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Monster Hunter: World is Capcom’s best-selling video game of all time, selling around 17 million units as of today. Those sales figures are not a result of hype or the game being overrated – it’s because the Monster Hunter franchise is one of a kind and provides an experience that no other action-adventure game has.
Whenever a new Monster Hunter game comes out, the developers try their best to make it the ideal game available at the time because it’s one of those experiences that gamers spend hundreds of hours into. And this does not apply to the large-scale games specifically, even the handheld Monster Hunter 4 was an expansive adventure in which there was content to last you a generation.
When each Monster Hunter installment is filled with so much content and also receives updates and expansions at times, such as Iceborne, they feel very conclusive in their own right. Each time we get a new game in the series – one question always comes up in the gaming community. That question is whether the new Monster Hunter game is worth the time and money when players are already playing the previous one.
With Monster Hunter Rise finally released on the Nintendo Switch and getting a PC port next year – we finally have to decide whether the upgrade is necessary or not. Since it takes a lot of time to figure out the answer to this question, we’ve decided to analyze and compare the most recent Monster Hunter games so that you don’t have to. So, let’s get started and figure out which one to play!
Which One to Play?
Monster Hunter: World is available on far more platforms than Monster Hunter Rise is, so if this question was asked if both were launched at the same time – the answer would easily steer towards the former.
However, since there have been three years since the release of World, it’s only natural that fans want to play another game in the series. But it’s also important that the new game is worth everyone’s time and money, of course.
Monster Hunter World vs Rise: The Graphics
Let’s start off with the thing that we see before anything else when we boot a game – the visual appeal. Monster Hunter: World and Monster Hunter Rise have a similar art-style when it comes to the characters, game world, and the monsters.
However, since the Nintendo Switch is a console that couldn’t have been able to handle World, it’s a no-brainer that the graphics have to be toned down for Rise since it’s released on the Switch before anything else.
Granted, Capcom has done an excellent job in terms of optimization and the game still looks really good in terms of everything that matters. However, due to its low resolution and toned-down textures, when you put it side by side with Monster Hunter: World – you can notice the obvious lack of detail in the game’s world and character models.
Not to mention that the resolution also means whenever the characters are upscaled, they become a bit blurry due to the console’s limitations.
Since the game is slated for a PC release and PC gamers love to try their games out on 4K resolution and textures – Capcom will surely update the game’s graphics for that. But at the time, Monster Hunter: World is easily the better-looking game and let’s be honest, Rise will still feel a bit cartoonish even with the updated textures. So, point for World.
Monster Hunter World vs Rise: The Gameplay
A game is only as good as its gameplay. Monster Hunter: World is an excellent game with lots of content to kill your time with – but Rise is not falling behind in this regard either. There are many things that Rise took from World and expanded on, which happen to be very important aspects.
- Pets have always been an important aspect of Monster Hunter games, often serving as a mascot in crossovers like with Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. While Monster Hunter: World had a good number of pets available, Rise has added new types and one of them can even be rode for travel and battling purposes.
- The Hub Town in Monster Hunter games is essentially the calm before the storm, as you can take your time to go over everything, change your equipment, eat food, and do more things before you embark on quests of hunting down monsters. While World has a decent Hub Town, it can feel a bit monotone in comparison to Rise’s much livelier variant. Not only is it more seamless to navigate, it’s far more colorful.
- Traversal is always an important part of the Monster Hunter games since they always try to offer an open-world like experience even though the different sections of the games are usually a bit isolated. While World had bugs that helped you find monsters, Rise makes the monsters appear on the map instead. However, it added Wirebugs which essentially act like grappling hooks and allow you to go through the map quicker than ever before. And they can be used for mounting monsters too.
While these gameplay changes might sound minor, based on personal preferences of the player, they can make a very big difference which would justify the purchase for Rise. So, this point certainly goes to Rise since it added things that you can’t do in World.
Monster Hunter World vs Rise: The Scale
Furthermore, we have the game world itself in terms of how much variety it offers. While some people believe that the monsters are more fun to fight in Monster Hunter Rise, the overall world is a bit lacking in what you can do in it and the random encounters you can have with smaller creatures.
There’s also the fact that Monster Hunter: World has many crossovers every now and then which gives players a lot more to do in the game’s world, and the expansion it has adds so much more to the game too. Since Rise is new and on only one platform at a time, it does not have these things at the time.
There’s also the fact that World has a far better attention to detail due to its scale, such as the food in the game having great variety. It was so expansive that Capcom released a real-world companion cookbook for the game, which is something you’d only expect to see in a game like Final Fantasy XV otherwise.
So, Monster Hunter World definitely takes the win in the scale department for now.
Monster Hunter World vs Rise: Technical Performance
This is a bit of a complicated thing to compare. Monster Hunter: World, when it runs well, is amazingly fluid and looks as amazing as it plays. But the game’s load times and frames are sometimes not as good as they should be on last-gen consoles such as PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
However, on the PC platform, if you have a machine that can achieve full frames – it feels far more fluid than Rise. However, due to the use of Denovu and a rocky launch, the game can be quite troublesome to set up on older hardware.
Monster Hunter Rise, on the other hand, functions excellently on the Nintendo Switch and has fast loading times. The frame rates are mostly stable, although you can feel a lack of fluidity at times due to the system’s limitations. Capcom has done an excellent job of optimizing the game for the hardware and it certainly shows.
So, ultimately, this is more of a tie. But when Rise gets a PC release, it’s most likely going to feel smoother than World for sure.
Monster Hunter World vs Rise: The Verdict
Monster Hunter: World is an excellent game that millions have enjoyed since its release. If you haven’t played it yet and want to know whether to play World or Rise, I’d even suggest going for the former. However, for people who have already played World, the answer is easy.
Monster Hunter Rise not only adds many new features to the game – its unique atmosphere and a lighter take on the franchise’s expansive world is something that will satisfy fans of the genre that have been looking for more. It does not replace World since that is still a great game of its own, but it’s time for players to give Rise a chance and enjoy their time hunting down all of the new deadly monsters that it has to offer.
And that’s our final verdict on the topic of Monster Hunter: World vs Rise. We hope that you’re excited to get your hands on Rise as we are, and we’re here to answer any questions that you might have. And while you’re around, make sure to check out some of our other helpful gaming guides too.
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