Monster Hunter World walkthrough and guide: Story quests, Investigations and Expeditions explained

Publish date: 2023-02-06
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Monster Hunter World is the most accessible entry point yet for Capcom's colossally successful action role-playing series, with the series making a big-budget leap to PS4, Xbox One and PC.

But accessibility doesn't mean it has skimped on depth. This is still a vast, detailed and initially overwhelming game, and though things are easier to follow, getting your head around the quest structure and what you can get up to can take a little time - which is where this Monster Hunter World walkthrough and guide comes in.

Monster Hunter World walkthrough

Unlike previous Monster Hunter games, the main 'story' quests are much more obvious to follow.

Instead of being buried amongst a list of other quests, the next mission to progress - allowing you to see new areas and cutscenes - will be either in the Assigned menu of the quest board, or shown as a red symbol on the map screen.

But it's still useful to know what quests and their respective monsters are coming up. The further you progress, the more materials are available to you, and if you know your favourite monster is just an area away, you know exactly when to take an hour out of the story to start farming.

Story missions in chronological order:

Ancient Forest

Wildspire Waste

Ancient Forest revisited

Great Ravine

Coral Highlands

Rotten Vale

Coral Highlands revisited

Coral Highlands revisited

Seeking help from a First Wyverian

Everstream

Entering High Rank

Elder's Recess and Elder Dragons

Monster Hunter World guides

As well as the above, here's our other Monster Hunter World guides:

Iceborne guides:

Optional monsters:

System explainers:

Material farming:

Tailraider quests:

Seasonal events and DLC quests:

A guide to Monster Hunter World quest types, from Investigations to Expeditions

There is, obviously, much more than Assigned story missions to do, though the way they present themselves isn't exactly obvious.

If you approach the quest board, here's what each mission type means:

Then there's the Resource Center, which are less to do with hunting monsters:

Finally, there are Expeditions, which are selected from the World Map. These allow you to load into any area without having a mission first, allowing you to take your time exploring and foraging. (If you are familiar with Destiny, it's not unlike Patrol missions on a planet.

They also see quest givers appear out in the wild, as well as an opportunity to investigate Grimalkynes.

Though monsters will roam around, you cannot predict which ones will appear, so we recommend choosing Investigations to find a specific creature you need - with the benefit of getting more rewards and Armor Spheres, too.

Monster Hunter World's mission structure is a little confusing, but if you are stuck for things to do outside of the story, head to Astera and Expeditions and hunt for ! marks for bonus quests between missions, and regularly check in to the Resource Center to make sure you don't miss anything.

Monster Hunter World guide: The absolute basics

Monster Hunter is an action role-playing game (RPG), and as the name suggests the core of the game revolves around hunting monsters - large, ferocious beasts that roam the world causing havoc.

As you progress through the game you will be assigned specific targets that you need to track down, but along the way you can take on other prey to collect loot and supplies that can be used to upgrade your weapons and armour to make it easier to take down your quarry.

Unlike most RPGs your character has no stats to call their own, and it's all about crafting better gear; if you've ever played Destiny you can think of Monster Hunter being like the endgame, a constant cycle of gear acquisition to let you take on stronger enemies to get better gear to take on stronger enemies.

Quest Structure

Once a quest has started you'll be given a general area to look for the monster's trail, and searching that area will reveal footprints or other evidence of its passing.

Once you have spotted enough of these clues, your Scoutflies - the glowing green breadcrumb trail - will lead you to the monster you've been tasked to kill.

Unless you get lucky, most fights with your prey will be quite lengthy affairs. After taking a chunk of damage the monster will flee, so you'll need to follow it to its new location. You can deal some damage along the way, but it's generally a better strategy to just let it get to where it's going before attacking again - attacking it will slow you down and you're unlikely to be able to do a significant amount of damage to it.

Once the monster reaches its lair it'll stay put. If it's limping and / or sleeping you are able to capture it - otherwise you can continue to scrap it until it's downed.

Like Pokémon, if you're defeated in battle you don't die, you just need to have a bit of a lie down, and you will respawn at the nearest camp. Once you wake up follow the trail to resume the fighting - the Scoutflies will generally know the best way. Quests might have a limit on the amount of revives and time, and though by and large you should be able to scrape through, it's worth keeping these in mind.

Once your foe is vanquished you have a brief window to loot it for parts before being returned to the hub.

That's essentially the loop. Of course, there's plenty of nuance to exploring and fighting. Our Monster Hunter World tips page gives you a list of things that aren't obvious outside the essentials.

Making sense of Monster Hunter World's interface

As the game doesn't go into too much detail, it's worth giving a brief explanation of what's going on on your HUD so you can make some sense of the visual noise.

Additional reporting by Mat Hall.

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