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Monster Hunter used to intimidate the hell out of me. When I tried to get a grasp of Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate when its demo came to 3DS a few years ago, the game felt unwieldy to me. I chased a giant beast around small zones, only to have it disappear behind a loading screen. That weirdness paired with my unfamiliarity with the clunky greatsword I’d chosen led to me loading up a different game and forgetting all about Monster Hunter.
My interest in the franchise was reignited by a captivating E3 debut trailer for Monster Hunter: World, which will bring the series back to consoles — and potentially a much bigger audience — next year. The 30-minute demo I played at Gamescom in August ended up as one of my favorites from the show. Maybe it was the crisp visuals, the vivid landscape or or the ludicrous design of my quarry: a Great Jagras so full of food that it sloshed around on its squishy belly. Maybe the weapon suggested by the Capcom rep (a longsword) just clicked more, allowing me to mentally compare my fluid attacks and dodges to a more traditional character action game. Whatever the reason, I wanted to learn more.
Last month, I played the first 14 hours of Monster Hunter: World at an event at Capcom’s Osaka offices. I started the game from the beginning on an early, non-final build . And while I may not be a Monster Hunter expert, this entry in the franchise clearly aims to be more accessible as it brings the series back to consoles.
That shift to new mechanics and platforms in Monster Hunter: World can also be felt in the game’s themes. Hunters start the game on a ship, traveling to the appropriately titled “New World.” It’s a continent full of wild beasts, all seemingly tied to the elder dragon, Zorah Magdaros. You’re part of a regiment of explorers called “Fivers” (a nod to the fact this would be the fifth numbered installment in the franchise), and you are here to aid in researching the new world, mostly by hunting down any monsters that cause problems.
This backstory is all fed to players pretty quickly at the start of the game, along with a dramatic cinematic cutscene that drops you into the action. You’re also introduced to your main companions for the story: a nameless handler, a cheery gal who constantly feeds you tips and your faithful palico. Of this group, the palico is positioned as the most important by far; when you drop into the character customizer, you also customize your palico. Monster Hunter: World features lots of face, hair and voice options for your hunter, but I spent even more time getting my adorable palico to look just like my real-life cat, Vegas.
The game breezed through a few more cutscenes and character introductions before I was grabbing my weapons to start the hunt. I agonized a bit over the weapon selection process, trying to find something that was beginner friendly enough while still letting me handle whatever I encountered. While I settled on the nimble dual blades to start, I also really enjoyed my time with the hammer, thanks to its meaty charge attack that still had mobility. The bow handled smoothly for when I needed distance; Capcom has reworked ranged weapon controls for consoles, and now they closely mirror industry standards for shooting (left trigger to aim, right trigger to fire).
I felt like I was finding my sea legs during the first few missions. I fought some easy monsters before tracking my first big hunt, the aforementioned Great Jagras. Along with the critical missions (usually hunts) and side quests, I could wander without a quest on expeditions, where I could take my time to actually explore the maps in full. These spaces were vast, and I was thankful for my ever-present guide: the scout flies.
The scout flies — a glowing mass of green insects — direct you to anything you can pick up or examine, which includes crafting ingredients, stinger ammo and monster tracks. The neon green fly cloud was often useful for when I had picked up a monster’s trail, but I sometimes wished I could tune their homing ability, and have them ignore herbs, mushrooms or bone piles. Sometimes I simply wanted to get to my destination: the epic monster fight that lay ahead of me.
One reason scout flies are absolutely necessary in Monster Hunter: World is its variety of terrain. The two maps I explored — Ancient Forests and Wildspire Wastes — were truly varied, with vine-covered walls, watery caves and hidden paths inside the tree canopy. One monster chose to fight us in its nest, high above ground. Another led us back to a dark cave. The verticality of these environments created options such as scaling up walls to escape a fight that got too hairy. A getaway is never guaranteed, though; the monsters were sometimes smart enough to follow.
After taking down my first couple beasts, I realized there was a lot more to Monster Hunter: World that I wasn’t yet understanding. For those who haven’t played before, you may not know the ins and outs of the series’ notoriously complex crafting system, which allows you to make healing items from things scavenged from the world. Or you may not realize that you are supposed to eat before a quest; different meals provide various buffs for your next hunt. For every mechanic the game explains, there were lots of things that I wouldn’t have figured out without someone guiding me. While I had Capcom representatives helping me, the next best thing might come in the form of the Monster Hunter: World’s multiplayer system, which has been retooled from previous entries.
