Summary
- Monster Hunter World is currently experiencing a surge in popularity due to the Monster Hunter Wilds announcement and the recent Steam sale.
- It is recommended to purchase the Iceborne expansion when starting or continuing the game, as it unlocks new content and features like the Clutch Claw, which greatly enhances combat abilities.
- The Clutch Claw allows players to easily mount monsters, regardless of the weapon they are using, giving them control over the battle and providing various advantages.
More people are playing Monster Hunter World right now than there have been in years. In fact, 🐻the game hasn’t seen this many players since the Iceborne expansion launched in January 2020. It seems like the 2018 game is riding on the hype of the Monster Hunter Wilds announcement, and propelled by the🍬 recent Steam sale, to become one of the most popular games on PC. I’m thrilled to see so many people coming back to one of my favorite games, and I expect a lot of the people playing World right now are experiencing it for the first time. If you’re one of those people, I welcome you by offering this crucial tip: don’t even start World if you haven’t bought the Iceborne expansion too.
If you already started, that’s okay, you can buy Iceborne now and immediately experience🌳 the awesome benefits of that choice. You don’t even have to download anything - the whole expansion is packaged into the base game, and buying it just unlocks all of its new content for you. If you just started or you’re about to start and you’re unsure of how much you want to commit to World, you still need to pick up Iceborne to have the best experience possible.
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Iceborne begins after you complete Monster Hunter World’s main story. It takes you to several new biomes and introduces more than a dozen new monsters. It stands to reason why someone would want to wait until they finish🐽 the main game before buying Iceborne, especially if you’re 𒁃not sure whether you’re even going to make it to the end, but there’s two things Iceborne unlocks right away that you definitely will want to have access to.
The first is the Clutch Claw, a new tool that allows you to grapple onto monsters and perform a variety of attacks. This is sort of a precursor to Monster Hunter Rise’s Wire Bug, and it will allow you to mount a monster, damag🤪e a specific body part, and even force it to run and smash into a wall.
The Clutch Claw is the great equalizer for monster mounting. Without it, some weapons really struggle to get on top of monsters. Sword and Shield, Insect Glaive, and Lance all have jump attacks that can let you get on top of a monster, but the rest re🔯ly on launching from slopes or ledges to get on top of your prey, which is incredibly situational. The Clutch Claw makes it easy to mount enemies no matter which weapon you choose, which is an invaluable skill to 🃏have.
Mounting the monster gives you instant control over the battle. It can allow you to escape an attack, deal damage to a weak point, or set up crucial damage phases by running them into a wall and knocking them down. If you want to improve your time, grappling onto monsters as they try to escape and disabling 🎐them before they get away is a crucial skill to have. You shouldn’t wait until you get to Iceborn to start using and practicing Clutch Claw techniques, not when it’s just as useful and important in the main campaign.
The other thing you unlock right away by purchasing Iceborne is a new attack for every weapon. While the Clutch Claw is important to have no matter what weapon you use, some of the new attacks are more useful than others. Some are flashy like the Bow’s Thousands Dragons, which launches barrages of explosive shots at a monster, while other attacks are completely game-changing. The Greatsword’s True Charged Slash attack lets you get to its most powerful hit with fewer chained attacks, for example. Many of the new attacks also work in conjunction with the♊ Clutch Claw, giving you even more ways to mount the monster. Again, you shouldn’t wait until you get to Iceborne to learn these moves and practice when to incorporate them in combat.
You can get through all of Monster Hunter World without these upgrades - I did it myself when World first launched in 2018. But the 🧸Clutch Claw adds so much mobility and versatility to your combat repe💙rtoire that, given the option, you shouldn’t play World without it.
