The wait is over. Monster Hunter World's Iceborne expansion is out on consoles. Now veterans of the base game can dive into the massive DLC's new story, explore the frost-covered mountains of Hoarfrost Reach, and, of course, hunt new and more intimidating monsters like the elder dragon Velkhana. In order to survive, players are going to have to prepare accordingly and get the right Monster Hunter armor set for the job.
More importantly than that, however, they're going to have to figure out to how to look cool in the process. Good thing that’s what Layered Armor is for. It's a common problem in games like this where players want to look their best but have to sacrifice that in order to equip often unappealing armor in order to gain the best-possible stats. Layered Armor is Monster Hunter World: Iceborne's solution to this problem, as it allows players to wear more cosmetically-pleasing outfits over stat-driven equipment, giving them the best of both worlds.
So how do players get Layered Armor? Thankfully, it’s relatively simple, if not a complete cakewalk. Players need to get their hands on the right amount of monster materials and resource points to forge Layered Armor, and these can be found largely through Delivery Quests that are accessible from the Resource Center. Once they're obtained, all that remains to do is to take them to the Smithy to craft them.
Now that players have some Layered Armor to wear, the next question is how to wear it? There are a number of ways to go about equipping it, the easiest of which is to simply head to the item box in a Hunter's room, go to the "Change Appearance" menu, and search for "Layered Armor Settings." That shows which sets are available to equip. Furthermore, while they’re at Astera or a Research Base, players can also modify the colors, though only certain parts of the armor will be affected.
For the most part, players can mix and match their Layered Armor pieces across the five types of armor that can be equipped on a Hunter, allowing for a fair amount of cosmetic possibilities. But some sets, like the one that lets players play as Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn in Iceborne, can't be broken up like that. That's something to keep that in mind for those who don’t want to get too attached to a look they can't customize.
Monster Hunter World: Iceborne is out now for PS4 and Xbox One, and will be coming to PC in 2020.