There is no real distinction between single-player and multiplayer content in World. You can jump in with your friends and follow the story together, or help each other out on specific fights. The multiplayer sessions I experienced included taking down the T-Rex-like Anjanath, the electric bird Tobi-Kadachi and series mascot Rathalos. The encounters would have felt basically impossible to a newcomer like myself without three partners. Multiplayer generally feels seamless in the game, as players can easily pop in and out of each other’s sessions. The only wrinkle: I sometimes would need to watch a cutscene to further the story along before I could invite friends to play.
If you’re looking to get into Monster Hunter: World but don’t have buddies to play with, palicoes serve as a stopgap between playing alone and playing with friends. You can load these feline companions up with simple weapons or potions to use during fights. I also encountered wild palicoes, which you can invite to join your cause if none of your friends are online at the moment.
With the variety and types of quests on hand in Monster Hunter: World, I can see why some players put hundreds of hours into each entry in this series. By the middle of my second day playing, I had started to really appreciate the complexity of the armor sets available. One of the new quality of life improvements in the game is wish lists, where you can add parts you need to collect for crafting. When I started to build out the fluffy, bird-inspired Tobi-Kadachi armor, I had a constant reminder to shoot down tiny Wingdrakes to get some warm pelts.
Is Monster Hunter: World overwhelming to a newbie in its first dozen or so hours? Absolutely. There are layers and layers to success that don’t seem to have gone away for a wider, console-focused audience. But the hooks are there for so many types of players, whether you want to just focus on swinging your sword at giant monsters, or playing as support with three friends. The many quality-of-life improvements introduced in World mean I’ll definitely be diving back in to complete that set of armor, no longer intimidated.
Monster Hunter: World launches for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on January 26, 2018. A Windows PC version is also planned, though Capcom has not yet set a date for it.
Monster Hunter World Pc Release Date
Update Jan. 3, 2018: Capcom has confirmed the PC release date for some time in Fall of 2018.
Monster Hunter World is finally arriving on PC, and that can only mean one thing: lots of wrangling to get the best possible performance out of the game. We’ve got some tips for how to hit 60fps at 1440p and 4k…
When we first got our hands on the PC version of Monster Hunter World, we ran it on PC with the default settings. This resulted in the game easily smashing 60fps at 1080p but struggling to get much above the 40fps mark at 4k, things you can see for yourselves in the lovely videos in the links provided.
The thing is, we’re also running Monster Hunter World on a pretty beefy PC here. It’s running an i7-6700k with 32GB memory and a GTX 1080 Ti GPU – it’s a pretty beefy machine. You can read the full PC specs over on the VG247 Gear List, but the point is that now all PC builds will be able to run Monster Hunter World quite so effectively to get 1080p and 60fps right out of the gate. Have no fear, however – we’ve got some settings suggestions…
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Monster Hunter World PC Settings: Suggestions & Best Settings for 60fps
There are a few options you should consider when playing Monster Hunter World on PC for the first time buried away in that graphics section. We have a few settings to recommend in line with that based on the current performance of the game. Let’s get into some of the settings we think you should consider changing:
Resolution: 3840×2160, 2560×1440 or 1920×1080
We’d recommend either 4k, 1440p or 1080p. The Monster Hunter World PC settings offer all of these as basic settings in the game, thankfully, so no weird ini tweaks are required. Exactly what you pick is going to depend on your screen resolution, PC strength and your personal preference.
Here’s the rub: you’re unlikely to get a solid 60fps at 4K unless you’re running some sort of insane SLI multiple GPU rig, so if a solid 60 is your priority even if you’re running a 1080ti as I am your best option may well be to drop the resolution down to 2560×1440 – a resolution that’s well above 1080p but still quite a way behind 4K. It splits the difference nicely, and you’ll be more easily be able to hit 60fps. If 30fps is okay with you, 4K should be fine so long as you’ve a rig to support it. If you’re looking for Ultrawide options Arekkz has explored those elsewhere.
