Monster Hunter: World is the best-selling game in Capcom's history, with over 16.8 million copies shipped by December 2020.Monster Hunter: World is an action role-playing game played from a third-person perspective. Similar to previous games in the series, the player takes the role of a player-created character who travels to the "New World", an unpopulated landmass filled with monsters, to join the Research Commission that studies the land from their central command base of Astera. The Research Commission tasks the Hunter to hunt down and either kill or capture large monsters that roam outside Astera to both protect the Commission and to study the monsters there. In the game, the player takes the role of a Hunter, tasked to hunt down and either kill or trap monsters that roam in one of several environmental spaces. If successful, the player is rewarded through loot consisting of parts from the monster and other elements that are used to craft weapons and armor, amongst other equipment.
The game's core loop has the player crafting appropriate gear to be able to hunt down more difficult monsters, which in turn provide parts that lead to more powerful gear. Players may hunt alone or in a group of up to four players via the game's online multiplayer. Monster Hunter: World adopts the series' standard formulas from its older home console roots and recent handheld games to take advantage of the higher processing power provided by modern consoles and computers. Changes made in Monster Hunter: World include creating environmental spaces that are fully connected and removing the "zones" that were necessary for the PlayStation 2 and handheld games, more advanced monster artificial intelligence and physics, a more persistent cooperative multiplayer experience, and a refinement of the game's tutorials and user interface to help with bringing new players into the series.
Features
A total of 46 Monsters: 16 small and 30 large (including non-crossover DLC / excluding variants).
New Feature: Palico (cat companion) customization.
Classic gameplay mechanics have been overhauled and streamlined.
Environmental damage and monster versus monster "turf wars" added.
Maps no longer contain loading screens between areas/regions and have an added dynamic day/night cycle.
Palico can befriend felyne clans and ride small monsters into battle.
New tools: Cloaks (temporary beneficial effects), Slinger (wrist-mounted slingshot), and Scoutflies (replace paintballs).
Multiplayer
A paid subscription service (PlayStation Network or Xbox Live) is required to use multiplayer features.
The game supports both single-player and up to four player cooperative mode while being online; there is no local offline multiplayer. The game also supports Squads, the equivalent of clans or guilds in typical massively multiplayer online games. The game allows players in different release regions to work together; the game will use a pre-determined set of common greetings and commands that are translated to the various languages so that players can effectively communicate with each other. However, players are limited to cooperating with those on the same platform, and will not feature cross-platform play.
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