When Monster Hunter World came out, it took the Monster Hunter series in an interesting new direction. Monster Hunter games have typically been static games- sure enough, you’d get the occasional Event Quest with new subspecies or reworked fights, but the series never really got much in the way of proper DLC.

With World though, that changed. We saw the addition of patches more similar to MMOs, bringing new monsters, and sometimes even new story chapters to the game, and that’s before counting things like the G-Rank expansion Iceborne which also brought a whole new cycle with it.

Unfortunately, Monster Hunter Rise is in a bit of a pickle in this sense. Rise had good momentum at the start, getting the 2.0 and 3.0 updates shortly after the game’s launch, releasing new monsters like Bazelgeuse and Crimson Glow Valstrax. However since then, the game’s gone basically quiet.

That’s not to say nothing’s happened in the game- every week or so it releases new Event Quests to shake things up. But as a whole, Monster Hunter Rise’s Endgame comes to a pretty abrupt halt. The Event Quests don’t really do much, only getting you layered armors like sunglasses, as well as stickers to use in chat.

Social Media’s Response

Naturally, fans have started taking their frustrations out on the Monster Hunter Facebook page. Many posts about the weekly event quests are full of upset fans, wanting a new monster to hunt instead of the same fights, but with different rewards.

A Guerri writes:

“Event quests for dumb stickers are probably the most worthless thing i’ve ever seen in the history of this franchise”, in reference to the unsatisfactory rewards of Rise’s event Quests. .

“I’m with everybody here”, J Morgan writes. “Rise has some solid foundation and I’ve spent a few hundred hours on it. These updates and all the expensive, useless cosmetic DLC add nothing of real value to the game. Nobody I hunt with bothers with gestures or stickers”.

Other fans have taken to blaming its proximity to Monster Hunter Stories 2 – with the games launching within months of each other, it would appear to make sense that Capcom would rather promote one game at a time, especially since both use the official Monster Hunter social media channels instead of having their own.

“The only reason i didnt buy story (sic) 2 is that Capcom forgot about rise and invest more time and effort in story 2.. that made me furious”, writes JD Levon, another disgruntled fan.

“Sooo.. Any real content planned or what? Why is the stories road map so much more developed than the mainline game?” writes C Macleod, another fan pointing to Stories 2 getting free updates such as Kulve Taroth from Monster Hunter World.

The Other Problem With Monster Hunter Rise

Another problem with Monster Hunter Rise’s updates is what we already got. While admittedly the 2.0 and 3.0 updates added plenty of new content, the fact that the launch game itself felt incomplete really sours what would have otherwise been great content for the game. With 3.0 having to end the game’s story, it definitely feels more like a uni student submitting their work late than what’s supposed to be the next big step in the game.

The fact that Rise’s base story ends on what feels like such a cliffhanger is a bad look, and now that the stage is finally set for the next adventure the game has gone on what feels like a long hiatus.

Of course, that’s not to say Capcom are just twiddling their thumbs. The developers could very well be working on something good. For one, we know that Monster Hunter Rise is coming to PC next year, and that probably eats studio resources. There’s also the case of the inevitable G-Rank expansion- we don’t know how long these take to make, but its safe to assume that if that comes, it will bring new content with it.

Still, no matter the reason, some form of communication would be nice. Like it or not, Monster Hunter is basically a live service now, and that means fans expect some sort of communication with the developers, at least to explain the lack of new content that isn’t just cosmetics like the just-announced Amaterasu skin.