Monster Hunter Rise is once again challenging players to take on all manner of creatures, throwing them into battles with huge lizards, massive avian enemies, and screen-filling wyverns. The game is filled to the brim with things to see and do, resources to collect, creatures to find, and a huge number of quests to complete. Players can even use the photo mode to take pictures of all the wonderful creatures they find.
One burning question for players about Monster Hunter Rise is if the game is open world. The answer to this is simple: no. Monster Hunter Rise is designed in a very traditional way, where the game has a central hub that players can explore and get quests from, then they load into new areas to complete those quests.
The central hub in Monster Hunter Rise is called Kamura Village, and it is here that players will meet NPCs, collect quests, upgrade and change equipment, and take care of their Calico and Palamute buddies. When they are ready to head out on a quest, players will be loaded into one of the game's regional maps to complete the quest.
Each region acts as a different biome and contains unique weather, monsters, and endemic life. When the quest has been completed, the player is then returned to Kamura Village, where they can craft new items, upgrade and build weapons, or grab more quests to complete. There are two main types of quests, Village Quests, and Hub Quests. Village Quests will progress the story, while Hub Quests will increase a player's Hunter Rank. Both types of quests take place in the same areas, however.
Monster Hunter Rise's regions are not very big and are mostly designed to deliver short, well-paced hunting experiences before returning the player to the village again. This will vary, depending on the toughness of the monster that they are hunting. While not large in size, the maps can be quite dense, however. There is also a lot of verticality in the levels, and the new Wirebug mechanic makes exploration a joy. Despite not being that large, there are still plenty of reasons to spend a lot of time in Monster Hunter Rise's various regions, from farming up important resources to trying to discover secrets.
One of the main reasons why Monster Hunter Rise does not embrace an open-world design is that getting such a massive game to run on Nintendo Switch may prove difficult. If all the region maps were stitched together in a way that felt natural and compelling to explore, the map would be quite vast. Despite the lack of an open world, Monster Hunter Rise is a fantastic and fun game, with plenty of challenges to complete and sights to see.
Monster Hunter Rise is currently available on Nintendo Switch, with a PC version coming in 2022.