Even though I knew Capcom would be coming out with another Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak digital event this month, it somehow felt even longer than the wait time we had for the first one when it was announced around the Game Awards. Maybe that’s what anticipation and hype does to a person. Nonetheless, we got a digital event for the DLC on May 10 and you can see it by clicking the video below. You can also click this link here to see it on the Monster Hunter YouTube channel if you’d like. For now, here’s everything they showed and how I feel about them.
New Monsters-Welcome Back, Seregios
After the trailer, Mr. Suzuki takes the baton to first tell us about the three new monsters featured in the trailer.
Seregios
First is a returning monster. It’s the flagship monster of Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, Seregios (I honestly thought it was Gore Magala all this time). It fights even more quickly and viciously than it did back on the 3DS. With the amount of mobility in this game, the bleeding status may be even more troublesome than it was before which, honestly, wasn’t much. Speaking of, I really like the change of the status’s appearance on the hunters. An open wound is way more fitting for a status named bleeding than a bunch of repeated scratch marks.
Aurora Somnacanth
Next is a subspecies of a monster already in the game, Aurora Somnacanth. Rather than induce sleep, this Somnacanth can freeze opponents with its icy elemental attacks. Even though it wasn’t exactly shown, it was stated that the Somnacanth can slide around to attack as well. I also really love the darker colors and overall look of the monster, although I feel like my idea of a paralyzing Somnacanth would’ve been better.
Magma Almudron
And finally, there’s Magma Almudron. As indicated by the name, it’s a fire subspecies of Almudron that lives in the Lava Caverns. Rather than slosh mud around, it uses lava to attack. It can also burrow into the ground to heat up and enter another phase. That particular element is reminiscent of an old monster, Agnaktor. I wasn’t entirely fond of Almudron personally, and this makes me dread fighting it even more, but the design is really cool.
Old monsters were also briefly mentioned. In the newly added Master Rank, monsters will have new attacks that hunters will have to adapt to. Mentioned examples include a backwards somersault attack from Aknosom and a bite-and-spin combo from Tigrex. Of course this is cool and I’m happy they put in the work to do this. If they just added more health and damage on the monsters, the extra difficulty would’ve been artificial.
The Mystery of Malzeno
Mr. Suzuki goes on to explain the flagship monster for the DLC, the Elder Dragon Malzeno. Malzeno is able to control a hoard of small creatures to trap monsters and drain their life force. It fights very mercilessly and uses a variety of unique attacks. Some of its attacks can cause a special status called “bloodblight,” which drains your health over time. The only way to get the health back is to fight the monster. It can also enter a second phase once it captures a hunter and absorbs their life, making the fight even more of a challenge.
I like everything they did with this monster, and it might’ve taken Lunagaron’s spot as my favorite of the Three Lords. They really pulled off the overall vampire motif in every possible area. Bloodblight is also a really cool status which forces engagement with the monster, and can lead to really intense battles. Imagine getting afflicted with bloodblight and you’re too low to heal with a potion in time.
Follower Quests- I Wanted This!
When I first talked about why I loved Monster Hunter Rise (specifically the Rampage quests), one of my very small complaints was that the NPC’s couldn’t come with you to assist in regular quests. It wasn’t a deal breaker or anything, but it never made much sense to me since they all had a weapon that they used during the Rampage quest. Now it seems like you’ll be able to do exactly that in solo quests. They’re just as capable as the players are too, being able to place traps and heal. They can also Wyvern Ride.
You unlock more Followers throughout the DLC as you advance through the story. From Elgado, you can unlock several characters mentioned in the last Sunbreak digital event. You’ll also be able to unlock characters from Kamura as Followers, including Hinoa and Minoto. Hopefully, Yomogi is one of the Followers you can unlock.
Evolved Hunter Actions
I didn’t even know I wanted this. Sunbreak has made many advancements and tweaks to the original mechanics in Rise. One of the biggest things for me is that you don’t need to use a wirebug to run on a wall anymore, but the first thing they mention is a Switch Skill Swap function.
The Switch Skill Swap allows you to swap between two sets of Switch Skills while in the middle of a hunt. You can also achieve this effect with a Swap Evade, which you can use to evade attacks quickly while swapping skills. This game already had so much freedom and customization, and they’re hammering even more into it. Which is amazing, cause I’m all for customization and options. Even though they didn’t mention this, you can also see in the video that there’s now a total of five Switch Skills now.
In addition to the previously mentioned change to wall running, you can now choose to continue attacking a monster without Wyvern Riding it when possible. While this isn’t an option I see myself using, this is very huge for people that aren’t the best at Wyvern Riding in multiplayer and I’m grateful they added it. These are all things you can choose to turn on or off as well by the way.
Starting on May 16 they will be releasing videos showing off all the new Switch Skills for the 14 weapons in the game. This is exactly what they were doing with the weapons before the game came out and I can’t wait to see what’s new, especially for the Gunner weapons. These videos will be shown on the official Monster Hunter Twitter account, so follow them if you wanna stay up to date. I’m hoping they upload them to YouTube as well.
Product Info
Not much of the product information they had to share was anything new. They still plan to release a version of Monster Hunter Rise that includes the base game and the DLC in one package, as well as three amiibos that give you new layered armor. What I’m pretty sure was new though, was the Sunbreak edition Pro Controller featuring a Malzeno. You can also unlock layered armor for your Palico of Navirou, the Felyne that assists you in Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin (if you have save data for the game of course).
Conclusion
And that’s all for this digital event. In my prediction post, I only got it right that we’d get more information about Malzeno as well as a subspecies for Somnacanth. There was overall less info this time around, but nothing was disappointing at all. You can expect more news, particularly about the free title updates that’ll come out, sometime in June. Hopefully it’s quite some time before the DLC releases that month, which is the 30th. What do you think about what was shown? What are you most excited for? And what do you hope to see soon? I’d love to hear your thoughts.