[MHR vs MHW] A Complete Meta-Analysis

The ultimate controversial topic presented in the most unbiased and comprehensive way possible to help fellow Steam users make better choices. With TL;DR. Total new-comer-friendly. Spoiler-free.

Foreword

“MHR or MHW” is a question that appears more than frequently in Steam forums of both games. Some are genuine inquiries before making choices on their purchases, while some are simply baits for a chaotic online warfare. As someone who has been in countless heated arguments civilized debates regarding this topic, I decided to write a full essay comparing these two games to help answer this most controversial, yet highly concerning topic.

By browsing through hundreds of pages of Steam discussions on both MHR and MHW forum, I compiled a list of factors fellow Steam users most concerned about when making choices/comparisons between these two games. And by combining my personal experiences and information gathered online, I tried my best to provide answers as unbiased, factual, objective, and straightforward as possible. However, there are still some questions that cannot be answered without bias, so I will specify when I’m stating a personal opinion.
There will be zero story/monster/major content spoilers in this guide. However, there are some non-specific mentions about end-game activities.

The comparisons between two games will be loosely divided into multiple sections. Since it will be a long essay, you might want to use ‘CTRL + F’ to directly search for specific keywords (if you already have specific questions in mind).
For longer sections, I will try to give a brief conclusion in “TL;DR” or “Conclusion” sub-sections, be sure to check them out first if you’re in a hurry.

To better help complete new-comer to better understand and compare both games, I spent a lot of effort in each section to give brief explanations on the game’s basic mechanics. If you already had experience with Monster Hunter, you can safely skip those parts in italic

All of the comparisons listed will have their respective justifications, and you shall be the judge on whether these are biased or not, and whether you should believe them or not. If you have any questions or suggestions, please do not hesitate to leave a comment. If you would like to receive a notification after my reply, do not forget to tick the “Subscribe to thread” box.

• Important Notice

MHR:S has a free demo available on the Steam respective store pages, be sure to check them out.
You do not need to own MHR to play the demo, the demo is a standalone program itself. By playing the demo, you should be able to experience things like graphics, controls, combat and optimization etc. Since MHRS is an expansion DLC of MHR, it is basically the same thing but with more content, so its demo will more or less tell you the same thing about MHR.

Demo:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1446780/MONSTER_HUNTER_RISE/

MHW and MHW:I do not have a demo for PC. Hence, if you want to purchase the game directly to try it out, yet might be unsure if you would like it, I would recommend a few things:
①Be quick on your character customization
②Install skip-cutscene mod
③Be quick in the tutorial
MHW starts by introducing you with a long opening cutscene + tutorials. (In fact, it is so long that many players have complained specifically about this). Hence, to prevent exceeding the 2-hours refund window of Steam’s policy, you have to be quick. ‘Skip-cutscene mod’ isn’t necessary, but if you would like to install it, you can find related modding guides on Steam.

For those who are interested in purchasing MHR, this might help you further:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2907621191

TL; DR

The Basics

Monster Hunter is a game about hunting giant monsters, and the basic gameplay loop can be summarized as: “hunt monsters for materials → craft better gears → hunt stronger monsters”.



There is no RPG-like leveling system in Monster Hunter. The only two ways of becoming stronger, is getting stronger equipment and getting better at playing.

Where it all begins

Hunting mainly involves fighting the monster face to face using your weapons. Hence, combat is a huge part of Monster Hunter. But somewhere along development, the two teams of developers started to drift into two different routes. Each directed by a director with their own design philosophies, two different games were born.

A director thought: “combat has been our main focus for years, we should further enhance it as a way to repay our fans.” And thus, Monster Hunter Rise was born, with arguably the most diverse player movesets, the most flashy attacks, the most precise monster attacks and everything else built in such a way to emphasize and complement combat. The entire game is designed in a streamlined manner to make you spend more time in its exhilarating combat. All of the maps are designed as an arena divided into smaller areas. The monsters are no longer a threat to your life, but a challenge to your skills. You are no longer just a mere hunter that hunts to protect, but also a challenger that fights for the sheer fun of dominating beasts multiples of your size.

Another director thought: “our games had been focusing on combat for years, since we have already created an enormous low-fantasy universe with well -thought out ecologies, why don’t we try to make a game that emphasizes on presenting this universe to our fans?” And thus, Monster Hunter World was born, with a gigantic leap of quantity and quality from previous titles on every aspect including graphics, environmental details, non-combat activities, stories and cutscenes. A World that truly breathes lives has been born, realizing all those fruits of creativity emerge during design phases, yet were inevitably scrapped due to technical limitations. The monsters were given life, and you shall be the witness of this miracle.

In my opinion, both of these games are experimental. MHR was never turned into a true boss-rush simulator, and MHW was never turned into a true hunting simulator. They focused on different aspects, but at their roots, they are still Monster Hunter. The most important thing you need to acknowledge is that both of these games were directed by different designers, and what they wanted to present to you is essentially different. So, you should try to enjoy these two games differently, and treat both with the same expectation and standard. There is not an absolute good or bad between MHR and MHW. Both games had their advantages and disadvantages, it is all about perspective and preferences

Sunbreak? Iceborne?

Now that we know what Monster Hunter Rise and World was all about, it won’t take long to understand about Sunbreak and Iceborne. Sunbreak and Iceborne are expansion DLCs. Which means they add additional contents into their base game, these contents include: new monsters, new equipment, new maps, new movesets, new story and more.

For MHRS, owning the DLC will not affect your experience in the base game at all. You will need to finish MHR’s main story to start MHRS, and access all its content.
For MHWI, owning the DLC will affect your experience in the base game in several aspects:
① All weapon classes will get a few new movesets right at the beginning of base game. In MHR, you only get new movesets once you start progressing in MHRS.
② You get a tool named Clutch Claw right at the beginning of base game. It is a feature that functions in combat. You can use it to cling onto specific parts of a monster, dealing damage and lowering its defense for a short time. Or you can also send the monster bumping into walls and create openings. Clutch Claw’s usage has its own risks and restrictions. It is one of the central mechanics in MHWI.
③ You get an armor set named Guardian Armor right at the beginning of base game. More about this in the end of the “Microtransactions” section.

