why does steam keep telling me that someone is playing monster hunter world

What wows me the most is that it feels like Monster Hunter has finally entered the modern age. I swapped weapons (which is easy to do since you can downgrade and get your materials back), upgraded a few armor pieces, crafted some more items, grinded out some ingredients for nutrients (potions that increase your max health), and ate some Good Food. I got my ass kicked by a T-Rex, so I basically re-evaluated everything that led me to the moment where he burned me to a crisp. World still has that rewarding conquest loop. They’re an excellent way to remove some of the stress of the standard Monster Hunter grind with activities like fishing and capturing, with unlimited lives. Bringing back expeditions, which are free-roam sessions with no time limit or requirements, was a good decision.

There’s still going to be repetition in the sense that you’re re-visiting the same areas, but World generally does a good job of mixing up the enemy layouts or times of day to freshen up repeat excursions. The shift to more open maps makes everything feel like less of a corridor simulator without moving directly into the rote “map full of icons” open-world setup that’s commonly found in a lot of western games. But World doesn’t take itself too seriously - there’s a lot of heart and silliness to it all too, perhaps best encapsulated by the classic absurd Palico (read: cat) cooking sequence. Each location, from the lush Ancient Forest to the desolate Rotten Vale, differentiates itself from the pack. The main camp of Astero looks stunning and picturesque, like a fully-realized Rufio camp from Hook. World finally overhauls nearly everything from an artistic standpoint and brings it into the current generation. Most iterations, including the myriad “super” editions over the years, just felt too similar to one another. That’s mostly worked for me, having played most of the series throughout the years, but at some point around Monster Hunter 4 I yearned for a new coat of paint. That’s basically been Capcom’s philosophy on the series for over a decade: give ’em incremental quality-of-life upgrades that are usually standard in other games (lock-on being a highly contentious addition for some reason) and keep the old school base intact. There’s lots of repetition stat-studying and grinding, all so you can get one piece of coveted armor at a time.

Despite some concessions best epitomized by fireflies (known here as scout flies) assisting in lighting the path to your prey, this is still very much the same punishing Monster Hunter.

Why does steam keep telling me that someone is playing monster hunter world