Monster Hunter World was a watershed moment for the franchise, bringing millions of new players to the long-running series. If you’re looking for more games like it to sate your hunting instincts, here are my Top 10 games that are a lot like MHW that you can play now.
10 Best Games to Play if You Like Monster Hunter World
Monster Hunter is a unique experience, one even its closest imitators try and usually fail to reach in quality. There have been several series that have taken the MonHun formula and run with it, adding their own unique spin or changing up some core features to make it their own.
Six of the games on my list follow the MW series formula fairly faithfully (or come from Capcom themselves). The remaining four scratch a part of the Monster Hunter itch or take inspiration from it somehow.
10. Monster Hunter Rise
Usually, I would say I’m cheating here, but Monster Hunter Rise is a different enough game that I think it’s a worthwhile alternative to World. The main differences — the mobility and mechanical complexity created by Wirebugs — are so significant that playing World and Rise sometimes feels like a very different experience. That Rise adds tons of new moves to each of the 16 weapons and has several difficult new monsters certainly helps, too.
9. Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin
The second cheat on the list (and I swear it’s the last), Stories 2 is also different enough from World that comparing the two hardly counts. The Stories series has two main differences: the monsters are more like Pokemon, and the narrative takes on a larger role. It’s also better written, if a bit more childish. There’s still plenty of content to chew through if you want a game with some meat on its bones.
8. Wild Hearts
The most recent entry in the Monster Hunter-like subgenre, Wild Hearts wears its inspiration very much on its sleeve. It does, however, have its own character, adding an on-the-fly building system a la’ Fortnite, all with a more MonHun-try bent.
Its setting is in an even more traditionally Japanese world than Rise (at least after the Sunbreak expansion), and its less complex combat mechanics set it more apart, as well. However, not always in a good way. But if you need a Monster Hunter game that doesn’t come from Capcom, Wild Hearts is it.
7. Toukiden
Like Wild Hearts, the Toukiden series unapologetically takes tons of cues from Monster Hunter, and the most recent entry, Toukiden 2, came out for PS3, PS4, and Vita back in 2017. It’s available on Steam, too.
You fight demons instead of traditional monsters, but the process is essentially the same. Interestingly, the team in charge of Toukiden would go on to make Wild Hearts, among many other titles, including Persona 5 Strikers, alongside the Persona dev team.
6. God Eater
The God Eater series, of which God Eater 3 is the most recent entry from 2019, is another Monster Hunter-like that is — by the grace of god and anime — much more anime than its inspiration series. From the characters’ aesthetics and weapons to the story, if your Monster Hunter experience didn’t have nearly enough spiky hair and edgy protagonists, God Eater provides.
5. Dauntless
Dauntless is an interesting beast. Not only is it a pared-down version of Monster Hunter with a cel-shaded aesthetic, but it’s also free to play. As such, there are plenty of monetization strategies woven in, but the core gameplay is undeniably Capcom-inspired. It’s also a fairly solid game in its own right, though it’s a bit more difficult than you might expect. It also takes a lot of grinding to get anywhere.
4. Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen
From here on out, I’ll talk about games that take more indirect inspiration from Monster Hunter: World and Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen‘s main deviation from Capcom’s more well-known series is its harder focus on dungeon delving and other more traditional RPG gameplay.
However, when the time comes to hunt monsters, or the titular Dragons, the combat goes a bit more MonHun. You can grab onto and climb around atop the various beasts you fight — and indeed will need to — in a manner devilishly similar to a Hunter’s.
3. Elden Ring
At its core, Elden Ring is, like Monster Hunter, just traversal from boss to boss. There are, of course, plenty of other enemies to fight, puzzles to solve, and gear to collect, but almost all of the game’s setpiece moments take place in boss fights. As such, it shares a lot with MHW, with pivotal moments mostly occurring in the heat of battle. Elden Ring focuses more on narrative and world-building than Monster Hunter does, but they’re similar enough at their core.
2. Horizon: Forbidden West
The main things Horizon Forbidden West and Monster Hunter have in common are their sense of scale and giant enemies you take down using relatively low-tech weapons. Please ignore the fact that the weapons in Horizon are built with 22nd-century technical scrap. Forget also that the monsters are actually robots. The game is about fighting giant things. It’s close enough, okay?
1. Armored Core 6
Hear me out. Armored Core 6 actually has a lot in common with Monster Hunter: World, especially in its mission structure. Every mission (quest) takes place in a specific area, not every mission sees you overcoming a major challenge, and the important skill check encounters happen at regular intervals, some of which are infamous for their ability to “filter” less skilled players out.
Also, the enemies are all huge, many bigger than your character by several times. But the most dangerous can also be on the smaller end. The fact that everything is robots doesn’t figure into it, and I won’t hear another word about it.
And that’s my list of the 10 best games you should play if you’re looking for more titles like Monster Hunter: World. For more lists on games you may or may not know about, check out the Top 10 upcoming game sequels in 2024, the Top 10 best games to play like Starfield, and the Top 10 best RPGs of 2023.