You don’t need to buy expansion DLC together with the base game. For MHR, the only benefits you get from buying the base+DLC bundle is a cheaper price. For MHW, you get a cheaper price but also some extra power boosts. These boosts are not mandatory to beat the base game, and some players suggest that it might ruin the original balancing intended for the base game, because these boosts are designed for Iceborne.
You can play the base game first to find out if you liked it. If you liked the base game, you will enjoy the extra content brought by the expansion DLC.

You gain access to both expansion DLC when you finish their base games’ story, which is only about 30% of the content in the base game. If you choose to directly start playing the DLC, all your current progress will be saved and carried over. You don’t have to worry about missing anything, as you can always return to where you left and finish the remaining content.
The equipment you obtain in the DLC's content will be much stronger than most monsters in base game can handle. However, you can choose to tune down your equipment to enjoy the base game’s content in their intended difficulty.

Difficulty/Accessibility/Complexity

Difficulty is a difficult topic since it highly depends on personal capabilities and experiences. Hence, I will try to compare using several objective factors, then state my conclusions.

• Mobility

Players have much more mobility in MHR. The advantage of having wirebugs allowed players to quickly get out of fights to recover, or to move out of dangers quickly. The new hunting companion ‘Palamute’ (your doggy ride), allows the player to sharpen while swiftly moving. In MHW, sharpening has to be done while completely standing still for a few seconds, which is risky to do in a fight.

Wirebug: A mechanism introduced in MHR. It is an auto-refilling gauge used to perform various actions from evading, traveling to performing special attacks.
Sharpen: Melee weapons get dull after attacking, so players have to recover their weapon’s sharpness (durability) once in a while. Lowered sharpness will have a dmg penalty, and might cause hits to bounce off monsters.

• Weapon Movesets (quantity, combo, command prompt)

In terms of quantity, MHR has relatively more weapon movesets, with Sunbreak adding more to the list. Due to the increased movesets, MHR also has more possible combo chains. However, MHR doesn’t have a command prompt available all-time, unlike MHW that has an optional command prompt on the top-right that tells you what are your next possible combos, which can be extremely helpful for newcomers.

Many weapons in MHR have moves that give i-frame, parry abilities or hyper-armor, these moves are often allowed to be inserted into any ongoing combos. Hence, players are allowed to avoid incoming attacks based on instant reactions. In MHW, only a few weapons have such privilege, hence players who don’t have access to them have to plan for each move so that they get enough window to roll-away when they’re done attacking.

I-frames: Refers to a small window of time where the player is invincible to monster attacks. Most commonly seen in actions like rolling
Hyper-armor: Refers to a small window of time where the player is immovable by monster attacks, but still takes full/reduced damage if hit. ‘Infinite Poise’, if you’re a souls-like player.

• Monster Movesets (telegraph, tracking, hitbox)

Monsters in both MHR and MHW have equally diverse movesets, with MHR arguably wins by a little. The telegraphs (wind-up/tells/hints/ques) of monsters in MHR are less obvious than MHW, meaning you would have to pay extra attention to read their movements. Monster attacks in MHR also tend to have a wider AOE, and better tracking than MHW, so you need to pay extra caution in dodging or parrying them. In MHW, many monster attacks can be avoided by simply walking out of the hitboxes.

• Combat Complexity (skill ceiling, skill floor)

As aforementioned, MHR offers more weapon movesets, it gives more possible ways to counter monsters’ attacks, and thus making the combat relatively more complex.

However, due to the increase in mobility and access to super-moves with i-frames/parry abilities/hyper-armor, and a pair of relatively more powerful hunting partners (you only get one in MHW), the skill floor required to play the game is arguably lower.

Even so, MHR’s wider weapon movesets and faster-paced combat made the game have a relatively higher skill-ceiling. In MHR:S, a feature called ‘Quick Swap’ is introduced, allowing players to quickly switch their selected sets of movesets during combat, and hence almost doubling the possibilities of dealing with monsters, hence further raising the skill ceiling.

Hunting partner: Refers to the feline/canine NPC you can bring to a fight. They provide support by attacking, healing or buffing.

• System complexity (quests types, raids)

MHW has more distinct systems and mechanics compared to MHR. This includes environmental interactions, special quests like raids, collab-events that brought new mechanics, special form of expedition, special form of weapon upgrades/customization etc. Without major spoilers, MHW has much more to learn about its mechanics throughout the entire game, from progression into end-game.
MHR is relatively more straightforward, you are just hunting monsters and crafting/upgrading gears without much gimmicks. The quest types and upgrading systems are much more unified compared to MHW.

• Map complexity (navigation difficulty, wirebug/scoutfly)

MHR maps have a relatively flat and simple design, where large portions of them are designed as fighting grounds. Players are also allowed to spiderman around freely (using wirebugs like a mid-air grappling hook), wall-run to skip obstacles, and ride their Palamutes for quicker travel. Hence, traversing and navigating in MHR is much quicker and easier.

MHW maps are relatively complex, intertwined, multi-layered and have a lot of invisible walls. In return, players get a feature called ‘Scoutflies’, which is a floating navigator that will guide you towards pinned objects/targets/monsters/players. However, player movesets are more grounded in MHW, hence traversing is much slower and most of the time cannot pursue the monsters in a straight line.

