Aaron Smith

In a word: awful. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed Monster Hunter World. But this expansion has taken a real turn away from group-based PvE fun into a Capcom-themed Dark Souls nightmare. The story missions that *require* players to hunt the Velkana, Seething Bazelguese and Blackveil Vaal Hazak communicate a clearly-received middle finger from the game's designers to melee players, specifically those who practiced with shields ALLLLLLLLLLLLL the way through Monster Hunter World, only to get to Iceborne and learn that the only way the game's designers could think to make monsters more challenging is to make those shields partially or completely ineffective. The game's been out less than two weeks and I'm already sick of it, and I doubt I'll consider picking up any further Monster Hunter titles.