Game subtitles so rarely tell us anything about what’s inside the box. How can warfare be infinite, who was actually doing the reckoning in Kingdoms of Amalur, and what the hell is a ‘Breath of the Wild’ anyway? It’s almost a shock, then, to discover how perfectly “World” sums up Capcom’s achievements with the newest Monster Hunter

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“ High-Rank's “post-game” content essentially doubles the amount of gear to lust after.

Its hunting grounds feel expansive, each a separate ecosystem that would tick along nicely by itself without your involvement. It presents a near-overwhelming world of possibilities for customisation and specialisation. Most importantly, it’s somewhere in which you could end up spending so much time you might as well be living there.Monster Hunter has always been a series that offers much and more. Its games are, broadly speaking, action-RPGs built around a single gameplay loop. Like in many modern crafting games you begin with nothing but a flimsy weapon and the chainmail on your back, but as you take on monster-hunting quests you harvest materials from your prey and the environments they live in, use them to build stronger gear, and then use them to take on stronger monsters to get even more gear. The beauty is in how many ways it offers for you complete that loop.Monsters themselves come with a wealth of strengths and weaknesses and many, many materials to harvest, all of which can be used to create tens of possible items. You also have an adorable cat companion called a Palico which can be outfitted with its own gear, all offering different bonuses for your character. And when it all seems like you’ve got it sussed, along comes High-Rank, Monster Hunter’s “post-game” content, which changes some monsters, adds new ones, and essentially doubles the amount of gear to lust after.The deeper you look, the deeper it all seems to get - and that sheer level of complexity has historically been what stops Monster Hunter from offering mainstream appeal. But let’s get something out of the way: there’s been an assumption among the waiting audience over the past few months that - despite the protestations of Capcom itself - World would simplify the series’ more obscure ideas to help court a western audience. After just the first few hours, it becomes abundantly clear those concerns are unfounded.

Monster Hunter has always been opaque, its menus pebble-dashed with byzantine statistics, and its combat purposefully designed to be methodical and challenging in a way that feels strange next to modern action games’ fluidity. Practically none of that has changed. This remains a game where learning is as important as doing, from potion recipes to intricate combos.

“ World is decidedly not a my-first-Monster-Hunter experience.

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Those coming in looking for an all-encompassing adventure story will find World a little lacking, too. The central plotline - of travelling to a new continent in the wake of a migrating Elder Dragon - is a neat one, and pleasantly naturalist in tone (well, as naturalist as you can be in a game about killing mythical creatures to make shoes), but it’s nothing more than a pretext for the near-endless hunts ahead.

But as far as opportunities for new experiences go, World just never seems to stop providing them – and I love that feeling. 50 hours in, it’s still regularly throwing crafting possibilities, monsters, even entirely new systems at me and expecting me to put time into learning how they can benefit my character.

“ One of the most consistently exciting, satisfying, and gratifyingly absurd games I’ve played.

Every IGN Monster Hunter Review 12 IMAGES

“ World’s mechanical changes are near-universally designed to make that loop even tighter.

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In the process, you’ll amass leftover rewards and carved-off materials that can be used to make armour sets, with each piece now offering extra skills that can turn the tables on a previously tough fight. The Jyuratodos materials I didn’t need for my blade soon became muck-resistant mail, letting me take on the mud-spewing Barroth without much fuss. The Barroth’s materials, in turn, allowed me to make lightning-resistant armor for my next campaign quest - and so the cycle begins again. The entire game is precise, clockwork engineering, sending you ticking from one task to the next, crafting better and better equipment, gradually building a toolbox of murder weapons tailor-made for World's increasingly dangerous enemies.

Perhaps the most fundamental change is in how you find the monsters in the first place. In previous games, tracking big game was a matter of wandering between zones, hoping to spot your prey and chuck a paintball at it to illuminate it on your map. The new bioluminescent Scoutflies are an excellent replacement for that sometimes-tedious task, at once more useful and more grounded in the fiction. At first, your flitting, neon swarm leads you to trackable markings left by monsters in real time - footprints, scratches, globs of mucus - and, once you’ve gathered enough evidence they’ll catch the scent of the target monster itself, leading you straight to it with a marker on your map.

