During a new livestream earlier today, Capcom vets revealed a ton of new details for the upcoming expansion to Monster Hunter World, Iceborne.
Iceborne will send players to snowy Hoarfrost Reach, the largest area created for the newest major Monster Hunter title, offering a completely new visual appeal with a lot of care put into crafting all of the little details. It definitely looks even better. And since it’s an incredibly cold area, the player can lose their precious Stamina much quicker, but you can counteract that Stamina loss with a Hot Drink, something else brought forward from previous games.
This chilly new area will be the setting of a brand new story for MHW which follows the events of the Zorah Magdaros excursions, and sees hunters and the Guild taking on some new and old beasts in a quest to further understand the new world. Check out the new gameplay trailer for this cool expansion down below.
And of course, there’s not just a new area and some new items to craft in this expansion. Iceborne also drops players into the much tougher Master Rank hunts, which are analogous to G-Rank from previous games. And because fans could always use more beasties to hunt, the expansion also throws in a ton of new monsters to slay and capture.
There’s the smaller lifeforms like Popo, Stonebill, and Rime Beetles, each serving their own unique roles within this new ecosystem. You can farm these small lifeforms for special items for crafting, or even hitch a ride on the new Cortos wingdrakes. But small game isn’t what we really want to see, so Capcom had a few big monster to show off too.
There’s Banbaro, which behaves very much like a much more vicious Barroth, and he loves to charge and trample enemies. He can even rip apart the landscape as he rampages. Another new addition is the Beotodus, a chilly version of a Jyuratodus which burrows through the ground. These two also have a Turf war animation too.
Then there’s the majestic and deadly Velkhana, the new Elder Dragon boss for this content. Nargacuga from Freedom Unite of course makes a return in the expansion. These icey demons are quite the challenge and will reward plenty of new gear.
Although I’ll be very interested to see if the developers re-balance Blast and Fire gear, two areas which really don’t see targeted use due to not having many dedicated targets that are weak to these elements, in Iceborne.
You can also check out a full clip of the livestream bits down below, if that interests you. The new expansion releases on September 6, 2019. So better get in and grind out any sets or items you’re missing before then. There’s still a few days left in the Spring Blossom event, so there’s still time grab some event quests like hunting down Kulve Taroth.
