How Monster Hunter World's Resurgence Shines a Light on…

Summary

Monster Hunter World revolutionized the franchise by creating a more immersive and detailed world, with vibrant environments, realistic creature behavior, and no loading screens between zones.
Monster Hunter Rise, while keeping the open structure, falls short in terms of detail and immersion due to the limitations of the Nintendo Switch hardware and a focus on a portable experience.
The superior graphics and more complex environments of Monster Hunter World make it a more engaging and epic experience compared to Monster Hunter Rise, highlighting the importance of seemingly minor details in game design.

Monster Hunter World launched in 2018, but it has seen a resurgence of players in 2024 following the announcement of Monster Hunter Wilds at The Game Awards last year. On paper, this seems odd since Monster Hunter Rise was released in 2021 and has a similar feature set. MH Rise was initially developed for the Nintendo Switch but still retains the open zones introduced in Monster Hunter World, and it even delivers a serious overhaul to the player's movement. Still, the resurgence of MH World reveals the ways in which Rise was a step back and shows that sometimes minor details make all the difference.

The Monster Hunter franchise was changed forever by the launch of MH World. World updated the gameplay loop of hunting monsters to gather loot and get stronger for home consoles. Monster Hunter games before it were primarily made for portable platforms like the 3DS. The result was that each map was broken up into zones divided by loading screens. These older entries also feature less detailed environments and a more limited variety of monster behaviors and interactions. Hunts in older games are also usually a little bit shorter, especially at lower ranks, with the intent that players can complete quests during bite-sized chunks in their day. MH World redesigned the series for an at-home experience on more powerful hardware, allowing it to create a living world.

Monster Hunter World Feels Alive

When compared to older entries, Monster Hunter World's environments are much more vibrant and alive. There is a higher density of creatures and more foliage, and all the textures are more detailed. There is no more loading between zones, and the spaces have much more verticality and small offshoots to explore. Even Monster Hunter World's hubs are more elaborate than those of previous entries. At its core, the franchise has always been rooted in the ecology of its fantasy world, with players hunting to maintain balance in the environment and protect settlements, but World was the first time that the environment and the creatures in it were granted a genuine sense of realism.

Monster Hunter World 's environments feel alive. Each has a distinct ecology, and the creatures that live there have nests they've made and can be tracked in the environment via clues they leave behind. The environments themselves are also dynamic, allowing players to shoot down rocks from the ceiling in caves to topple creatures, for example. Its expansion, Iceborne, added snowy environments, and some of Monster Hunter World's hardest hunts. As a Switch game, Monster Hunter Rise was never going to be able to recreate all the details that made Monster Hunter World stand out from previous entries.

Monster Hunter Rise Takes a Step Back

Monster Hunter Rise kept World's more open structure, but the Switch is incapable of producing the same level of detail as other consoles. Rise was also designed to be more in line with previous portable entries. Many of its hunts are easier and can be completed more quickly, and the newly added Wirebugs let players move swiftly around the map. Wirebugs allowed for more exploration, but the maps themselves were simpler, finding a middle ground between World and older entries. Monster Hunter Rise, due to the limitations of Switch hardware and being crafted around a portable experience, lacks the lived-in environments and slower pacing of World, and it feels less immersive as a result.

Monster Hunter World's Immersiveness Makes All the Difference

Monster Hunter Wilds may feature dynamic weather and transforming environments, based on the trailer, building on the foundations laid by MH World. The winged mount of Wilds could build on Rise's mobility improvements, but most of the game seems to be pulling from its predecessor. MH Rise isn't a bad game by any means, but its smaller, more static environments are less engaging than those of World. Monster Hunter World's more detailed environments make it feel alive and make the hunts that happen in them feel more epic as a result. The superior graphics and more complex environments of World show that seemingly minor details can make all the difference.