Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak’s first big update is out now – here’s what’s in it

As is tradition with Monster Hunter games, Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak will be getting a bunch of big, free updates over the next few months. The first of those, aptly named Title Update 1, is out now, and it contains a bunch of interesting goodies, starting with…

The New Monsters

Or rather, the new monster variants. Title Update 1 brings four new monster variants, with new twists on existing monsters you know and love (or hate). These are the Lucent Nargacuga, the Seething Bazelgeuse, the Silver Rathalos, and the Gold Rathian. Here’s what Capcom’s official website has to say about them:

A New Arena

Sunbreak has finally gotten its own arena, called the Forlorn Arena, and it looks pretty spectacular. As you’d expect, you won’t be doing full hunts here, instead taking on monsters face-to-face, with nowhere for you – or the monster – to run and hide.

Anomaly Investigations

This is the real meat and potatoes of Title Update 1, and what you’ll likely be doing the most of if you’re in Sunbreak’s endgame. Anomaly Investigations are a new type of quest, similar to Anomaly Quests, where you take down an afflicted monster, but with a few twists thrown in. Firstly, much like rampages in the base game, the investigations available to you will be randomly rotated. The conditions of the quests, such as the local, the target monster, and even the number of players allowed to participate, are all things that can be randomised when the quest list refreshes. Completing these quests earns you points that can be used to level up the Anomaly Research Lab, a new facility that allows you to trade those points for rare items, such as outfit tickets, melding puddings, jewels, and armor spheres.

The materials you gain from Anomaly Investigations also give you access to Qurious Crafting, which is a new weapon and armour upgrade system that works somewhat similarly to rampage skills prior to Sunbreak. Here, you can add buffs such as attack, elemental, or sharpness boosts to weapons, making perhaps a weaker weapon more viable. Armour, on the other hand, can have its functionality “randomised”, which you can apparently do as many times as you want. We haven’t tested out what this entails yet, but it sounds like it should make building the perfect set of armour a little bit easier, perhaps without some of the compromises that come with the off-the-shelf sets.

Event Quests and Paid DLC

Finally, event quests are back for Sunbreak. We don’t have a great deal of details about these, but they’ll be releasing weekly starting from the 18th of August. Previous event quests in the base game often brought interesting hunts that offered new (and frankly, quite often silly) layered armour, stickers, gestures, and more. What we do know more about, however, is paid DLC, with a new set of DLC available right now on the eShop. DLC Pack 6 will set you back $45, a little bit pricier than previous packs, but it comes with a cute summer-themed layered armour sets, two additional layered armour sets that let you look like Fiorayne and Utsushi, a couple poses, face paints, hairstyles, voices, stickers, and background music. Of course, you can buy all of these things separately, as with all previous non-deluxe DLC packs, so feel free to pick and choose the ones you want.

Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak’s first free update is available to download right now. If you’re interested in Monster Hunter Rise, you can read our review for the base game by clicking here, or you can read our review for the excellent Sunbreak expansion by clicking here.