• Build diversity

In MHR, build variety is relatively limited due to a lower sum of available equipment. However, the diverse weapon movesets have compensated by opening up more possible play styles.
In MHR:Sunbreak, much more new distinct skills are introduced along with much more new equipment. The end-game customization system also allowed players to further freely customize their builds’ skills depending on RNG rolls, which raised the possible build combinations beyond countable. (Although realistically speaking, the meta builds still don't exceed certain optimized templates).
In both MHW and MHW:Iceborne, there are very little rooms for customization for equipment, and it lacks the feature to swap weapon movesets, hence resulting in less play styles.

Difficulty/Accessibility/Complexity - 2

• Solo Capability

Both MHR and MHW can be beaten in solo with a decent build and player skill.
However, there are some optional content in MHW that are designed for multiplayer, and require huge effort (mainly skill, then time) to beat in solo.

• Gimmicks

Both MHR and MHW have multiple unique gimmicks (mechanics), I’ll only mention those that greatly affect difficulty here.

In MHR, these gimmicks are Wyvernriding and Spiritbirds.
Wyvernriding allows players to ride monsters when certain conditions are met. During the short period of wyvernriding, players will be completely invincible, and can command the monster to use various moves to deal % damage on other monsters. After wyvernriding, a monster will enter a 5-10 minutes cooldown before it can be ridden again. By utilizing this gimmick, players can quickly and safely shave off large chunks of HP from their targeted monster.
Spiritbirds are power-ups scattered around each map that gives buffs (max HP, max Stamina, Def, Atk) when collected. Their effects last through the entire quest, and resets after completing/failing the current quest. By spending 1~2 minutes per quest before engaging with their target monsters, players can obtain massive buffs that essentially lowers difficulty by preventing one/two-shots, increasing stamina etc. It is essentially an optional difficulty slider, where the price is your time

In MHW, these gimmicks are Specialized Tools and Weapon Augmentation (mainly life augment).
Specialized Tools are rechargeable-tools that give unique buffs for a short period of time, before going into a cooldown. These buffs include: longer i-frames, extra HP, extra DMG, hyper-armor or conditioned invincibility. By utilizing these tools, one can turn a fight into basically a brain dead button-mash fest (although only for a short while).
Weapon augmentation, or specifically ‘Life Augment’, grants players life steal ability that heals depending on damage dealt. The benefits are significant, combined with Special Tools, one can truly become an invincible armored tank. Lifesteal ability does appear in Sunbreak, though in a much weaker form and has more restrictions.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the difficulty of both games highly depends on a player’s capability on reaction speed and telegraphs reading. In my opinion, MHR is easier in terms of surviving and beating the game, especially when you fully utilize various gimmicks to your advantage. However due to its complexity, MHR is more difficult to master.
Whereas MHW is more difficult in terms of surviving due to limited mobility and generally less ways for most weapons to effectively avoid getting hit other than rolling. However, due to its lower skills ceiling and generally slower paced combat, MHW is easier to master.

Both games also have a different difficulty curve. MHR increases in difficulty relatively smoothly, whereas MHW have 'walls' that a majority of players struggled with the first time. Below is a very rough representation of both games' difficulty curve, based on my opinion.

Story refers to content before end-credit. Post-story refers to any content after end-credit in the initial release. End-game refers any content that dropped after the first Title Update. End-of-content refers to the final Title Update, which are often filled with highly-buffed monsters to serve as final challenges to the players.


In MHR, there isn't any buffed monsters after the end of story, nor in the later title updates. Only until near the end of updates, a few 'challenge quests' are released with highly-tunes monsters that can one-shot most of the times. In MHW, there is a "tempered monster" system that features buffed existing monsters in the post-game. In future updates, a stronger variant called "arch-tempered monster" was introduced


Sunbreak hasn't finish updating, so the graph is incomplete for now
The end-game of Iceborne featured many super-monsters that provided fair amount of challenges to a majority of players, though there are also some who thought these are "artificial difficulty".
The post-game of Sunbreak also introduced a similar mechanic as MHW's "tempered monsters" with buffed stats. The maximum cap of stats these monsters can achieve is further raised in each consequent updates. Although, some still considered them as "artificial difficulty" for having bloated health and damage.

Gameplay/Combat/Content

TL;DR

In general, MHR’s gameplay is more arcade-like, whereas MHW’s gameplay is more immersive.

MHR’s development team spent most of their resources in making the combat more fun and engaging. The title’s name ‘Rise’ is a resemblance of Monster Hunter finally getting a third dimension in its combat, which ‘rises’ from the old-school ground two-dimensional to a three-dimensional battle field. MHW’s development team spent much of their resources in building "A World that Breathes Life", which is where the name comes from.

As a result, combat becomes the major attraction of MHR. You would often launch the game, hunt a few monsters, then get off. Hence, it is like an arcade game where you would toss a coin, play a few rounds, and never look back. Meanwhile in MHW, not only there are much more non-combat activities that encourage exploration of the game’s fantasy world, discovering hidden secrets, and experiencing its fictional ecosystem, the 'hunting' aspect is also more realistic as you would have to track down a monster and/or predict their routes of activities. Hence, the gameplay is relatively immersive.

• Combat

MHR’s combat is relatively fast paced, reactionary and counter-based. Whereas MHW’s combat is relatively slow paced, methodical and timing based.

In MHR, players are granted better mobility, so in return the monsters are now moving and attacking faster. The players are also given new counter moves or i-frame moves which can be chained in-between ongoing combos, allowing them to quickly react to sudden hazards. Therefore, the majority of combat in MHR involves the player actively attacking the monster, and uses special moves in-between to avoid getting hit. Although you can voluntarily avoid using these counter moves. but it will greatly rises the difficulty and lowers your efficiency.
In MHW, players are relatively less mobile, and attacking requires more commitment due to a more restrictive combo. For many weapons, the only way to avoid getting hit is either through rolling (i-frames) or walking away from the hitbox (reposition). Therefore, the majority of combat in MHW relatively feels more like a turn-based game, where you would wait for an opening, attack, then immediately move/roll away to avoid comebacks.

