Monster Hunter: World Iceborne Amps Up The Difficulty

Veteran players of Monster Hunter: World should be plenty satisfied with the challenge provided by the game's upcoming Iceborne expansion. More casual players, however, might feel some pain.

According to Game Informer, Capcom went back and forth with how exactly to balance the difficulty in the expansion, weighing whether it should lean more toward those who'd only finished Monster Hunter: World's campaign or those who've been grinding away at the game religiously over the past few months. In the end, it appears Iceborne will be far more friendly to the game's most experienced players, leaving those who've not been pouring a lot of time into the title with some extra work to do.

"I think for players who are going straight from the end of the story from World it's going to feel a little more difficult when they're transition into the new master rank for Iceborne," Capcom's Kaname Fujioka told Game Informer. "If it's players who have been going in-depth into the content for Monster Hunter: World and the updates, then they'll feel a much smoother transition for difficulty than the other players will."

Thankfully, Iceborne will also introduce some quality-of-life improvements that should make all players happy, and should make slaying monsters both easier and faster. Tracking your prey in the game has been "streamlined," as Game Informer put it, which should cut down on the amount of time you're wandering aimlessly looking for tracks. And the game's slinger is getting a clutch claw, which enables you to latch on to the side of a monster and either steer it in one direction or the other, or nail it with all of your slinger ammo, potentially staggering or dropping it.

The Iceborne is going to be a very big deal when it arrives on Sept. 6. Monster Hunter: World is already Capcom's best-selling video game of all time, accomplishing that feat in less than a year and a half on the market. And as far as Capcom is stating, Iceborne will be the only expansion the game gets before the team moves on to what is undoubtedly the next Monster Hunter game in the series.

We'll update you with more details on the expansion in the weeks ahead.