Monster Hunter looks impenetrable and is not. Underneath it is one loop repeated for hundreds of hours: hunt a monster, turn its parts into gear, use that gear to hunt something that would have killed you before. Everything else is detail on top of that.
The loop
Take a hunt
Pick a monster from the map or a quest. Wilds lets you ride out to it directly — the Seikret carries you and follows the scent, so the travel is no longer a separate loading screen.
Learn the fight, not the health bar
There is no health bar. You read limping, drooling, and the parts you have broken. The first hunt of any monster is reconnaissance and it is fine to lose it.
Carve and craft
Rewards are monster parts. Those parts become a weapon or an armour set that is specifically good against something else.
Repeat one tier up
The gear you just made is the answer to the next monster. That is the entire progression: the game never gives you power, it gives you the material to build it.
Choosing a weapon
- There is no best weapon. There are 14, and the difference between them is what kind of attention they ask for.
- If you want to learn the game's rhythm rather than a weapon's: Sword & Shield or Long Sword.
- If you want to hit very hard occasionally and think between swings: Great Sword or Hammer.
- If you want a system to master rather than a fight to read: Charge Blade or Switch Axe.
- If you want to stay out of reach: Bow or the bowguns — and note the Bow is far more close-range than it looks.
- Changing weapon costs nothing but the materials to build one. Trying five in the first ten hours is normal and recommended.