• Monster and equipment quantity

MHR has 46 large monsters, Sunbreak added 27 up until now (January 2023), with more planned to come in later updates. MHW has 39, Iceborne added 32. Both games have reskins of existing monsters (aka subspecies, rare species, apexes, special variant etc) counted into the roster.

Each monster in MHR gets 1 set of equipment (armor), whereas in MHW each monster gets 2 sets (with a difference in skills and slots). Hence, the quantity of equipment is a bit more in MHW. However, due to how building works in MHW, many of these equipment are rarely used, both during progression and in the end-game. The situation is similar in Rise, but is relatively less significant in Sunbreak where more armor gets distinctive skills, and armor customization was introduced.

• Post-game/End-game activities

Other than simply enjoying hunting, or achievement hunting, or non-combat activities like exploration, many players dedicated their end-game hours into grinding for RNG. The details on RNG will be discussed in the next section.

In MHR, you earn RNG rolls (for charms) by sacrificing monster loot. Hence the end-game often involves farming the selected most effective monsters repeatedly for best efficiency.
In MHRS, you earn RNG rolls (for equipment customization) by fighting buffed monsters. These buffed monsters include a majority of existing monsters. There are still theoretical most efficient targets, but you are roughly equally awarded for fighting other monsters. The RNG reward is now more skill-based (based on how good you play to make a hunt faster), rather than target-based (like in MHR, some monsters drop significantly better reward). You also gain monster loot while farming these buffed monsters, and thus can be then used for rolling charms.

In MHW and MHWI, you earn RNG rolls (for jewels) by defeating buffed monsters. These buffed monsters are divided into tiers based on their difficulty (one monster can only be in one tier), where higher tiers reward players with the best RNGs. Some specific jewels are also only available on these highest tiers’ rewards. Hence, the end game grind in MHW involves fighting the selected few monsters in order to get the jewel you like. To make things (unintentionally) worse, the devs also released ‘Event Quests’, which gives significantly better RNG rates, with the intention to help players on their grind. In reality, this only further narrowed down the end-game fights (for players who cared about efficiency)

• Events/Collaborations/Seasonal Contents

Event content works slightly differently in MHR and MHW. In MHR, you download event contents as updates, and can play them offline. In MHW, you will have to have an active internet connection to the game’s server to play the event content.

Collaboration contents are part of these event content. MHW has done better on this in terms of quality. MHR/S collaboration includes: Okami, Street Fighter, Sonic, USJ, Ghosts n Goblins, Rockerman and Monster Hunter Stories. MHW/I collaboration includes: DMC, Street Fighter, USJ, Final Fantasy, Witcher, Rockerman, Assassins’ Creed* and MHW Movie*. The collaborations in MHW brought various layered equipment, 2 new Large monsters, and introduced new mechanics, while MHR collaborations only brought layered armor (cosmetic outfits). Although, it is debatable whether these collab monsters are ‘good’. They are fairly challenging and introduce new mechanics, but some might argue they do not fit the combat of Monster Hunter.
* These 2 specific collaboration contents are no longer available in-game without using mods to unlock

There are no seasonal/rotated/time-gated contents in MHR.
There are seasonal events (festivals) going on in MHW that cycle every 2 weeks. (2 weeks festival, 2 weeks nothing). During these festivals, some visuals and music in the base will be changed, and players can get seasonal rewards including equipment and cosmetics. MHW also has a daily/weekly quest system that rewards players with in-game currencies and vouchers to trade for rare monster loot. There are currently 2 monsters that appear on a 2-week-cycle, while all other monsters including those from event content are permanently available (if you have internet access).

Gameplay/Combat/Content - 2

• Non-combat activities

In MHR and MHRS, the major non-combat activities are taking photographs of monsters/critters and finding collectible secrets (that gives you hidden lore about this universe) in maps.
In MHW and MHWI, there are more non-combat activities tied to map exploration. These activities include: capturing rare critters and using them to decorate your house, taking photographs of rare random events, treasure hunting and finding hidden NPC helpers etc.

Both MHR and MHW have a customizable player room. MHR allowed customizable displays (paintings and figures), while MHW allowed using critters you caught in the wild to decorate your house as pets (birds, bugs, fishes, rabbits etc).
MHRS slightly expanded the lists of displayables without changing the basis of MHR. Whereas MHWI completely upgraded MHW’s customization to a whole new level, introducing a bigger house now with customizable furniture and interiors, and allowing more critters to be displayed in the house.

• Environment/Monster Behaviour

MHR is a game highly focused on combat, so the environment building and monster behaviour are rather bland. The environment, critters and small/large monsters are included as part of the ‘level design’, which means that they are prioritized to be integrated into the gameplay either by providing benefits/buffs (critters), or providing challenges/hazards (small monster).

MHW is a game highly focused on creating a lively world, so there are many details in its environment and monster behaviour. While exploring, you are able to find many interesting locales that hint you to the hidden lore for each map. There are also many interesting monsters-environment and monster-monsters interactions. You are also given a special tool “Ghillie Mantle” that allows you to turn invisible to monsters (for a short period of time) so you could safely observe them. Many of the environment designs and critters are completely irrelevant to the major gameplay (combat), they simply exist to enhance immersion.

The monster AIs are also generally more realistic and ecologically accurate in MHW. Small monsters will not mess around while the player is fighting a Large monster. Instead, they will cycle around the fighting ground, and strike the large monster when it is staggered/stunned. For weaker large monsters, they will no longer actively engage in fighting with other stronger large monsters. In MHR, monsters will challenge each other regardless of their difference in the ecological pyramid. It is designed in such a way to encourage players using the new Wyvernride gimmick.

• Achievements

Both games' achievements do not require extreme skills nor knowledge to complete. In fact, all they require are a bunch of grinding, especially when overcoming the walls of RNG.
Both games' achievements are divided into 2 halves, first half can be completed in base game, while the other half requires their respective DLC expansion.

