given that the beta is all low rank (in code) monsters), simply on the merit that it's the final boss, but who fucking knows, I could be wrong. I will say in fairness to myself, Capcom has deliberately obscured this in such a way that it was near impossible to tell. Let me explain. They've been extremely subtle in their trickery. For this, we need to look at every trailer ft. Arkveld.
I'll start with the end point that sent me on this Wendigoon tier conspiracy spiral. I was speaking to u/commander_viperius the other day about this topic in a thread on Arkveld's eyes. Given our assumption that they've been showing us Guardian Arkveld this whole time, I thought it was just that her eyes turn black when Aberrant. However, when discussing this later on discord, I noticed something.
She has stripes on her horns. Not just veins, but you can see here there's striations down the horns in a stripe pattern. Not pictured, but she also has some markings on her chain wings too, which aren't on FW Arkveld. Also I believe the white on her body is 'paler' than we've seen, and the mouth is not as rich of a blue, it's more grey. What else had stripes?
Guardian Rathalos did. What doesn't have stripes?
Arkveld in the Iceshard trailer. It has grooves on the horns, but they're very distinctly not the striations on Aberrant Arkveld's horns. And, of course, it has pupils and lacks the Wylk veins. So, this sent me on a quest of looking at every single frame of Arkveld we can see in the trailers as well as listening to all relevant Arkveld audio, to try and sort this all out.
Let's go ahead and get the other 2 relevant screenshots from the Launch Trailer out of the way, the ones that definitively show what we can absolutely say is Guardian/Aberrant Arkveld due to being in the Wounded Hollow* (I'll get back to that later) and being covered in the same Wylk veins as Guardian Rathalos.
This is the very first decent image we get of Arkveld in the 4th trailer. It's got the veins. The eyes of Arkveld are obscured enough in every shot to not reflect light either - meaning they're probably also black.
Draining Uth Duna - the veins. Can't tell w/ the eyes.
Fighting Rey Dau - the veins.
Now, this shot was the source of confusion for me that I was talking to commander viperius about. It LOOKS like Arkveld has an iris and pupil in this shot where's she's looking up and roaring at Rey Dau:
But it could be that G Arkveld's eyes do have pupils, but the particular sandtide lighting here has made the black eyes illuminated in such a way that it looks more like the normal Arkveld eye rather than the black one. I was thinking maybe it's possible that Arkveld's veins flicker in and out, as some shots they appear to dim compared to being visible, or maybe that it only glows after draining something. But, it hasn't drained Rey yet, and there's a bit more later.
Now for the devious part:
These 2 shots are cut back to back, with Nata talking over them.
These are intercut in a very subtle way. The entire 2nd half of the trailer is, actually. For example these two scenes are cut back to back.
Now I had to go look in the audio files about this. I was wondering if they were bait and switching us or something, but the way they've done this, is that the first image is an image of the beta Arkveld grabbing Rey Dau out of the air in gameplay, the 2nd is from the cutscene of Rey Dau and Arkveld fighting, which is the first time we encounter Rey and have to fight it in the story, as "That must be this region's apex predator!", "Is that monster... absorbing its energy?" Nata going "Why? Why did it attack us? There must be a reason right?" and "You have a weapon and you do nothing!? Give it to me, and I'll...! I'll....!!", those are literally all part of the same cutscene, ending with us having to fight Rey Dau who is rampant after being drained, in order to save the village (with Olivia alongside us at least according to the audio). I also noticed that it's really hard to tell with the lighting if the Arkveld in the 2nd screenshot has veins, but given the context that's very safe to say it's GArk, but they could have genuinely swapped the textures to make the trailer shots more seamless, but that could imply that it doesn't glow more intensely just after draining something.
My conclusion therefore is - the only main VISUAL difference between GArk and FW Ark is that FW is slightly darker, the mouth is slightly bluer, its eyes are 'natural', it has red blood, and it lacks guardian veins and stripes. This means the beta Ark is indeed 160_00. However, the beta Arkveld does also have parameters for crystalization upon death, turning into Corpse Crystals, something only the guardians do while normal monsters rot over time instead. On every other monster, the value is set to 0, but the beta Arkveld is 30. I believe this % correlates similarly to how normal monsters have about a 30% to become Wyvernsprout ingredients. The game counts it as though it's rotting, but the texture does not change like other rotting monsters .
