Monster Hunter: 6 Exciting Reveals From The Sunbreak DLC Event, According To Reddit
After the breakaway success of Capcom's Monster Hunter World, last year's Monster Hunter Rise continued the franchise's mainstream success on Nintendo Switch and later on PC. The niche action RPG series has finally broken into the mainstream, and the developer's latest endeavor is just about ready to get its major DLC expansion in the form of Sunbreak.
Like the aforementioned World, its Iceborne expansion added what was essentially content big enough to be a new game, and fans on Reddit have plenty to be optimistic about after the latest Monster Hunter stream. Capcom unveiled new details and a trailer for the Sunbreak DLC, with fans excited over the new high-rank content that will pad out dozens more hours into Rise.
Since the franchise's inception on the PlayStation 2, the Monster Hunter gameplay loop revolved around taking quests, buying items, upgrading gear, etc. at a hub town, and leaving to separate zones for hunting. And though it's one of the smaller aspects of the expansion to take note of, the new hub village for Sunbreak is another point in favor of fans getting excited about this highly-anticipated DLC.
Redditor MirrorMirrorMilk liked the look of the new locale, saying "LOVE the new town. Castle port town sounds nice." Monster Hunter has always created aesthetically pleasing and creative new towns, with each doing well to give players a relaxing cooldown in between high-octane boss hunts. Along with the new town of Elgado, there will be, naturally, a new colorful cast of characters to meet.
The Monster Hunter Rise base game has plenty of formidable monsters and is the centerpiece of what fans look forward to with each new game or major DLC expansion. And while Sunbreak is poised to add a varied group of new monsters to the existing roster, longtime fans are always eager to see returning classics. Sunbreak's new trailer included some of this, showing the grand return of the Electric Wyvern Astalos, which made its first appearance in the greatest hits-like game Monster Hunter Generations on the Nintendo 3DS.
Redditor JaxonH excitedly responded in a thread exclaiming, "Forget Glavenus, we got Astalos!." It's always thrilling for fans to see older species get another shot at modernization, as they usually get tweaks to their attacks and behaviors to make them more fun boss fights in modern games. This will likely be a hopeful sign that other older monsters are in the cards, too.
Alongside some new Wirebug combat mechanics -- a staple of Monster Hunter Rise -- the Sunbreak DLC will introduce new combat mechanics for the player's Palamute. The Palamute was a dog companion addition to Rise on top of the Palico cat partners, with the former seemingly getting new projectile weapon enhancements on hunts.
Redditor Icelockon amusingly exclaimed the otherwise overlooked scene, saying "Puppy turrets? FREAKING PUPPY TURRETS!." In "The Three Lords" trailer for the expansion, the hunter's Palamute can be seen with a crossbow attachment strapped to its back. The base game's action is already fast-paced as is, and hopefully, this new feature will match up to the exciting high-rank challenges the monsters of Sunbreak will pose.
Monster Hunter Rise easily became one of the best Nintendo Switch games of 2021, but thanks to video game publishers finally embracing the PC platform in recent years, Capcom double-dipped by porting it via Steam early this year. It came as somewhat of a surprise, but welcome nonetheless as the "handheld" branch of the mainline series was expected to stay fully on Switch given years of trends in the series.
Even better, the publisher is also adjusting its release strategy with Sunbreak, with Redditor iV1rus0 commending the publisher saying "Capcom deserves credit for their PC support." Capcom has confirmed that, after the staggered releases of the base game on Switch and PC, the Sunbreak DLC will launch for both platforms on June 30th. The timing should be effective for the new wave of players on the recent PC port this year and veterans eager to dive into new content.
As with any major video game release, what fans are eager to know after seeing the substance of the content itself is when exactly they can get their hands on it. Up until now, Capcom had given Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak DLC a general release window of summer 2022. Given the scale and context of this being a Monster Hunter-focused event stream, they expectedly gave a concrete date of June 30th.
Redditor Aerohed expressed their pleasant surprise, saying that they "[...] expected August. This is great! There’s a pretty good chance the next 3.5 months will be packed with info, so I look forward to it." Capcom has been on a strong streak of top-notch releases since their stumblings in the late PS3/X360 era, and Sunbreak looks like it'll continue that trend of turning around quality titles on efficient timetables. There are only three months until launch, but with events like Summer Game Fest and E3 on the horizon, fans might get more insight into new features.
New monster species will be taking center stage for the Sunbreak expansion. Rise is one of the best action RPGs on the Nintendo Switch, and a big part of it was for how it incorporated new monsters (and old ones) into the engaging new gameplay mechanics of this latest entry. Since the DLC's initial reveal last year, Capcom has been understandably mysterious when it came to showing off new monsters, but "The Three Lords" trailer gave fans their most substantive look yet.
Redditor Caaros notes "Garangolm, a giant armored gorilla, Blood Orange Bishaten, who throws flaming pinecones that explode, we saw that Lunagaron rears up on his hind legs like a werewolf" as the highlights. This selection is seemingly inspired by western monster-movie characters when compared to the vampiric dragon Malzeno that was previously shown. Meanwhile, the announcement of Blood Orange Bishaten could also be encouraging for fans hoping for more variants of existing species as well.