MHW and MHWI have achievements that requires multiplayer, MHR and MHRS don't.

MHR and MHRS achievements are relatively more grind heavy.
MHW and MHWI achievements are relatively more RNG heavy.

RNG

RNG is a huge part of any Monster Hunter game, they exist throughout progression and make up most of the end game, as a reason to keep players continuing playing. In this section, I will try to give a brief explanation on the RNG events in both games, and justify their effects on players’ experience.

• The basics

I will loosely divide RNG into two types: Basic RNG and Additional RNG.
Basic RNG will be referring to the chances you get certain materials from hunting. This RNG is mandatory and affects all players equally if they don’t want to stay ♥♥♥♥♥ and wield a wooden stick the entire game. The chances to get the best roll in Basic RNG (aka getting the rarest loot) will not be lower than 1 in 100, and the game offers multiple ways to raise the rate.

In Monster Hunter, you need monster materials to craft and upgrade equipment, hence the Basic RNG will be the first ‘artificial wall‘ you encounter.

Additional RNG will be referring to the chances tied to several unique mechanics in both games, which are often introduced around mid-game, and is the main reason to keep playing in the end game. Although this RNG usually affects your build heavily, they are not as mandatory as the Basic RNG. The chances to get the best roll in Additional RNG can range from 1 in a thousand, to 1 in a million. To note, you don’t need to get the best roll for a decent result. The pursuit of ‘theoretical best outcomes’ is often a pursuit of minimal gain in players’ power. Hence, Additional RNG affects a player the more they care about optimization.

RNG mentioned here are those that tightly related to player’s power, and cannot be manipulated by save-scumming

• The Additional RNG

To understand how Additional RNG affects the players, it is crucial to first understand how Monster Hunter’s build system works. In Monster Hunter, a build consists of several factors including Weapon, Equipment, Charm and Decorations.
① Weapon: You choose 1 out of 14 classes of ‘weapon types’, then craft/upgrade a weapon from that class. In just 1 class, there are more than a hundred weapons each with different stats. Weapon type determines your movesets, and weapon stats determine your damage output.
② Equipment: There are 5 pieces (Head, Torso, Arm, Waist and Leg). They are the main source for Defense, and the main source of skills.
③ Charm(Talisman): They exist as the sixth piece of Equipment, but works slightly differently in MHR and MHW.
④ Decorations: They are additional augments/attachments you can put into the ‘slots’ of your Weapon/Equipment/Charm and provide additional ‘skills’. It also works slightly differently in MHR and MHW.

Skills are a passive perk that gives player buffs and abilities. When someone talks about builds in Monster Hunter, what they mean are actually a combination of skills, achieved through a specific mix of Equipment, Charm and Decoration. Some skills for example are:
① Attack Boost: Higher level gives a higher raw damage buff. Highest level gives roughly 10-15% bonus.
② Critical Eye: Higher level gives a higher critical rate buff. Highest level gives about a 40% bonus.
③ Evade Window: Higher level gives you a longer bonus on i-frames. Highest level can almost double your default i-frames.
As you can see, skills provide massive benefits to a player, and are the only way to become more powerful other than playing better.

In MHR, skills and slots of Charms are generated with RNG. The theoretical perfect Charm that gives the best combinations of skills for the best buffs can be as rare as 1 in a million rolls. Since they way Charms work like a sixth piece of Equipment, this means that ⅙ of your build is now depending on RNG. Charms are directly crafted with monster loot in MHW, and provide fixed skills like Equipment.

On November 2022, a new, enhanced type of loot-box is introduced in end game MHRS that massively improves the rates to obtain a good charm by allowing players to specify 1 skill to generate. (A charm can have a random combinations of up to 2 skills and 3 slots). However this update does not affect MHR players.
Image below shows a charm being crafted in MHW.


In MHRS, a customization system is introduced to allow players to alter Equipment’s existing defense, skills and slots. It works by randomly lowering or increasing existing stats on each roll. The theoretical perfect rolls that give the best possible boosts can be as rare as 1 in 10 million rolls. This system does not exist in MHW.
I would like to repeat, the perfect rolls are totally optional if you don’t mind losing a little DPS which can be compensated by playing better. It is not that difficult to obtain a somewhat decent roll with medium grinding. (A decent combination of less rare skills have a higher probability to appear). However, such a system does set a statistically impossible ceiling for perfect builds.

In MHW and MHWI, decorations are randomly obtained through a loot-box mechanism as a reward for hunting monsters. There is a fixed amount of existing decorations, each of them provide a fixed skill(s). To get the rarest decoration, the probability can be as low as 1 in 1200 rolls.
In MHW, some decoration provides essential skills that give massive boosts for a certain playstyle/weapon class, but they are extremely rare. Hence the system made many players struggle and forced them into grinding. In MHWI, such a problem no longer exists. The essential decorations are now easily obtainable either through much higher drop rates, or the game straight up allows you to trade with in-game currency. The rarest decorations are now only providing a minimum bonus, roughly about 1-3% DPS boost. Decorations can be directly crafted using monster loot in MHR
In MHW and MHWI, there is a special game mode called sieges. Completing a siege will reward the players with a special loot-box that drops Weapons. There are two sieges, one in MHW and one in MHWI. Take the MHWI siege as example: each loot-box will randomly give you 1 out of ±7 weapons, out of the 14 weapon class. Hence, the probability to get the specific weapon you want is roughly 1 in 200 rolls. The probability for siege loot-box in MHW is much lower, at about 1 in 500 rolls.
These weapons are also optional for the majority of players. However for some minorities, these weapons can be the best meta options for their weapon class, and the alternatives can have a significant gap. This system does not exist in MHR.

