Nintendo has offered Monster Hunter Stories: Ride On, for pre-load on the Nintendo 3DS. That means, in short, that you can buy it now on the 3DS E-Shop, and start to play the very minute it launches on 9/8/17.
Monster Hunter Stories: Ride On is going to be is an interesting addition to the franchise, and goes somewhat to show the increased interest in the west for Monster Hunter.
In Japan, there have been a staggering 44 games released across all systems including mobile phones, which includes 14 spinoffs. Compared that to what has been released internationally, totaling out at 9 games and you can see some disparity. Japan has always had a huge fan base for Monster Hunter, and so it made sense that Capcom would bring their full attention to that market with things like the Monster Hunter Arcade Game:
Monster Hunter Stories: Ride On is based on a Monster Hunter Anime, Monster Hunter Stories, in which three kids go into the world, riding on the backs of ‘Monsties’ to discover what is causing a strange blight in monsters (a theme found in Monster Hunter Four Ultimate in the west). The game will take a very different ascetic than what western fans are used to going from this:
to this:
If interested you can watch the entire anime series on Crunchy Roll. This will also mark a different direction for the franchise in the West, allowing for a younger, and less dedicated audience access to the games.
When released in Japan, Monster Hunter Stories: Ride On easily topped the charts selling over 140,000 copies at launch. However, this was a far cry from Monster Hunter Generations (Cross in Japan) which sold nearly 1.5 million copies at launch. While Monster Hunter Stories: Ride On coming to the west would seem to point towards Capcom having more faith in an western audience, we have yet to see how this is going to translate into sales.