“ Tracking a monster essentially unlocks its wiki page.

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The major work, however, has clearly come in Monster Hunter’s move from handheld to console (and PC, in August) where the graphical spectacle can finally match the design. World’s hunting grounds have shifted from particulate zones connected by loading screens into huge, seamless maps. Hunts feel far less self-contained and interrupted, and give Capcom’s undersung artists a much larger canvas to work with. The results range from beautiful to breathtaking.

“ Hunting grounds range from beautiful to breathtaking.

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Without the restraints of realism, Capcom has made one of the most stunning locations I’ve come across - not just in the Monster Hunter series but in gaming as a whole. It’s clear how the experience of making the older games’ bite-sized zones has fed into the art and level design teams’ new work - there’s a gorgeous vista or change of scenery around every corner.

Their work stretches everywhere. There’s real joy in seeing weapons I’d played with on 3DS turned into 4K beauties - the absurd Metal Bagpipes hunting horn I’ve tooted so often has been turned from a jut of jagged pixels into the offensive instrument it should be, its rivets shining in the sun, it’s puffbag (not the technical term, probably) showing signs of wear. The New World setting - our hunters have travelled across the sea tracking a giant Elder Dragon’s migration - also allows for a glut of new monsters and often-insane armour that can be made out of them. Freakish, skinless mega-dogs, tar-covered wyverns that make armour out of other monsters’ bones, and a chameleon-bird that pukes poison - there’s a lot to be discovered. Plus, the sunsets in each area’s day-night cycle are ridiculously beautiful.

Every Large Monster in Monster Hunter World 32 IMAGES

“ It’s not World’s looks that benefit most from the technical upgrade, but the AI.

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“ Every area has a clear food chain in which monsters (mostly) know their place.

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But World adds a new variable: personality. With multiple monsters now sharing the same seamless space, Capcom’s had to find ways to make them interact with both you and each other. You’ll quickly begin to learn which monsters are territorial, and which aren’t; the relatively weak Great Jagras might just roar at you to suggest you leave its cave home as you creep past, but try the same trick with fire-breathing, T-Rex-like Anjanath and you won’t get the same polite treatment.Honestly, the direct benefit of knowing how monsters interact is limited - at most, they’ll kick off a ‘Turf War’ canned animation, doing some of the damage in a hunt for you - but the effect of it is something else entirely. I’ve spent half-hour Expedition missions just watching these animals move around, learning where they prefer to hunt or nest, watching their fight-or-flight reflexes kick in, simply because I enjoyed getting to know them.

But for a real hunt, multiplayer is the way forward. Monster Hunter has always been best played in a group, upping the challenge to allow for titanic battles while players swap tips and secrets. World makes a much-needed change, combining the series’ traditionally separate single and multiplayer campaigns into a single string of quests. It’s a step in the right direction, but also creates its strangest problem: to play a story quest, all players must have watched any cutscenes it include (and their absurdly poor lip-syncing) first.

“ You can’t easily drop into a friend’s server.

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There’s too much else to talk about. Capturing tiny creatures to keep as pets in your house (which has become an all-consuming hobby for me), the resource-gathering Palico Safari, the ‘special arena’ area littered with overpowered siege weaponry - World once again lives up to its name by feeling practically boundless. I know I have many, many hours more to play from here, and I feel nothing but pleasure at the prospect.Debate will likely rage between Monster Hunter purists as to whether this is the best game in the series. As with any hardcore audience, attempts to streamline - particularly in how individual armour skills now disincentivise building full sets over hours of grinding - may be looked at with derision. A lack of ultra-tough G-Rank challenges might also leave some wishing for even more. Like sports games, the definitive verdict will likely be impossible until we’re hundreds, rather than tens of hours in.