In MHW, there is an end-game system that allows players to customize their weapons, called “Weapon Augmentation”. The augmentations provide passive buffs like extra ATK, DEF, CRIT or even grants lifesteal ability. To augment a weapon, you will need a class-specific material that only drops from a specific type of quests by chance. There are 7 of these materials, each one can be used for 2 weapon classes. The rate they drop from quests is ±3%. Hence, the probability to obtain a specific material you need is roughly 1 in 250 rolls. The weapon augmentation is also optional, but augmentation like lifesteal provides significant benefits. Weapon augmentation in MHR doesn’t require any materials that works in similar ways

RNG - Conclusion

In conclusion, the Additional RNG in both games are pretty terrible. Although they are completely optional, it is almost inevitable that you will reach the moment while building and think: “If only I could have a slightly better luck then I could perfect my current build”.

To me personally, I would rather grind day and nights for a foreseeable end, rather than settle mid-way for an intermediate outcome while knowing there are better ones or an impossible ceiling out there. Hence, I preferred MHW’s RNG.

MHR’s RNG in a way has massively affected build crafting. Combining the randomized factors of Charm RNG and Customization RNG, it essentially makes certain builds hard to replicate. From another perspective, it also grants the players immense freedom to customize a personalized build based on their preferences and player skill.

Multiplayer/Co-op

Quests are one of the key elements of Monster Hunter games’ core gameplay loop. They are assignments demanding players to hunt specific targets or gather specific items. Players will pick up 1 quest when they are in base, then depart into the quests’ destined map. After completing the assignment, players will be rewarded currency and related rewards, then are sent back to base where they prepare for the next quest. (restocking, crafting, upgrading etc)

Host refers to a player who picked up a quest. Once a quest has been picked up, a team will be automatically created, and other players in the same lobby can join directly (if the host doesn’t set a password/member limit). Client refers to a player who joined an existing quest (team) either through the same lobby or through random matchmaking. A team can have 4 players at max (1 host + 3 clients)

Lobby or Session is an online lobby required for multiplayer. While being in the same lobby, players can see and chat with each other in selected areas. Lobby in MHR is capped at 4 players. Lobby in MHW is capped at 16 players.

• Selected Co-op

In MHR, contents are roughly divided into Village Quests and Hub Quests. Village Quests are strictly solo, they make up roughly 20% of the base game. Hub Quests are essentially a continuation of Village Quests in terms of both difficulty and story, and can be played in Co-op. (You can skip Village Quests and go straight into Hub Quests, but you will miss some early stories and rewards, but you can always revisit and finish them). The quests added by MHRS work similarly as Hub Quests, and allow co-op at the beginning.
In MHW and MHWI, there is no differentiation of Village and Hub. All quests including story quests and other optional quests, can be played in co-op.

For both games, in most story quests, or some quests that introduce a new monster, there will be a cutscene at the start or in the middle of the quest.
In MHR, you can watch the cutscene along with your teammates (or skip them).
In MHW, players are not allowed to co-op before they have finished watching the cutscenes in a quest. Here are some example situations:
① A quest has a cutscene right as it starts. The player has to pick up the quest, depart to destination, and finish watching the cutscene, before other players can join.
② A quest has a cutscene somewhere in the middle. The player has to pick up and depart, keep playing (either fighting or exploring) to a point where the cutscene started and finished playing, before other players can join.

Hence, co-op experience for story mode is much better in MHR. Whereas in MHW, clients have to spend a lot of time waiting for the host to finish watching cutscenes before they could join and play. The matter is made worse due to the unskippable cutscene in MHW

To note, story mode content are only about 20% of all the games' available contents.

• Random Co-op (matchmaking)

For quests that allow co-op, players can choose to matchmake with random strangers online and play together.
In MHR:
① As host, before you pick-up a quest, you can choose to “accept quest and send join request”. As soon as you finished loading and landed into the destination, strangers would start joining. You can also send/cancel ‘join request’ in the middle of a quest, turning on/off random matchmaking.
② As a client, You can choose to matchmake based on quest types. This matchmaking system does not allow browsing existing teams of strangers. What team you resulted in is 100% depends on the system’s decision. As a result, you can be assigned into teams from hunting the easiest monsters to the hidden mega final boss, all by chance. Once the system finds a team for you, you will be immediately sent to the battleground before knowing what you will face. (You will see the target during loading page, or check the details after arriving. You can still switch equipment and inventory after arriving.)
The team you are assigned into can also be right about finishing its assignment. So you might finish loading, reaching the destination, just for being told the quest is completed and you now need to sit through another loading screen to return to base (you still get the full rewards though).
You can also matchmake based on a specific quest filter, but this usually results in long, endless, resultless wait because the matchmaking is Region-locked and there might not be people currently fighting what you searched for (there are a few hundred quests in total, for reference).

In MHW:
① As host, you have to pick up a quest and depart into the map before you can fire an ‘SOS signal’ to make you team visible to strangers.
② As client, you are allowed to browse through all existing online teams. They are grouped by their quest types, and you can see details like quest target, member list and their ranks (and weapons), time elapsed etc. Once you choose a team to join, you can still freely prepare in the base, changing to a suitable build, managing your inventories, checking bestiary etc. However, if the quest is finished while you are still preparing at base, you’ll be kicked from the team. You can also filter the online teams using tags like quest types, specific monster, specific maps and specific difficulty.

Hence, co-op experience for random matchmaking, especially non-story quests, is much better in MHW, because players are more likely to find a team they would like to fight, instead of being randomly assigned to any teams

• Stability

Both games use Steam’s server for online multiplayer. However, MHW is relatively more problematic in terms of connection stability. The issue was very bothersome during the early release of MHW, hence why there are so many dated negative reviews that simply wrote lines like “50382-MW1”, an error code frequently seen when you disconnect from your team. To be fair, the issue has been improved upon until now, and the multiplayer is much more stable compared to the initial state. MHR is also not without connection issues, but is relatively less severe and frequent.

