This customisation extends past which collectibles to gather up, and plays a major part in the gameplay cycle of MHW.Īs players hunt the monsters, loot will be gathered from the corpse of the animal which is then used to forge weapons and armour to make the player stronger. Within a few hours however, you will have developed your own style and will therefore know which items are of use to your unique character. They also offer untold amounts of items to forage that at first will overwhelm you with just how much there is. Each of these are incredibly diverse offerings, with much variation in appearance. It isn’t long though before you are thrown back out to the huge, open-world areas to thin their numbers. When you finally make it to the main hub area known as Astera, you have already encountered a few monsters and the game does an excellent job of showing you how far down the pecking order you are compared to these brutes. The same goes for all the other areas, but those are on average a higher level of difficulty. Ancient Forest, the first area you visit, is a lush and densely packed area and you could quite happily spend a few hours exploring round. Headphones in – fantastic soundtrack and all – and it’s easy to get sucked in completely. I was also not expecting how immersive the game world is. The story is used to link hunts and expeditions together into a longer narrative and is overall a more engrossing tale than I was expecting. These elder dragons also make the pilgrimage over to The New World and your main quest throughout MHW is to find out exactly why. Unsurprisingly, the voyage over to The New World does not go according to plan and the ship you are in comes under attack from an elder dragon known as Zorah Magdaros. Such is the excellence of MHW though, that this is one of my biggest issues with the game.

My only criticism with my Palico is that it is a cat, and I am far more of a dog person. If three or four people are in a party together, then the AI Palico is left on the sub’s bench. Palicoes are a cat-like companion that will aid you across each and every mission you take on, providing you are playing as a solo player or as a duo. During this voyage you can create your character and AI companion, known as a Palico. Monster Hunter opens with a group of hunters called the Fifth Fleet travelling over to The New World and tasked with making it habitable.

Monster crown metacritic