Those looking for a challenge with Capcom’s upcoming Monster Hunter World: Iceborne will have it and then some. In an interview with Game Informer, executive director and art director Kaname Fujioka states that the devs have been listening to feedback from fans regarding the original game, and have “taken that feedback to heart from players who wanted more difficulty and more challenge and really delivered on that”.
Specifically, the endgame in Iceborne will have its difficulty ramped up in response to the feedback. Fujioka stated that for World, the difficulty was toned down due to the game being many players’ first entry in the series. But now that players have become accustomed to the game, the team is comfortable with cranking things back up for Iceborne.
The story content for Iceborne will have the gradual rise in difficulty expected from an expansion, but players who have kept up with the original game’s post-launch content will have an a slightly easier time due to the better gear, according to Fujioka.
That being said, Iceborne will also introduce a dynamic difficulty system that fluctuates monster health based on the number of players. In World, a monster either had normal health in singleplayer or double in multiplayer, but that will now appropriately scale if someone drops out of the quest mid-hunt.
Monster Hunter World: Iceborne hits PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on September 6, while PC users get it this winter.