I love Monster Hunter: World. Sure, I was excited for more entirely new monsters, but these fan-favorites deserved to be recreated. Every weapon type has received a couple new moves or combos – ones that don’t completely change how they handle or anything, but add a bit more nuance for experienced users. While the story is (once again) pretty much just there to pull you through the bulk of the new content, Iceborne adds a welcome new emphasis on its cast. Some are cooler than others – like the antlered Banbaro which can pick up a rock with its horns that will change elemental type depending on the location in which you fight it, or the incredible new elder dragon Namielle that has surprises I won’t spoil – but I loved every single fight I had in this expansion regardless. Monster Hunter World: Iceborne is available now for PS4 and Xbox One, with the PC version coming in January 2020. Please refresh the page and try again. A true beast of an expansion, Monster Hunter World: Iceborne adds a boatload of impressive new and returning monsters and improvements to an already incredible game. A few performance patches made 60fps at 1080p easier to hit for most mid-range PCs and improvements to mouse and keyboard controls have since made MHW feel right at home on PC, but it's still a hog at higher settings and resolutions. If you want to play Monster Hunter World: Iceborne at its prettiest, be warned that you need a beefy PC. Developer Capcom. In just a few more days, we won’t have to look at our console comrades with jealousy as Iceborne … You can all be jumping into the same hunts or off doing your own thing, but you all come back to that same space to hang out, muck about with gestures, show off new weapons or splash in the pool. One of the most tangible tweaks is an entirely new mechanic that lets you ride small monsters either toward the monster you are hunting, following its tracks, or a location you set on your map. Monster Hunter World: Iceborne Review. If these games are going to continue to ask me to think about their world then they need to spend more time entertaining the notion that its hunters are the bad guys. I say “nearly” not because I feel Tigrex and others have been nerfed, but rather that I have gotten better since I first fought them. We encourage you to read our updated PRIVACY POLICY and COOKIE POLICY. Thursday, Feb 13 2020 10:13AM. Monster Hunter World is a much more stable PC game than it was at launch, and since Iceborne is an extension of the same build, it performs as you'd expect. Visit our corporate site. Importantly, it all feels substantial and integrated in ways that complement what's already there, instead of just being gimmicks to artificially expand the game's scope. If you like Monster Hunter World, this is more of the same at its core. Blood, Mild Language, Use of Alcohol, Violence, Online Interactions Not Rated by the ESRB. It’s almost big enough to be a sequel in terms of the sheer amount of content it adds – even if it leans a little bit too heavily on Subspecies and Variants of familiar monsters at times (though that’s an issue veteran fans may not be bothered by as much). Monster Hunter World: Iceborne is an excellent expansion so large that it almost feels like a sequel. Platforms: PS4 (reviewed), Xbox One and PC MonsterVine was provided with a PS4 code for review. Engaging as its loop is, as enthralling as its fights are, I've always been disappointed that they've created such a rich ecosystem and the only thing they can ask me to do in it is murder everything. Summary: Monster Hunter World: Iceborne is the highly anticipated massive expansion to Monster Hunter: World, the best-selling Capcom title of all time with more than 12 million units shipped worldwide adding to the series total of more than 53 million units to date. It's a better version of a great game. Publisher In-house In case you missed it, you can watch our review of the base game above or read it here. A PS4 code for Monster Hunter World: Iceborne was provided by Capcom for this review. They’re all similar enough to be familiar, but each has slightly new tricks up their sleeves - like better, less predictable AI - that make their fights nearly as engaging as any other new monster. Expect to pay £35/$40 Crucially, while it made me sad to leave my lovely Xeno’Jiiva wings behind, this reset was far more exciting than frustrating. Perhaps Capcom will one day find a way to engage more carefully with its themes. However, the same level of courtesy isn’t offered to the new weapons. Iceborne isn't a full blown sequel, but it still has touches of the radical that revitalises a game that's still thriving. Regardless of what you are turning them into, the new monsters themselves are awesome to fight and look at. So yes, there's a lot of bang for your buck. While this review keeps monster and story spoilers to a minimum, the video does show off new weapons and armor from the early-to-mid points of Iceborne's campaign. … Details . There's so much substantial new stuff here, so much to see and do, it feels like one of those ludicrous platters the hunters are served before a quest. While this review keeps monster and story spoilers to a minimum, the video does show off new weapons and armor from the early-to-mid points of Iceborne's campaign… Placing pets in your Astera rooms is fun, but this is on another level entirely. 0 Monster Hunter World has been quite a success worldwide and the latest DLC, Iceborne, launched a couple of months ago onto consoles. As difficult as it is, Iceborne also provides a ton of boons to help you through each fight. With World the discomfort was extreme at times, beating monsters till they limped then being asked to lop off their tails to hear whines and squeals. Couple that with the polish on the multiplayer side and I continue to lose hours to this game. Nic Reuben. Monster Hunter World: Iceborne is a complete, paid expansion for Capcom's massively popular Monster Hunter World series. Dominic L 10/01/20 Comments Closed. No matter my complaints there's no denying how compelling Monster Hunter remains and how much Iceborne excels at improving the fundamental experience. Whether they're collapsing ice shelves or tearing up trees for battering rams, there's a sense of connection between its creatures and their surroundings that sells a rich, tactile world. Iceborne isn’t just DLC, it’s a whole new game in its own right. Until then I'll still enjoy the platter they're offering, but it can't help leaving me feeling a little empty at times. It provides a real benefit during co-op fights. It was relatively confusing to understand how it behaved at first, but my party and I eventually realized just how powerful it is. Monster Hunter: World Iceborne's