>>14140235
>most of the new monsters in World
I don't know if you've played any other Monster Hunters, but I know for sure many monsters at least in the 3DS ones are also just retextures.
This is the progress they probably go through to make a completely new monster
>get some art, gotta start from somewhere
>give it to the modeler, who models it out in Zbrush
>at this point textures might be painted onto the model or general texture work is done, this leaves you with a set of textures that are basically just images
>you can change color to those images in photoshop and apply them to the model to completely change the colors of the model
>the sculpt is extremely high poly, which cannot be used for games
>the modeler then deletes faces to reduce the polycount so that it will be able to be used for games
>this is a very time consuming process
>once that's done, the model needs to be rigged
>two or more legs isn't really any more time consuming
>once that's done the model needs to be animated, which depending on your experience will take around the same time even if the model has 2 or more legs
Of course multiple monsters with similar skeletons might use the same animations, just like all humanoid characters will use the same animations.
However I do not know if this is something Capcom does, however if they do that is true of any type of skeleton.
A four legged monster could share animations with other four legged monsters, etc.
I'm not an animator or a modeler but I've worked a fair amount in tandem with people that are and this is a very generic walkthrough of the process they used to make new models.
tldr: yes changing a texture is easier than making a new model and/or new animations