The Monster Hunter franchise is a phenomenon, accumulating critical and commercial acclaim and spanning dozens of main titles and spinoffs. The secret to its success is an addictive gameplay loop, where you battle huge and terrifying monsters to gain loot that, in turn, lets you acquire better gear and hunt bigger, badder beasties. It’s an easy loop to replicate on the tabletop and that’s exactly what Monster Hunter World: The Board Game does. Just like its parent franchise, however, it comes in a variety of flavors, so here’s what you need to find your feet in this video game board game.
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If you're not one for blurbs, you can scroll through all the items in this article right here. However, if you'd like to know more about what's available and what comes in each box, read on for the goods.
Core Boxes
Each of the core boxes is a standalone game, containing four hunters and four monsters for them to hunt. However, they can also be combined, allowing you to mix and match characters and their prey from different sets. The majority of the components in each box are specific to the hunters and monsters unique to that set, but there is some overlap, and each set contains a few extra cards that are only used if you’re combining with its opposite number.
As such, you’re probably best off with a single core box to start with and, if you get into the game, you can start by adding some of the smaller expansions, listed below, doubling up on a second core set in the event that you develop a passion for the series.
There’s not really any difference between the core sets in terms of quality. Both feature the same ruleset, the same compulsive loop and the same stratospheric levels of production quality, with gigantic monster miniatures that tower above the hunters for an awesome sense of scale. But the look and feel of each is quite different, so you’re best off just going whichever one appeals most aesthetically, or ties in with fond memories from the video game series.
Monster Hunter World: The Board Game - Ancient Forest
As you might expect from the title, the setting for this collection is a primeval forest. The game boards are a lush green and brown and the monsters are clearly inspired by dinosaurs and tropical animals. There’s the lizard-like Great Jagras, the furred and scaled Tobi-Kadachi, the fearsome tyrannosaur Anjanath and the huge dragon Rathalos. Setting out to take them down are the classically-armed hunters Great Sword, Sword and Shield, Dual Blades, and Bow.
Monster Hunter World: The Board Game - Wildspire Waste
Wildspire Waste is a little more esoterically-named but the monsters and boards make clear that it’s a badlands-type setting, with a mixture of rocky outcrops, desert and swamp. The included creatures are the heavily-armored Barroth, monstrous swamp-fish Jyurados, the bird-like Pukei-Pukei, and underground behemoth Diablos which bears more than a passing resemblance to its demonic namesake. The hunters in this set are a little more bizarre, wielding Charge Blade, Switch Axe, Heavy Bowgun and Insect Glaive respectively.
Retail Expansions
As is often the case with Kickstarter-driven games, there were a slew of expansions available to pre-order at the same time. Most of these are still available at retail, however Nergigante is very hard to find and Teostra is exclusive to the publisher, Steamforged games – both of them are currently available directly from their website.
Nergigante, Kushala Daora and Teostra are all Elder Dragons, a new type of monster for you to hunt. They come with additional quest content for the base game, but perhaps most appealing of all they offer an extra, five-star difficulty level that’s a grade above any of the base game monsters, and the included miniature is a whole level bigger than any of their core box counterparts, too. That gives you an extra, mega-boss challenge to overcome and extends your campaign.
While getting to fight an ultimate boss in a longer campaign might sound like the ideal way to extend your base game content, all these expansions are expensive, and many have features that only work with one core box or the other. For example, Daora has one special crafting weapon that fits a hunter from the Ancient Forest, and another for a hunter from the Wildspire Wastes. As such, picking up the second core set might well be your best first stop if you want additional content for your game.
Monster Hunter World The Board Game: Hunter's Arsenal Expansion
This offers six new hunters, as usual named after their weapons, which are a mixture of the traditional and peculiar. You can choose from the Light Bowgun, the Long Sword (which is very long indeed), the Gunlance, the Hammer, the Lance and the Hunting Horn (which looks nothing like a horn). While cool dragons and other monsters are obviously appealing, in terms of adding variety to your games, this box gives you the biggest bang for your buck as you get six different new toys to play with, and six new upgrade paths to explore, rather than just one beastie. However, you’ll need both core sets to be able to fully utilize all six.
Monster Hunter World: The Board Game - Nergigante Expansion
If you do want one single dragon to add to your campaign, this might be your best bet because it allows you to craft additional weapons for all the currently available characters, including all those from the core sets and the Hunter’s Arsenal. He’s also delightfully odd, a spiny colossus who grows vicious spikes to impale the hunters wherever he’s damaged.
Monster Hunter World The Board Game: Kushala Daora Expansion
Kushala Daora is a wind dragon, who buffets the hunters with powerful storms and he’s also got the biggest miniature in the range, with a foot-wide wingspan. As if beating such a behemoth wasn’t a tough enough fight in the first place, you’ll also have to fight through strong winds and tornado blasts just to even close with your quarry.
Monster Hunter World: The Board Game - Teostra Expansion
Of all the dragons, Teostra might be the most familiar simply because it’s the classic fire dragon everyone knows and either loves or fears, possibly in equal measure. As you might expect that means a lot of ranged punishment from blasts and fireballs for anyone that dares trespass onto the dragon’s lair.
Exclusive Expansion
This was originally only available as part of the Kickstarter campaign for the game. Expect to pay a hefty premium if you want to pick one up second-hand. However, there’s currently another chance to snag one thanks to the more recent Kickstarter campaign for the new Iceborne boxes, detailed below.
Monster Hunter World - Kulu-Ya-Ku Expansion
This bizarre creature can pick things up in its dextrous claws, such as rocks to throw at intrepid hunters. In mechanical terms this not only gives it a missile attack but its ability to use tools makes it unpredictable, ensuring you’ve got to pick the right spot from round to round in order to score maximum damage. It looks a lot like an ornithomimosaur - an ostrich-mimic dinosaur - so looks right at home in the Ancient Forest although it can be used with either core box.
Upcoming Content
Monster Hunter World Iceborne: The Board Game
Following the success of the initial lineup detailed above, publisher Steamforged Games ran a second Kickstarter for a new iteration of the basic design called Monster Hunter World: Iceborne. While it features the same core mechanics it has a range of new concepts, so it’s only partially compatible with the original boxes: you can port monsters and hunters from one to the other in arena games, but you can’t shunt a campaign from one setting to a different one.
The Iceborne content follows a similar, but slightly different path to the original campaign. There’s just one core box this time, Hoarfrost Reach, again with four monsters and four hunters. Also as before there are Elder Dragons and a Hunter’s Arsenal expansion to add. But instead of another core box there are three monster expansions with four new monsters each, Absolute Power, Seething Anger and Overpowering Hunger. Plus a smattering of extras unlocked during the campaign.
While the campaign has closed, the game has not yet shipped and you can still order items from the offered range via Gamfound.
For more, check out our Arkham Horror buying guide if you're into horror board games, or take a look at our Dominion buying guide if you're more a fan of deck-building games.
Matt Thrower is a contributing freelance writer for IGN, specializing in tabletop games. You can reach him on BlueSky at @mattthr.bsky.social.
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