GLORIOUS SUNSET

MONSTER HUNTER RISE: SUNBREAK is more of the same, but luckily the same is fantastic

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There are two sides to Monster Hunter Rise’s new Sunbreak DLC. The first sees you in a luscious jungle, gathering bugs and swatting away little monsters as you look for a snail: which you’ll then take a picture of, and be rewarded with a fetching hat. The other side of Sunbreak is your hunter, helpless on the ground as a furious red-eyed monkey stomps your limp form into the ground. Over and over again.

Monster Hunter Rise was first released on Switch in early 2021, and arrived on PC in January this year. More in the lineage of the older portable titles than the all-singing all-dancing Monster Hunter: World, I wouldn’t say Rise is an easy game by any means. But it is one that is meant for most players to be able to finish, and this expansion is the opposite: It’s for the hardcore and goes for you more or less from the start.

Your introduction to the expansion is not great, a hunt for a variant of the Hermitaur, a crab-like enemy. While it’s got some new moves and, hey, it’s a new Rise fight, this is an extremely familiar monster and encounter. It’s a theme that continues for arguably longer than it should.