Monster Hunter: World - Gamer's top questions answered

Besides hacking monsters to death and then carving their corpses, you can also capture them - sending them into a gentle slumber. There are a number of benefits to capturing a monster instead of killing it, firstly because you will receive more rewards (body parts and items) to use for crafting new gear.

Captures also work for both Hunt & Capture Bounties, which is great if you want to complete two bounties at once for the same monster, as well as taking less time.

First things first, you'll need to equip capture equipment. The recommended equipment is a Shock Trap (made by crafting a Trap Tool and Thunderbug) and Tranq Bombs (Parashroom and Sleep Herb). The next step is pretty simple, beat up the monster until its near death, which results in a skull icon flashing above the monsters icon on the Hunter's map.

At this point, unless in the middle of battle, the monster will often retreat to its den or a quiet area - this is a perfect time to set the Shock Trap close by to make the capture easy. Be warned, you can only carry one Shock Trap at a time and, if another monster gets trapped or the player destroys it, you'll need to go back to camp to get another.

Once you've set the trap, you'll need to entice the monster over to it. If it's asleep or not paying attention to you, try firing slingshot ammo at it, that way you will attract its attention without the risk of dealing too much damage that could kill it.

Once the monster is trapped, move close to it and start throwing down those Tranq Bombs. It shouldn't take anymore than 2-4 bombs if you're close enough.

If successful, text will pop up on the screen to tell you that it has been captured - yay!

When choosing your armor and weapon, you'll notice under the Equipment Info that there's a section called 'Affinity' - this plays a big part when fighting stronger monsters. Affinity is basically a percentage of additional damage you can inflict on monsters, especially if you require a specific elemental type weapon.

The better equipment you own, the better the Affinity level. This can be achieved by forging better weapons with items from the ecosystems and monsters killed/captured, as well as Affinity perks from Armor and Jewels.

Unlocking the Affinity Booster is also a massive boost during battle, as this emits a cloud of smoke for a short period of time to give Hunters a nice increase in Affinity. To unlock the Affinity Booster, players will need to complete all quests listed from the Research Base.

Hundreds and hundreds of hours!

If you're wondering how long the story/campaign is, technically you should see the credits roll between 40 and 50 hours, according to Monster Hunter: World Director Yuya Tokuda. The game features an impressive amount of side quests, investigations and special events, so don't feel bad if you haven't 'completed' the game after clocking 100+ hours!

The fact that many gamers have reached very high Hunter Ranks shows how much replayability this game has!

As of right now (update: July 16th 2019) there are currently 36 large monsters in Monster Hunter: World. The recent additions to the New World include Deviljho - who appears at random in different ecosystems as well as 'The Food Chain Dominator' Special Assignment - and Behemoth from the Final Fantasy XIV crossover.

The Monster Hunter: World - Iceborne expansion will introduce more large and small beasts to the roster, with 11 large monsters already confirmed.

On the topic of monsters in the game, we caught up for an exclusive chat with Capcom to talk about their favorite in-game monsters, as well as the ideal beasts that they'd like to see introduced.

Despite some games working via cross-play (e.g PC and Xbox One) Monster Hunter: World unfortunately isn't. Fanatical contacted Capcom ahead of MHW's launch on Steam PC and the publisher confirmed that "There’s no cross-play with this release on PC so you won’t be able to join up with different players on different consoles".

Each hunter has their own Hunter Rank, which allows players to take part in different levels of Hunts depending on their corresponding rank. The simplest way to increase you Hunter Rank is to, well, hunt!

By completing Hunts, Events and Optional Assignments etc at your current Hunter Rank level, you'll gain experience towards leveling up. It's worth noting that increasing your Hunter Rank does not have an impact on your health, stamina, etc - it's merely to give you more access to higher ranked quests.

Mounting monsters (jumping on their backs) is a great way to keep these majestic beasts under control while inflicting some damage. You can mount a monster by attacking while in mid-air, either by jumping off a ledge or tall cliff, or by using the jump attack with the Insect Glaive.

Once on the monster's back, you'll have a couple of options for how you attack it. You can either move the anolog stick/movement keys while attacking to move up and down the monster's body - or stay in one place and inflict lower damage hits, but then launch a powerful attack at the end which makes the monster fall down for a short period of time.

As expected, the monster that you've mounted isn't going to be happy about it, so be prepared for a struggle. When the screen turns red around the edges, it means that the monster is trying to throw you off - when this happens, hold the Brace button (RT/R2 for controllers) until the red fades off-screen.

Monsters will also try to ram into walls to hurt you, so make sure that you move to another part of its body to avoid being thrown off. If you do happen to be thrown off, and you still have enough stamina, you can use the grapple hook to launch back onto the monsters, which can be used by pressing the Roll/Crouch button mid-air.

Yes, that's the short answer. The long answer is that you can play 'offline' while still technically being online, so here are a few ways in which you can hunt solo. The first method is to disconnect your PC/console from the internet, although some settings and features will be limited by doing this.

The second is to click on 'Create an online session' and then where it says 'Switch to private session' you need to select 'Yes'. With this setting, you won't have matchmaking options and fellow Hunters will only be able to join if you give them your session ID.

The third option is to alter the 'Quest Limit' which will restrict any other Hunters joining your mission, leaving you free to roam through the Ancient Forest or wherever alone.

The Lucky Voucher is a Login Bonus that players will receive every 'real day' that they log onto Monster Hunter: World. You can only hold five Lucky Vouchers at a time, so don't try to horde them!

When posting a quest with you Handler or at one of the Quest Boards, you can choose to use a Lucky Voucher - which, if you successfully complete the quest, will grant you additional Zenny bonus, as well as increasing the chance of rare item drops. It's important to remember that once you've activated a Lucky Voucher, you can't get it back - even if you quit the quest.

Failure to complete the quest will also mean that the Lucky Voucher disappears, so choose wisely.

There's nothing like catching a fish by casting your line into the bright and beautiful waters of the Rotten Vale, or the gentle waters of the Coral Highlands, and here's how you do it. You'll have noticed in your inventory/items that there's a Fishing Rod, equip it and you're one step closer to the catch of the day.

When stood near water that is deep and has fishes in it (good start), you'll see a white casting guide that will show you where your bait and float will land. Press the Cast button to start and wait for a fish to bite and the float to completely submerge before pressing the Reel button to bring the fish in. Some larger fish will need a little extra time to catch, which sees players mashing the Reel button as well as moving the rod in different directions as prompted on-screen.

Not only will you gain Research Points and items to use in your inventory, you can also allocate any caught fish species in your room's pond back in Astera, as well as adding more menu items to the Canteen.

Interesting question, internet users. Looks like some of you having been asking the almighty God of search engines 'how to be a monster hunter' which would almost suggest that you want to actually go out and hunt or capture monsters for yourself.

You could always read Major Jack Union's How to Bag a Jabberwock before heading out into the unknown to hunt and capture whatever it is that you're looking for, but for now we'd suggest living out this fantasy in Monster Hunter: World. You'll enjoy hours of monster hunting, gain vital skills and you won't die... of Monster Hunter: World related health problems!

Sorry folks, you can't capture Elder Dragons in Monster Hunter: World. Story quests and various other missions where an Elder Dragon is the target will be to slay them, not to to capture. The only exceptions are quests including Zorah Magdaros and the 'Pandora's Arena' quest against Lunastra, in which Hunters must simply repel her (stay alive) until the end of the mission.

You can use Tranq Bombs and Sleep elemental attacks to put an Elder Dragon to sleep, which will allow you to prepare bombs and beefed up attacks while it sleeps.