One other way to maximize resolution while retaining frame rate is to use the Variable Resolution option, setting it to target frame rate. Dowload style update s770. This obviously isn’t for everyone, and if you want a consistent resolution and frame rate both the options we’re otherwise describing in this header are better for you.
Monster Hunter World Pc
Everyone else should consider 1080p. The nice thing about MHW on PC is that it is actually a fairly solid port, so it’ll hit 60fps at 1080p on relatively modest hardware. This is pretty good, especially considering the PS4 Pro only manages around 40fps at 1080p when in its performance-focused mode. Capcom officially reckons anything above an i7 3770 @ 3.4GHZ, i3 8550 @ 4ghz or Ryzen 5 1500X running an Nvidia GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon RX 570X will manage to run the game at a solid 30fps at 1080p – and you should be able to pass that hitting 1080/60 fairly easily, especially if you take the tips below into account…
Volume Rendering Quality: OFF
So, Volume Rendering Quality is a nifty little setting that’s a nice advantage of the PC version of Monster Hunter World – it enables you to toggle the Volumetric Lighting out in the world. The console version of the game has this setting enabled by default, and it basically adds a deeply atmospheric sort of sheen to the world via some heavy lighting tech. If you’re having frame rate related woes, dropping this setting down can seriously assist in turning things around – though it has to be noted that this comes at significant cost in terms of one element of the game’s visual look.
The differences here are pronounced to different levels at different times of day, but here’s what it looks like both with and without the setting enabled at 4K in one screenshot, split down the middle: Microsoft word for mac free download full version.
This setting actually has a number of settings: Off, Low, Medium, High, Highest and Variable. So you’ve got options. Turning it off gained me as much as 10-15fps when struggling to hit 60fps at 4K, however, so it really does make quite a difference. You may also decide you prefer the look of MHW with this setting off anyway: you lose some of that atmospheric, hazy look but the whole game is quite a bit sharper as a result. I actually think it looks better with this option off, so the frame rate gain is a nice bonus on top of that.
Frame Rate: 30fps or 60fps Limit
Monster Hunter World also offers a few different frame rate options, and though what you choose will no doubt be impacted by your PC specs and Monster Hunter World PC settings, we have one major piece of advice for you: Limit the frame rate. The frame rate settings allow you to have no limit or to allow the frame rate to stop at a hard 30 or 60 – and we highly recommend doing that.
Monster Hunter World Voice Options Free
An unlocked frame rate can lead to an uneven experiecne where the frame rate lurches about all over the place. Unlocked that can lead to glorious 70 or 80fps runs on a 1080p PC with a high spec, but the flip side of that is a 4K frame rate that jumps between the low 40s and the high 50s, which can be very distracting. The easy answer to that is to Limit the frame rate to 30, which means it’ll never climb above that. The same is true for if you can hit 70-100fps – locking to 60 will result in an overall lower frame rate, but it’ll be silky smooth.
There’s no option to lock the frame rate in MHW on PC, so limiting is the closest you’ll get – but it’s well worth it.
Remember: Monster Hunter World is a CPU-heavy game
One final piece of advice from us for now on Monster Hunter World is that’s a CPU-intensive game. If you’re running a high end, hugely powerful graphics card but are experiencing problems even getting to 60fps at 1080p – or even are experiencing crashes – chances are it’s down to your PC’s CPU. Patches and tweaks have been arriving in the pre-release period when we’ve been testing out the PC version of the game, and though it’s ran well for us from day one we know some others have experienced problems that Capcom is working to remedy.
Ultimately the problem is given a clue in the name of the game, however: Monster Hunter World is all about that large-scale world, and so the game is keeping track of a huge environment and lots of different monsters that can interact all at once in the background. This means it can be pretty taxing for CPUs.
“To eliminate interstitial loading during active gameplay, MHW loads the entire level into memory. In addition to managing assets loaded into memory, it keeps track of monster interactions, health status, environment/object changes, manages LOD & object culling, calculates collision detection and physics simulation, and tons of other background telemetry stuff that you don’t see yet requires CPU cycle. This is in addition to supporting any GPU rendering tasks,” Capcom USA’s digital platforms vice president William Yagi-Bacon explained in a ResetEra thread.
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