Fantastic beasts and where to find them
Monster Hunter World: Iceborne (PEGI 16)
PC
★★★★★
THE Monster Hunter series has been something of a cult hit since it emerged on the PS2 in 2004. As the name of the series suggests, the game is all about hunting monsters.
Starting as a novice, you gain skills, weapons and attributes as you slay your way through an increasingly difficult variety of weird and wonderful beasts.
Of all the games in the series, the best so far has been Monster Hunter World (MHW), which hit consoles to much fanfare in 2018.
Hailed as the biggest and most spectacular entry to date, fans said it couldn’t be topped... they were wrong.
Iceborne expands on the incredible environments already created for MHW, with new equipment, new monsters and, surprisingly, an attempt at some actual character story arcs.
PS4 and Xbox owners have been enjoying the expansion pack since September, and now PC gamers have finally been able to get their hands on it.
The expansion itself is a sizable beast, weighing in at almost 100GB (if you want to use the highresolution texture pack, which makes the game jaw-droppingly beautiful).
Taking place in a new hunting biome, the Hoarfrost Reach, an icy tundra that has been beautifully brought to life, this is the finale that MHW deserves.
Picking up where the game’s main campaign ends, your hard-earned, levelled up High-Rank armour and weapons are nothing here, as Iceborne introduces Master Rank – a new tier which, frankly, destroys the competition.
And you’re going to need it, as the monsters you come up against are much harder to kill, and dole out gruelling punishment.
There are 20 new beasts and some returning creatures for veteran hunters to do battle with – the first of which, the shark-like Beotodus, knocked me on my backside time and time again.
Armour upgrades weren’t the chore they became in MHW, where it felt like I had to grind for hours to earn the items I needed.
To begin with, crafting was ridiculously cheap, meaning I could spend more time hunting and less time worrying about earning stuff.
Some cool new gadgets have been added to your arsenal to help you find and take down the monsters in this frozen wasteland.
The best by far is the clutch claw, which adds a whole new level of strategy. Wielding it allows you to grapple onto the weak spot of a monster and attack it – but be prepared to eat quite a lot of snow while you get to grips with it.
Alongside some new monsters on the block are cameos from returning creatures – some, the most vicious beasts to have graced the series.
There is one problem though – and to be fair, it’s a fairly big one.
Some gamers have been reporting that after downloading the Iceborne expansion, they have had trouble accessing their saves – some of which have hundreds of hours of gameplay on them.
Players who receive the error message say they are prompted to continue by starting a new game – which effectively creates a new save file which overwrites their old one. And don’t think your Steam cloud save will be safe either, as it overwrites that too.
Publishers Capcom are apparently aware of the issue and are working on a patch, but till then you might want to back up your saves before downloading the pack.
As an expansion, this is one of the most creative and enthralling additions I’ve ever played. It’s packed to bursting with new content, and elevates monster hunting to an art form.
■ Buy it: £34.99 from store.steampowered.com