One major difference is how both games handle disconnected players. In MHR, a disconnected player can always rejoin the same team (usually through the same lobby) and still earn full reward for completing the quest. In MHW, the system will treat a disconnected player as a ‘ghost’ that occupies 1 member slot. So, if you have a full team of 4, and 1 person disconnects, they will not be able to rejoin as the team would still be full. In MHR however, the disconnected person will leave an empty slot in the team, so when they finally reconnect back to the lobby, they can rejoin the same team.

MHW also has a feature that penalizes players who joined a quest after the quest has elapsed a certain period of time. If a player joins a quest that has elapsed more than 10 minutes (timer starts when the quest host reached the map), the new-come player will receive significantly less rewards, regardless of how well or how long they fought in that quest. This means that even if a player is still able to rejoin to the original team after disconnecting, they will be penalized if the quest has elapsed more than 10 minutes.

• Active Playerbase

Both games have a considerably active playerbase. MHW is older than MHR, so it has overall less players. Also, part of the players might actually be playing custom modpacks and can't play with others in vanilla, hence the actual amount of players you can see in-game will be less.

Visual/Sound Design

MHR and MHRS have clear aesthetic directions. MHR is heavily influenced by traditional Japanese culture, while MHRS is heavily influenced by medieval European culture.
MHW and MHWI however went with a realistic aesthetic without clear directions.

In terms of monster designs, both games went with low-fantasy that prioritizes on realism, but each with different themes.
Monsters in MHR are inspired by Japanese Yokai (like Oni, Kappa etc), in MHRS are inspired by Western Monsters (like Wolverine, Vampire etc).
Monsters in MHW and MHWI do not have a clear inspiration, they are mainly based off real world creatures including pre-historical beings.
These descriptions only apply to a part of each games' entire roster, not every one of them. Hence there might be some that don't fit with such narratives

Map designs in MHR can be seen revolving around the theme of ‘ruins’, and thus many man-made structures can be seen scattered around non-combat areas. Whereas MHW focuses more on the theme of ‘nature’ and almost none of its maps have visible human-made structures (aside from the player’s camp).

MHW has a more impressive performance in terms of peak graphics, texture quality and its models have more polygons.

MHW’s visual and sound effects during combat are more impactful, whereas MHR went with relatively simple and light designs.

MHR’s UI is designed and optimized for handheld consoles (Nintendo Switch), and can be too large and overencumbered on PC. MHW’s UI is designed and optimized for home consoles (PS, Xbox), hence they look natural on PC. For demonstration:


Both games have options to turn off specific/all HUD.

• Layered Equipment/Skins/Transmog

Both games have a layered equipment system. It means that you can equip skins to be shown on your hunter instead of the actual equipment you are using.
In MHR, you can access layered armor, including those from purchasable DLC, event quest rewards and existing armors (armor crafted with loots that has stats and skills) very early in the game. However, layered weapon is only available in end game MHRS.
In MHW, you can access layered armor somewhere in the middle of the game, including those from deluxe kit bonus and event quest rewards. However, layered version of existing armor are only available in end game MHWI. Layered weapon is also only available in end game MHWI.

Technical

• Controls

Both MHR and MHW have optimized controls for controllers/gamepads. However, the keys are mostly non-customizable without using external means like Steam Big Picture or DS4 Windows.

Both MHR and MHW support keyboard and mouse controls, but the original keybinds are ‘terrible’ according to a huge sum of players. The kb&m controls are customizable in both games, but MHR offers more accessible customization by allowing combined keys to be bound to a single key.

MHR control is sometimes reported to be a little ‘unresponsive’, which is likely due to it having a shorter input buffer compared to MHW. This was a big issue during initial release, but is gradually improved upon with followed updates. Currently only a very small sum of reports can be seen regarding this issue, and most of them are from kb&m players.

• System requirements, Optimization, Loading time

The system requirement of MHR is relatively lower than MHW, and it is more optimized to run at a stable FPS. Its loading time is also relatively shorter.
Below are stats provided in ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sites.







- Windows 10 (Version 1809 or later) and a 4GB VRAM GPU (graphics board or video card) are required for DirectX 12 API.

• Stability

The major technical issues of MHR are savefile issues. Some other frequent issues includes file corruption, graphical error and random crashes.

According to Steam reviews and Steam discussions, the game seemed to have a lot of issues regarding savefiles. The relatively mild ones involve savefile deletion, while the relatively severe ones involve game corruption that prevents creating a new savefile, hence making the player unable to start a new game (nor read their existing saves).
        Currently there are no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ announcements regarding this issue. Players are highly suspecting it to be caused by either modding, cloud save error, anti-virus, software incompatibility etc, but none are proven to be the direct cause.
        Currently there isn’t a known direct cause for savefile issues, hence there isn’t a direct prevention method. However, you can minimize your risks by avoiding modding and most importantly, routinely make a manual backup for your existing saves.
        The game uses Steam Cloud-saves, and is sometimes reported being faulty and cause savefile deletion or rewinds. Hence, making a manual backup is highly recommended.

The major technical issues of MHW are graphical issues, random crashes and startup crashes. There are very few reports on corrupting saves, which is highly likely due to Steam’s cloud save error.

To note, both games have really poor post-sales service. There are no moderators or officials trying to directly address technical problems reported on Steam forums. And most of the time, there are no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ announcements regarding existing problems, or ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ guidelines on how to prevent/solve them. The good thing is, the community is actively trying to help each other out, and you can often see people teaching/exchanging workarounds. There are also many modders dedicated to helping fix the games’ technical problems. For example, there are mods for MHR that unlocks region-lock, or mods for MHW that optimizes codes and graphics for better performance.

Some might also say that Capcom treats their game more as a 'product' rather than a 'service'. Hence, when their products are finished development and shipped to the players' hand, their duty is now over and they will provide little to none after-services. This has been a traditional practice since early days of gaming industry, and can contradict with gaming services nowadays that actively engage with their community, especially those of indie developers. It is debatable about such practice's viability. The disadvantage was already mentioned: lack of post-sale support. However, it also brings advantage like allowing players to freely modify their games, hence giving birth to a massive modding community blooming in creativity.

