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I have no idea what I think of this game. For that matter, I’m not sure when I will know what I think of this game. I’m only writing this because it seems like it might be tens of hours before I can really make a determination and I don’t want to be thinking of writing this impression that entire time. But I’ll do my best here for now.
Monster Hunter: World is a monster hunting game. You are based out of a colony in the New World and are there to “research” monsters by hitting them with a sword until they drop items and unlock more missions. This appears to be the entire game – yes, there’s a plot regarding eventually researching why dragons come to the New World every ten years, but it’s a plot in the same way DOOM has a plot. Also, you are a silent protagonist even though characters stand awkwardly around and look at your character between dialogue lines as if awaiting a response that will never arrive. It’s almost a surreal experience.
Character creation in these RPG-style games is always a lengthy process, but Monster Hunter: World takes it a couple steps further as you also customize your intelligent cat and just when you think you’re finished are presented with no less than 20 weapons to choose from (from 14 types, if the internet is to be believed).
From my time trying to pick the best options, I’ve learned that there is a fairly intensive weapon tree with many, many combo attacks to learn (few of which are better than others). All these upgrades are found by picking up ingredients or farming them from monsters. It’s a fairly straightforward idea, executed in what seems to be a solid way.
Missions are handled from the hub world, where you can travel to a number of different areas to hunt down monsters. An online component seems very baked in, to the point that I apparently joined and left another player’s server without touching a button. Honestly, I just haven’t completed enough monster hunts to be able to say how well the combat plays; I know there are strategies and combos, but there’s so much to learn that I am having a hard time knowing when I’m doing things correctly.
The one significant detriment to this game (though not mechanically, so I haven’t included it there) is the unusual amount of seemingly pointless DLC. Right now, adding all the DLC from Steam together totals over $500 – approaching Train Simulator levels. Much of it doesn’t seem worth the asking price, even on sale: $1.50 for a hairstyle, $0.99 for a weird weapon plushy thing. When the main game is full price, the strange DLC is off-putting.
Because of all that, I’m putting this into both Tier One and Tier Two – I can’t say absolutely that it will end up in Tier One, but it does seem to have a significant amount of content and depth that will take many hours to learn.