If you already love Monster Hunter, then this expansion is essentially more Monster Hunter.

Alright, I’ve been playing this expansion for over 3 months now!

Its high time I review this!

Iceborne is the lastest expansion for Monster Hunter World, that continues where the main story left off.

A new landmass was discovered that will be known as the Hoarfrost Reach. Upon discovering this new patch of snow, monsters of the new world have been acting strange, making them much more violent and erratic. This also reveals new monsters that were never before seen in the new world, both new to the series and from previous games. With the new world in disarray, it is up to the commission to discover the source of the monster’s erratic behavior and stop it. Though let’s face, your not in this for the story, you just want to kill giant monsters, which this game has you covered.

As I mentioned before monsters new and old appear in Iceborne, such as the very lost newcomer: Banbaro, and flaming sword fighter of the old world: Glavenus. Plenty of monsters from previous Monster Hunter titles are back in glorious HD, and certainly, bring in a good bit of challenge. Rest assured you will not be going into this fight unprepared, as new mechanics were added into the game to help you fight off these new fearsome foes. The big new mechanic is the clutch claw, which turns your slinger into a grappling hook, allowing you to grab onto the monster. From there you can do one of two things. You can attack the monster’s hide, allowing you to soften up the monster, making it easier to deal additional damage without your weapon bouncing off it. The other thing you can do is ram the monster’s head into the wall. If you grapple onto its head, and you have some ammo in your slinger, you can shoot its face, and force it into a wall (if they are close enough). The monster will be promptly knocked down, so you and your buddies can WHALE on it! The slinger isn’t the only thing that got an update, all of the weapons in monster hunter have received updates, giving them new mechanics. The same goes for the armor. All of the monsters from base MHW and the new monsters in Iceborne now have Master rank armor (G rank for the Monster Hunter veterans). These include new armor set abilities, new skills, and the new level decoration slots. In case you don’t know, decorations add in additional skills for your hunters, such as additional damage, resistance to certain damage types, or status effects.  The level four decorations come in two different variations: They can cover a single skill, or cover two skills, allowing you to greatly customize your hunter’s setup. Mantles can also now equip decorations, once you unlock the master rank version.

To sum up, this expansion is essentially more Monster Hunter. I have very few complaints about Iceborne. The only real complaint I have are the weapon designs. Monster Hunter weapons have unique designs for every monster you hunt, but in the case of MHW, they look like regular weapons with bits and pieces of the monster stapled on. Sadly the same thing carries over to Iceborne as well. Other users had reported technical issues, but so far I have encountered none. There was a major bug where players were not able to carry over their save file to Iceborne, but that has since been fixed. Of course, the devs will be tweaking and adding more to the game this year. The PC version of Monster Hunter World has had the issue of always being behind the console version in terms of content, but with the next update coming, the content will be synced between both versions. More monsters will be coming to the game, with Furious Rajang and Raging Brachydios coming in the next update, along with Altreaon coming in May.

I am very satisfied with Monster Hunter World: Iceborne, and I highly recommend it. If you already own Monster Hunter World, the expansion is a must get. The expansion is available on Steam for $40 USD, and if you don’t already have the game, you can get the base game and the expansion together in a bundle. At the time of writing this review, the latest update for Monster Hunter has been released. If this expansion has captured your interest, then I hope to see you in the new world.