This to me implies it's taking aspects of GArk still, perhaps the moveset, but on the body and blood and such of FW Ark. But again like I said, they could have just put the final boss in the beta, but I'm not cynical enough (yet) to fully believe that. This tragically means my progression chart was wrong on the visuals.
In addition, there's the weapons. The GS is a good example because it's slightly more clear that the SnS.
The GS on the left is FW, and has none of the veins and is slightly darker, the one on the right is Guardian, and you can see some of the white stripes.
-
Now for the 2nd thing, which will be important for the 3rd part. I wanted to document everything we know about the two specific names "Wounded Hollow" and "Ruins of Wyveria". We know of these names through audio, and one text entry. I'm gonna go through all this, giving transcripts of every audio file that mentions the Wounded Hollow:
Wounded Hollow:
- "Forgive my forwardness, but might you help with the monsters newly come to Wounded Hollow?"
- "I am pleased to see there are no injury reports regarding your quest to the Wounded Hollow."
- "We've received reports of an Ajarakan rampaging through the Wounded Hollow".
- "Masterful work, Hunter! And with no damage to the Wounded Hollow or surrounding environs."
Ruins of Wyveria:
- Fucium Ore Description: "A mysterious metal found in the Ruins of Wyveria, capable of fusing any other materials together."
- "I do. But this time, I require a species found in the Ruins of Wyveria. As you surely know, it is a place rife with peril. Please be extremely cautious."
- "I saw the latest report from the Ecological Survey of the Ruins of Wyveria!" (The previous 2 lines are referring to some rare endemic life I believe)
So we have specific names for the Wounded Hollow and the Ruins of Wyveria. Why the distinction? I at first thought RoW could be Zotia's arena that expands a bit, but I think more likely, that the lower part of WH is specifically a subregion refered to as Ruins of Wyveria. We know there's a 2nd part of the area we can only access after we meet the All-Harken in Suja village (name also confirmed via audio btw), so perhaps that specific region is referred to as Ruins of Wyveria, while being a part of the Wounded Hollow map overall. The fact that "Ruins of Wyveria" is capitalized means that it's significant, and not just referring to the area broadly. Now, the primary reason I bring this up is...
A WEIRD CONVERSATION I HAD TODAY
[REMOVED - IT WAS LEGIT]
I plan to work on my next project (compiling a list of the skills, effects we know of, and all decos + combination decos) over the remaining days, and of course report any findings or things of significance, but I gotta take a vacation or something until the game comes out. I had planned to do the armor as well but I don't think I have the mental fortitude to do that. I gotta find something to play alongside my Countdown to Wilds daily MHRise and World series to serve as a nice distraction, because while I'm not having any kind of burnout I'm recognizing that this is starting to affect my sleep and dreams and make me worry far more than it should due to the perceived pressure I have as being a community figurehead and seeing my info spread to various places (I've seen my posts on korean forums, 4chan (I stepped in there to see if the guy talking to me was saying some shit from there), gamefaqs, other discords, even fucking TikTok apparently where people were saying my progression images were fake because lagia in it which is just funny tbh, and the fear and worry of being wrong and being blamed for getting people's expectations up or being considered an unreliable source when my goal is always to present the best and most accurate information as possible and combat misinformation. I know people have said I shouldn't worry about it or that I'm taking it too seriously but that's just how anxiety and being neurodivergent works, it's irrational and not something I can really help. I can at least however recognize I am to some degree being irrational and taking it too seriously and that my mind is taking the worst possible conclusions as being more likely than they really are, and I'm most likely being too affected by bad faith actors and trolls, but I'm not usually used to being in a position of such 'influence' or notoriety.
Anyway I'm not saying I'm leaving the subreddit or anything, just that I think I'm like idk worried about being wrong and disappointing people again for one thing as well as that I just gotta take a break from deep dive spec stuff like this. I'll still be around and replying and stuff and answering questions.
All that said I do want to thank like 95% of people here for all the kind words and thank you posts, shit like calling me "senpai" and all that, saying I'm a cornerstone of the community, saying that my work makes the wait for Wilds easier, it's very endearing and that has helped keep me sane, knowing that even if I am wrong sometimes my work and effort is appreciated so my madness isn't just wasted. And to close this out, here's something funny from u/Sploochie_
