For many, Monster Hunter World was everything that fans of the franchise wanted to see. Incredible graphics compared to other entries in the series, no loading screens when moving between areas, a huge array of new monsters, and a ton of quality of life changes all worked together to make this one of the best Monster Hunter games to date. For that reason, fans were thrilled when the Iceborne expansion was announced, almost doubling the size of the already massive game. Last weekend, PC users had a chance to celebrate the one year anniversary of Iceborne on the platform.
The original Monster Hunter World released on January 26th of 2018, but the PC version didn't release for another few months on August 9th of 2018. From then on, the PC version lagged behind the console version for a bit, always taking longer to receive updates and new content, and the same held true for Iceborne. Though consoles received the massive expansion on September 6th of 2019, PC users had to wait until the new year to dive into the frozen expanses of the Hoarfrost Reach. Finally, on January 8th of 2020, Iceborne was made available for players on PC, and a lot has happened in a year since then.
The Impact of Monster Hunter World: Iceborne
Anniversaries are often a big deal for games, but it's very rare that an expansion will get the same level of attention. Usually, expansions add a new level and a bit of content, but every now and then one like Iceborne comes along. In addition to the new level, the Hoarfrost Reach, fans also received 27 new large monsters. Since the entire game is focused around hunting these beasts, that's a huge amount of content to come from one expansion, and that's not even bringing into account the fact that many monsters were given new attack patterns for the brand-new difficulty mode introduced
Master Rank makes its debut in Iceborne, but longtime fans of the franchise will recognize it as the ultimate challenge of G Rank. In previous Monster Hunter games, players usually had to buy an expanded release of a game in order to gain access to G Rank and new monsters, but Monster Hunter World instead opted to include it as DLC. This is a much more modern approach that many fans appreciated, and will probably set a precedent for future games moving forward. Most fans probably don't want to see a Monster Hunter Rise Ultimate release in a few years and have to buy the game again, after all.
Iceborne A Year Later
Despite Iceborne being a monumental expansion, it has continued to expand itself as well. Over the course of the last year, players were treated to several free updates adding new monsters, regions, quests, and more. These include monsters like the Stygian Zinogre, Safi'jiiva, Alatreon, Frostfang Barrioth, and more. More recently, fans got the opportunity to go up against Monster Hunter's most infamous dragon, the Fatalis. This was said to be the final update to Monster Hunter World: Iceborne.
Though Monster Hunter World has always been expanding, it's easy to see that most of its growth came through Iceborne. This expansion drastically increased the size of the game while also helping to bring in its final major update, leaving the game in a state that few could really complain about. As the true first anniversary of the expansion has already come and gone, it doesn't seem as though Capcom is hosting any kind of in game event to celebrate. Even so, PC players should take this time to return to the stunning world of Monster Hunter once again.
Monster Hunter World: Iceborne is available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.