rocky PC launch still haunts its Steam reviews. Seliana’s Gathering Hub is also a cut above, full of extravagant saunas and pools to sit in and interactable foot baths where you can pet and play with your palico. All of this gets put to use with a vital overhaul of the games social space, with the Seliana Gathering Hub giving players an area where they can spend time together between hunts—letting you craft and access all the vendors alongside one another. The story this time around is just as amusing and inconsequential as the original: monsters are behaving erratically, a dangerous new elder dragon has appeared, and an exciting snow-covered land unlike any of the others has been discovered. Monster Hunter: World for PC Review. Contributor. Seliana's flat and close-knit layout is so wonderfully convenient that I rarely wanted to go back to Astera. Some people can stick with the Monster Hunter format for thousands of hours, and more power to them – I was fine saying farewell after 130 hours. Most big-name games these days emphasis grandiose narrative over gameplay but MHW makes it other way around. Without giving more away, it simply feels like the culmination of everything World was trying to bring to the series. If Monster Hunter World ate up your time, Iceborne will eagerly take the leftovers. That’s not to undersell these fights. It turns out the answer is by looking you square in the eye and saying, “That fancy augmented Gamma armor you like so much? Monster Hunter World: Iceborne PC review summary In Short: An essential purchase for any Monster Hunter fan, that also happens to be one of Capcom’s best ever PC ports. The first major DLC package for the hit monster hunting game, Monster Hunter World: Iceborne is a new story that begins after the events of the main game. 2018’s Monster Hunter: World was a successful update to the long-running beast-slaying series. Like Generations Ultimate, the most recent expansion in the Monster Hunter series before this, Iceborne brings with it not only these Subspecies and brand new monsters, but plenty of returning favorites, too. While we opted to do a separate review for Monster Hunter: World's initial PC Launch in 2018 as it was the first of the series to reach the platform, World's PC port has more than proven itself since then – thanks in no small part to many helpful updates along the way. You'll need a top tier PC to see MWH at its absolute best, but it still looks and runs much better than the console versions on medium settings on mid-range PCs. I need a new review scale just for Monster Hunter World: Iceborne. But let’s get into the meat and potatoes of Iceborne: the gear. Link Official site. Monster Hunter World reached a wider audience than any other game in the franchise, mesmerizing new hunters and pleasing longtime veterans. The type of ammo influences the effect, so I found myself thinking just a little bit differently while fighting as a result, adding a touch of freshness to a familiar weapon. Review update: 1/7/20 — Iceborne PC release: 1/9/20. You didn’t have to be an expert to succeed, which made it more newcomer-friendly. This isn’t helped by the fact that upgrading weapons can sometimes force you to grind old monsters in a way the armor system explicitly avoids. PC hunters, our wait is almost over! It didn’t really feel like it was devaluing what I had earned in the base game because I was just too dang excited about what I was getting in return. Capcom has truly accomplished something special with Monster Hunter World: Iceborne, which is a massive expansion to an already amazing game.Taking place right after Monster Hunter World, ‘The Fifth’ is tasked with exploring an uncharted area known as the Hoarfrost Reach which serves as the largest region in the game to date. And that difficulty is a tricky thing. As an expansion, Monster Hunter World: Iceborne requires that players have completed the main story in the base game. I was able to stubbornly hold onto the High Rank armor I’d worked so hard to get for the first half-dozen quests or so, but when I finally decided to upgrade my total defense jumped more than 300 points in a single trip to the forge. Tigrex, Nargacuga, Brachydios, and Glavenus (each of which are flagship monsters of previous installments), plus more have found a new home with Iceborne, and I’m ecstatic to have them all in one place. Once this happens, you’re brought over to … The cosy new hub Seliana is a winter getaway full of delights, new mini games, and even saunas. Updated: 21 Apr 2020 1:09 am. It's a small thing but a glimpse of what a kinder game could be like, making it all the more apparent what a cruel game Monster Hunter is. It’s not an overstatement when I say Iceborne feels like a reset, a new starting point that ratchets everything up and leaves you with little reason to head back to High Rank (unless you are missing some stupid Vaal Hazak fangs, of course). The endgame is a promising new kind of format for the series that makes its hunts feel more organic, instead of the trawls through the quest board that the game utilises most of the time. PC Gamer is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. The new content is substantial, but the sheer amount of improvements, extensions to existing ideas and game changing additions offered up alongside the new area and monsters makes it so easy to recommend. and yet that the characters discuss it suggests Capcom are at least aware of the dissonance in its story. Multiplayer Yes The series has a long history of filling out its expansions with an influx of Subspecies – but as one of the roughly nine million players who likely started with World, it was a touch disappointing to see Iceborne’s campaign rely so heavily on familiar faces rather than new ones, no matter how fun they were to fight… and turn into pants. My main weapon is the Insect Glaive, which has two new mid-air attacks that are fairly basic, but you can now also use slinger ammo to power up your Kinsect. New York, Share Share Tweet Email. Monster Hunter World: Iceborne adds loads of impressive monsters and tons of quality-of-life improvements to an already incredible game. Yeah, it’s trash now.” I’m exaggerating here... but not by much. Let me just say, it was well worth the wait. Or so I thought. This is clearly a location that was designed with usability in mind, and its spiderweb of paths makes moving around easy while keeping all of your needed stations (the Resource Center, the Canteen, the Blacksmith, etc.) An aptly-named expansion, Iceborne, takes players to a new glacial hunting grounds and promises to improve upon the exciting action that made Monster Hunter: World an international hit. 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