Monster Hunter World: What Happens After the Story

Monster Hunter World features a lengthy story mode, but after you have beaten it you may wonder what’s next, what happens after the story, where do you go?

In this article I’m going to explain the endgame content of MH: World.

What Happens After Story

One thing you’ll notice instantly is that the Hunter Rank cap is removed. During the story your Hunter Rank is capped at level 16. So if you wondered what the heck is Hunter Rank, now is when it finally becomes useful.

Hunter Rank is used to unlock new higher-difficulty assignments after the story! Even if you reach the cap of level 16 during the story, the game will store your excess XP and award them to you after the final boss, so nothing gets lost. You may even jump from Rank 16 to 25 instantly if you farmed a lot of monsters in side quests.

The endgame basically consists of increasing your Hunter Rank by slaying/capturing monsters. Then you will hit a new HR cap. To remove the cap you must play new assignments that unlock on the quest board in Astera. Do this until you’re Hunter Rank 100. After a certain point, you will have to keep killing Tempered Elder Dragons to increase your rank, which are the game’s true challenge.

What is There to Do After the Story?

At first, it seems there’s nothing new, and until you’ve increased your Hunter Rank to hit the next cap, this is true.

You can only replay old quests or go on investigations you have not yet done. You can also join others in online play by searching for SOS flares on the quest board. You can even specify a certain monster in the search settings if you want to farm for an armor set. On that note, you may want to farm the elder dragons (the bosses at the end of story) to get their armor right away. It will make the hunt much easier, so make it your top priority!

Also, you can hunt for Tempered Monsters. Those give better drops (usually 3 decorations which you can craft into your armor at the smithy or melt them for something of your choosing). Tempered Monster tracks are colored blue and can be found during expeditions. After finding enough tracks of one type it will show a popup that a new investigation has unlocked. Talk to the NPC at the research center in Astera and accept the investigation. Then you can hunt it down. Tempered Monsters are stronger than their normal versions. This is why you should farm for good armor & weapons first.

My personal recommendation: over the story you probably stuck to 1 or 2 weapons. Now you have to just kill monsters to rank up anyway, so why not switch things up a bit? Feel free to build up another weapon, this way it doesn’t get boring and you can experiment with new playstyles.

Where to Go After the Story?

To Research Center to accept investigations. Use these to push your hunter rank. To unlock more investigations simply investigate monster tracks in expeditions (blue tracks for tempered monsters). Slay whatever monsters you want (ideally tempered ones for their drops or elder dragons to build their armor & weapons). When your hunter rank has increased enough it will hit another cap. This unlocks a new assignment on the quest board. Beat the assignment to remove the HR cap and repeat. Get higher and higher ranks to unlock more and more assignments.

Unfortunately, there are no new monsters after the story, except for the tempered versions of the ones you’ve already met. On a different note, there is a hidden Monster you may have missed earlier, called “Kirin”. If you haven’t encountered it by now, check out How to Unlock Kirin Quest for a new challenge.