The PC version of “Monster Hunter World: Iceborne” has officially landed on the Steam platform on January 10, and we had the honor to try this game and share with you the PC version of “Monster Hunter World: Iceborne”. Without further ado, let’s get this Iceborne review started.

Game introduction

“Monster Hunter World: Iceborne” is a massive expansion for “Monster Hunter: World”, continuing the story of the base game! In addition to exploring new areas of ice fields, players will also meet many many (over 25) monsters, both familiar and new! The game is now expanded with new challenges to face and conquer.

Game Features and Features

Although Iceborne is said to be an expansion, players can regard this expansion as a small follow-up to “Monster Hunter: World”, or a Part 2 of sorts. The focus of this expansion is a “gathering place” of sorts after the game clears. Because this is a cross-linked map, so that players can see a variety of different scenarios. It’s a very interesting setting for monsters to roam in and meet other monsters that didn’t belong there.

In terms of graphics, Iceborne on PC is certainly a better experience than on the PS4 Pro. When we used the MSI GE75 Raider 85E laptop to test the game, we were able to run it on 1080p with highest quality textures. The HD textures in Iceborne are more refined now. The lines of some items and equipment are clearly visible, which creates some great contrast. In terms of loading times, PS4 load speeds for Iceborne was always pretty slow, which is also a problem that has always been criticized by players. The PC version, however, is very fast, and you can enter the game map after only a few seconds even. Getting ready and prepping for a new round doesn’t take more than a few minutes.

Despite that, the game is still a hardware killer, because if you want to run 4K + run DirectX 12, it is still very CPU-intensive. Even with the MSI GE75 Raider 85E laptop, the FPS wasn’t quite up to our standards. So if players really want to see Iceborne with 4K graphics, they need to make some investments in terms of their hardware.

In addition, Iceborne introduces dynamic monster toughness! During gameplay, the monster’s health will scale up or down dynamically, based on the number of players. This way, the hunting difficulty doesn’t fluctuate with different amounts of hunters. This was a great change that kept the game at the right amount of challenge.

There’s plenty of content in Iceborne and more on the way. You can check out the update roadmap for Monster Hunter: Iceborne. There’s lots of new upcoming developments for the game but we don’t think we can fit them all in this review.

Another important thing to note is the Iceborne still supports modding! There’s been a lot of cool stuff that was created by fans and players, so it’s great that we still have access to them!

Controls

In terms of handling, the keyboard and mouse controls have been optimized for the PC and feels fine to use. However, the game has 14 types of weapons, each of which has a different feel and controls. Using a keyboard + mouse to play Iceborne is still quite complicated. For example, the PC version of “Monster Hunter World: Iceborne” requires you to press C and hold the right mouse button to use the Clutch Claw. Although the keys are not difficult to press, when a player is in a hectic fight against fierce monsters, the combinations of buttons feels awkward to use and doesn’t flow very well.

On the other hand, if you’re playing with a gamepad, the Clutch Claw’s buttons are preset to L2 + O, and the advantage of having buttons on the shoulders is that the distribution of buttons are more concentrated, unlike the keyboard and mouse, where keys are relatively scattered. This makes it easier to use and perform advanced combos. Therefore, we highly recommend that players use a gamepad when hunting. Another thing to note is that keyboard + mouse players don’t get to experience any gamepad vibrations, which creates a bit of a disconnect between the player and gameplay.

Before we go, here’s some gameplay footage that we recorded during our review:
Gameplay 1 (GE75 Raider 8SE):

Gameplay 2:

How to buy

Overall, the PC version of Monster Hunter World: Iceborne is a good gaming experience, and the game updates come in regularly. In addition, the game’s loading speed has improved, which is one of the big improvements! The PC version of Monster Hunter World: Iceborne has officially launched on the Steam platform, priced at RM131.