Microtransactions

There are a total of 223 DLCs for MHR. None of them gives power or progression. The only DLC that mattered is Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak, a DLC Expansion for MHR.



Voice Lines: Refers to noises/dialogues players made when performing actions, mainly during fighting and performing poses/gestures.
Music Packs: The music you purchased from DLC can be set as BGM in the game's base
Character Edit Voucher: A consumable you use to reset your characters' customization. (body type, facial detail etc.) You don't need this to change stuff like hairstyle or hair color.
Stickers, Poses and Gestures: Social features. Stickers can be sent along with custom texts into chat in MHR. Stickers in MHW cannot be sent along texts. For example:





There are a total of 244 DLCs for MHW. The only DLC that mattered is Monster Hunter World: Iceborne, a DLC Expansion for MHW.


If you purchased Iceborne, you will obtain a powerful armor set called Guardian Armor. It is designed to help players breeze through base game (MHW) so that they could access DLC quicker. For rough comparison, if the power rating of end-game gear in MHW is 100, and earliest default gear is 1, then Guardian Armor is roughly sitting at 75. It gives huge defensive stats and skills, but not offensive skills. You can choose to not equip this set.
Guardian armor becomes useless once you started MHWI, the stats are too inferior compared to gears you get from that point onward.

To note, the sum total of DLCs are not absolutely correct, because I did not exclude stuff like free-DLCs, pre-order bonus and such. The data is all sourced from SteamDB and counted manually

Modding

In both games, you can mod the game as you wish, whether it is visual mods or mods that affect your gameplay entirely, or mods that cheats you items. There are no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ laws or regulations regarding modding, and there have never been a single report of players getting banned for modding. In fact, there isn't a ban system for both MHR and MHW. There is no ban system nor any online regulations, so playing online with modded games is legally alright. However, some mods might not work or even crash your/others game, and some might negatively affect other players' experience. Hence, proceed with care.

The modding community of both games are very active. Currently, a majority of mods are visual mods that swap models of equipment or characters for aesthetics’ sake. There are also some gameplay-related mods that add brand new monsters, weapon/monster movesets, custom quests (usually kaizo quests, hence custom difficult challenges) etc.

Since MHR is still being updated and mods require an active moderation to make sure they won’t break after each update, this creates a heavy workload for modders especially those who are involved in large projects like adding custom monsters or introducing gameplay overhauls. Hence, I suspect the modding community will become more active after the game has ended in receiving major content updates, which is expected to be around Q3-4 of 2023.

Whereas for MHW, its content update service has ended and will no longer receive major updates anymore. Hence, the modders have a fantastic playground to make use of their creativity to maximum potential. Currently, the modders are even collaborating together on an ambitious project called MHW:ICE (Iceborne Community Edition), which is basically an enhanced version of MHWI with tons of player-made content including custom models, custom quests, custom monsters, custom movesets and more.

Currently there are 200+ pages, each with 20 results on Nexusmods for MHW, while there are 60+ pages for MHR.

[MrTeamGuy]

Love both, MHW is way more immersive experience. As for hardest content in game, MHW takes the in

[Phleet]

ancient forest is the biggest downside of world
khezu is the biggest downside of rise

[TB_urton]

In other words, both are good but it depends on what you're looking for as an individual player. I personally started with World and bought Rise to see how it is. haven't installed it yet because of a computer crash that required a full database reset. Maybe I'll get around to playing it soon.

[RONIN-0]

In summary. MHW is better than MHrise , the level of players in World is much higher than rise even though the game is newer, faster combat ,mechanics that make hunting easier do not make it more complex if not easier, MHrise is good game but it is a step back from what is MHW.

[jellyfish12]

bro didn't write a review, bro wrote an entire journal article

[Sam Aconitum]

i started playing monster hunter games on portable 3rd then freedom unite.
i am now on the end stage of sunbreak and i just got world, currently waiting for iceborne to go on sale. my only big complain in world is the complexity of the map, its too huge for me and theres a lot of stuff that i wish i could just jump down but nope, i cant; the UI is too small for me, i wish the HP, stamina bar, and item UI are bit bigger. other than that i still can play it properly.
whats the best monster hunter for me? of course its always the old gen. i really wanna get a 3DS so i can play 4U and GU

[Maej]

FYI for Rise event quests: Capcom has announced that certain free DLCs / event quests are being removed on January 21, 2024. the list includes:

Downloadable Palico: Sengan-en yasu
Downloadable Palico: USJ Meow Limit!
Event Quest: Gotta Hoard Fast! (Sonic The Hedgehog Palico/Palamute gear)
Event Quest: Super Shady Look-alike (Sonic Wear Layered Armor)
Event Quest: USJ Arzuros Onslaught (Azure Era Palaco/Palamute Gear)
Event Quest USJ Shrine Showdown (Azure Era Armor + Weapons)

Before January 21, 2024, you can claim these by speaking to Senri the Mailman (cat near Elder Fugen)

[Antidobra]

MHR(:SB) doesn't have clutch claw, MHR > MHW(:IB). Simple as that.

[Goose]

i cant believe I just read a peer reviewed article about monster hunter

[RamzaBehoulve]

Really good write up and comparison, but the final conclusion is now clear.

There is no debate anymore which is best now that both have had their final update. Meta numbers generally don't lie and those are sales and daily players.

MHW has 50% more sales and almost double the amount of daily players on Steam (and probably more overall) DESPITE being the older game.

MHR attempted to focus almost solely on the fights and made it easier to start, so a win to introduce the franchise to new players, but ultimately many players felt it was not good enough and moved to MHW as the superior product.

Maybe next generation, they should do a Rise first, then World second...like train people in 1st, then challenge them in 2nd.