Monster Hunter World Beta Impressions

There’s a pretty good chance if you’re a non-Japanese Monster Hunter fan, you’ve not played a Monster Hunter on a non-handheld system. Heck, I’ve only played a little bit of one of the PS2 games solely because of college roommates. I didn’t get real into the franchise until 3G’s release, and even then it wasn’t until 4G’s release where it cemented itself as a franchise I actively wanted to play, whether single or multiplayer. Monster Hunter World sees the franchise return to home consoles (and eventually seeing it launch on PC for the first time in a way that isn’t that awful Chinese MMO), and if the beta is anything to go off of, it’s a glorious homecoming.

Being a beta, the gameplay as presented isn’t finalized, but was a pretty solid indicator of what to come. The core of the game is still “find clues as to a monster’s location, then destroy it.” The beta was split into 3 sections: a training room with one of each weapon type available to try out, a single player hunt mode, and a multiplayer hunt. Visually, the whole thing was a smoother experience from what I had played of the demo on hand at the GameStop Expo, with various UI things tweaked and resized to be less annoying. Less nice was the pain that was matchmaking for multiplayer sessions, requiring a 12 character alphanumeric password to join a room, after doing a bunch of silly things to even get to the screen to input this code. Hopefully by the time the game launches, proper matchmaking will be available, since multiplayer hunts is such a critical part of the MH experience.

There were 3 main quests available, and along with that a few bonus “extra hard” huntable monsters wandering the map. The beta was pretty good about telling players the basics of both core MH mechanics as well as the new features in World. Overhauls to tracking by use of the scout flies was something I didn’t think I would like, but as I played I found it indispensable, both for initially finding a monster then keeping track of it as it moved across the map. The hunter’s map allows for fast travel between camps, another great feature in the event you lose total sight of a monster or need to regroup with party members or switch out equipment (also, you can switch out equipment mid-quest!). You also now have a variety of things to throw at monsters beyond just knives that you can readily and easily find around the maps, making capturing a monster’s attention to lure them into a trap that much easier. The mounting of a monster feels right, with XX's addition of party member attacks no longer causing you to auto fail downing a monster. It's also been expanded upon, with a mounting player able to move around a little on the monster's back, and the monsters purposefully bashing into the environment to toss you off. Completing the mount mini-game of sorts lets the mounting player do a special attack before the monster falls, and it sure is a blast!

The weapons and armor have found themselves overhauled in various ways as well. Armor skills now activate so long as you have a single point in them. Mantles give you extra temporary perks, such as the ability to glide or to outright ignore the stun from a monster’s scream, proving themselves invaluable in combat. Some weapons have just seen minor tweaks to use (such as how fast the stamina drain in Demon Mode with the twin blades is), while others have seen huge overhauls (the gunlance is now a viable option for all players!). It felt good to want to try out new weapons and shift away from my normal twin blade usage. Other little quality of life improvements, such as no longer having to load the map in sections due to technical limitations, or bugs I could find on the map granting temporary stat boosts, or being able to climb up and grab onto bits of the environment, improved the core MH experience way more than I thought they would.

I only found a handful of gripes with the beta as a taste for the full release of World. Some of it I am sure is “beta only” stuff like matchmaking, player customization, setting up menus, eating a meal in camp instead of before a hunt, etc. Some of it is a bit bigger, like quest timing, or just how party room size affects monster health when you don’t have a full room. The scout flies can also get annoying, wanting to point out every single little thing you can interact with on the map instead of just important to the hunt objects like footprints. There's also a radial "quick use" menu that can be accidentally triggered all the time, and it's quite annoying when you're trying to move the camera around. I imagine these kinks that will be worked out by the time the full game launches.

If on release World plays this good, and fixes up my few issues, then I will be ecstatic. It ran smoothly, was visually appealing, and I didn't experience any hiccups with my online play. The new additions and reworking of some of the mechanics might not be savory to some, but much of it can be ignored if you're really not that into it. And with Capcom confirming free DLC monster quests will be added, World has the potential to be one of the biggest releases of 2018. I can't wait to see what the full game has in store.

-Janette G

Monster Hunter World releases January 26, 2018 on PS4 and Xbox One. A PC release is scheduled for a later release. More information can be found at http://www.monsterhunterworld.com/us/