Scoutflies, shock traps and silly hats, or how to lose 150 hours to Monster Hunter: World

I’ve never been hunting a day in my life.

This is despite growing up in a state where hunting rifles are handed out like candy corn. I’m not even opposed to the idea of hunting. I actually hate deer, and I welcome their extinction.

Monster Hunter: World, the second game in the franchise to completely consume my life–even when I'm not playing it–has convinced me that maybe I had it all wrong.

I’d played 65 hours of Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate for 3DS, certainly enough to appreciate and even fall in love with what was previously considered the best entry point in the series. And while I look back on my time with it fondly, MHW all but destroys any hope I have of returning to it, or any previous Monster Hunter.

Being a console game, complete with a console controller, helps a great deal. MHW dwarfs its predecessors in many respects, though, even without the benefit of two analog sticks or an HD display.

Scoutflies, living, breathing little green/blue signposts that keep you pointed in the right direction, make tracking objectives littered through MHW’s five sprawling zones less of a chore than ever before. Crafting has been simplified to a joyous degree. Obnoxious loading screens no longer segment each zone into an indecipherable jigsaw puzzle–though rest assured there remains a great deal of indecipherability elsewhere in Monster Hunter World’s depths.

The name is the game. You hunt monsters, harvest their parts and make new weapons and armor to hunt bigger monsters. It is a condensed, pure experience that is focused, but never linear. You define a goal (I want to wear that monster next) and then take algorithmic steps toward reaching that goal.

My hunter, left, with the eternally-plucky Handler. I can't remember what we're looking at; it was dozens of hours ago. Probably a very mean dragon.

It’s an experience that rarely feels rote, despite the ostensibly tedious grind associated with killing the same pink dinosaur four times to make a hat.

One reason why the hunt feels fresh each time is because all of Monster Hunter: World’s zones–even the one that is a literal graveyard–are teeming with life. While chasing your target, you may find another hulking beast after the same prey as you. Turf wars are instigated at the drop of a hat among monsters, and their cinematic nature reinforce the fact that these worlds carry on whether you’re there to plunder them of their flora, fauna and minerals. Rarely will the same hunt play out the same way twice.

The other major reason–and I can’t overstate this enough–is that Monster Hunter is secretly 14 different action games.

An Anjanath photobombs my hunter while my hunter tranq bombs the Anjanath.

Each of Monster Hunter: World’s 14 weapon types feels completely distinct from one another. A weapon is less representative of a moveset than a lifestyle.

Do you want to spend upwards of 30 seconds at a time airborne, flitting and sailing through bone and sinew like the world’s most dangerous kite? Then the insect glaive is for you (and me).

Or take the lance, my secondary weapon of choice and the less flashy but more substantive big brother to the gunlance. Block everything. Annoy beasts three sharp stabs at a time. And when they dare get angry enough to do something about it, counter their faces off.

The feeling of mastery associated with each weapon makes them feel like bosses to be conquered. I began to think of weapons less as a tool to maneuver through this game space, and more as the world an excuse to master these tools at my disposal.

My hunter chills at home with her pet... let's go with jellyfish.

Like any action game worth its salt, the player does the true leveling up. There may be attack and defense stats, elemental resistances, affinities and other forms of measurable progression, but the true growth is determined by how frequently you dodge a Rathian’s signature slicing backflip tail, or by learning where a Tzitzi’s blinding area of effect is.

Each monster has a moveset that evolves with its temperament. Angry monsters attack with twice the haste and three times the hostility. Weakened monsters hobble away (almost) helplessly to escape your grasp. It’s oddly affecting.

Though series vets have leveled fair criticisms at the game for being a bit more shallow than its aged brethren out of the box, the constant drip of DLC since release would suggest that the World of Monster Hunter will only grow richer with time.