How The Hell Do You Play Monster Hunter? - Tips for the Newest Beginners

Written by Eric Hauter on 2/28/2025 for PS5  

The Bare-Bones Basics The Game Won’t Teach You

Folks that read my recent Monster Hunter Wilds review know that I carry a minor grudge against the franchise in general. Now, don't get me wrong, I LOVE Monster Hunter. I just want everyone else to be able to love it too. Though it is one of my favorite game series, I find it’s lack of onboarding for new players to be utterly bewildering and off-putting. Sure, the series introduces the new mechanics in each game (in a half-ass way) to players as it unfolds, but when new players don’t understand how to use a potion or sharpen their weapons, who the hell cares what a mantle is or how it works?

New players struggle mightily with the lack of sufficient in-game tutorials that explain the minimum basics of the game. Every GTA game teaches you how to shoot and drive, just like every Call of Duty game shows you how sniping works. But there is a fundamental expectation on the part of Monster Hunter’s designers that every player is coming into each new game carrying a Santa-sized bag filled to the brim with knowledge and muscle memory from the previous games. If you recently bought a Monster Hunter game, and you are now standing there with a floppy, limp bag, wondering what the hell to do, then read on. I’ll be your Monster Hunter Santa. Somebody’s got to do it. 

In this article I will explain the basic controls and concepts that Capcom lets slide, game after game. These franchise-wide concepts are not specific to Monster Hunter Wilds, but hopefully when you are done reading them, you’ll be able to hop into Monster Hunter Wilds and see some success. It really is worth taking the time to learn how to play; though I get frustrated with this single-minded determination not to teach players in every game, this really is one of the best series around.

Understanding the Core Gameplay Loop

So, why am I here? What do I want to do? What is expected of me?

Think of every quest in Monster Hunter as an extended boss battle. Though there are other things to do in the game, your primary mission here is to defeat giant monsters in multi-staged battles that can last up to half an hour. While you fight the monster, and after you defeat it, you will gather materials – skins, claws, teeth, goop, etc. You then take this stuff back to camp and provide it to a smith, who builds you new and awesome gear. The gear then gives you the strength and durability you need to move forward and take out stronger monsters.

The basic loop looks like this:

Hunt monsters → Gather materials → Craft better gear → Hunt stronger monsters.

As you poke around the UI at the smith, you’ll notice that they provide lists of ingredients for certain “recipes”, showing you what you need to bring back to create new gear and upgrades. You can then tailor your hunts to go get the stuff you need; hunt specific monsters to get specific materials. After you hunt a monster once (usually as part of the story), you can use your quest giver to trigger a hunt for that specific monster again.

There are some other things you want to do while at camp.

In every Monster Hunter game, there is the concept of the player’s “tent”. The tent is basically just a place for you to fiddle with your loadout. In between hunts, it’s a great idea to drop by your tent and make sure you are stocked up on potions and mega-potions, as well as any traps or other supplies you might need.

You also might want to stop by the canteen to grab a meal before heading out. (Note: In Monster Hunter Wilds, the canteen is replaced by your portable BBQ, but it serves the same purpose). Eating food in Monster Hunter increases your overall health and stamina for a limited amount of time, as well as offering temporary stat boosts. As it is pretty much a free bonus (or very cheap), it is worth going every time.

Okay, so you are stocked up and ready to go. Let’s get to the actual hunt.

The Basics of Combat

Weapon Choice

The first thing you have to decide when playing a Monster Hunter game is what type of weapon you want to start with (you can always change later). Monster Hunter can feel like a very different game depending on what weapon you choose, and there are advantages and drawbacks to every selection.

In general:

• heavy weapons hit hard but are slow
• lighter weapons are fast but have lower damage per hit
• ranged options hit hard but leave you stationary and vulnerable while firing

Each Monster Hunter game offers a place to mess around with all of the weapon types to see what feels good to you; take the time to do this. There might be an option you hadn’t considered that you end up loving.

The Rhythm of the Fight

The name of the game in Monster Hunter is time your attacks to do the most damage, then dodge the hell out of the way when the monster seems like it is going to attack. Almost every monster attack in the game is telegraphed in some way; it is up to the player to learn the tells, then dodge to avoid damage. Truly gifted Monster Hunter players can defeat giant beasts without taking a single hit. The rest of us rely on potions, our cat buddies, and the occasional vigorwasp to stay alive.

Remember when fighting monsters that this is a war of attrition. No matter how good your weapons get, you will never one-hit a monster in Monster Hunter. You are wearing this thing down, and over time, it will show the results of that wear and tear. Your monster enemy will start limping around, and will occasionally just collapse in a heap to rest. Use these opportunities to wallop the hell out of them. Show no pity to their weakness – these monsters aren't real, so it's fine to take out your worldly frustrations on them.

On occasion, the monster will get sick of you beating on it and wander away to a different area. You’ll have to follow it to continue the fight, but don’t think that you have to go running after it immediately. Think of monster fights like a boxing match; this is a time for you to go to your corner and get patched up before dashing back in to pummel your opponent. Heal a bit, sharpen your blade, and maybe eat a bit. Then go bring the fury.

Health & Stamina Management

Health Management

You can’t kill or capture a monster if you aren’t on your feet. So it is up to you to manage your health and stamina so you can continue the fight.

The first thing you need to learn is how to take potions. I know that this sounds stupid, but you can’t just spam pots like you are in an MMO. That’s a quick way to die. Potions in Monster Hunter are nuanced, and you have to heal properly.

The first thing you have to know about potions is that they heal over time. When you take one, you get a little burst of health, but the rest of the healing takes a few seconds to complete. If anything interrupts the process, the healing stops and you just effectively lost that potion. Getting hit by a monster is one obvious way to interrupt healing, but you also can interrupt yourself by pulling your weapons, dodging, or running. You need to be still. The best you can manage without interrupting yourself while healing is a slow walk.

Yes, this means that you have to sheath your weapons to heal. It also means that you need to get to someplace relatively safe so you can pop a potion and then kinda hang out for few seconds while it takes effect. Taking a potion in a panic on the verge of death will maybe save you on occasion, but don’t count on it. It’s best to leave the field of battle when your health is getting low, take the potion, then dive back in. Remember, these fights are long, and it’s totally fine to dip in and out. It’s far better to pause the action and heal up than to get knocked out, which reduces your rewards for defeating the monster.

You should also understand that Mega Potions are about three times more effective than regular potions, so they are by far the preferred method of healing. You can carry up to ten of each, so if you run out of Mega Potions, add honey to regular potions and they turn into Mega Potions. You can manage setting in the UI to handle this task for you, so when you are out in the wild you can just snag honey and the game will automatically convert your potions to Mega Potions if you have room for them.

The game also gifts you with supplies, which often includes First Aid Kits. Take those whenever they are offered! They work like potions, but are faster at healing you up. You might also find Vigorbug or Vigorwasps in the area in which you are fighting. Sheath your weapons and activate those for a quick, free heal.

Stamina Consumption

Sprinting, dodging, and attacking all use stamina, which is represented in the UI with a yellow line below your green health bar. I am a dual-blades main, and in order to activate my stronger attacks, I need to consume stamina. This leaves my character in constant push and pull; waste too much stamina attacking and I won’t be able to dodge out of the way of monster attacks.

Stamina management is much quicker and more dynamic than health management. You should be constantly keeping an eye on that yellow bar and making sure you have enough left to get out of a scrape. Don’t worry, it refills quickly. The most important feature to note is the fact that the more you use stamina, the more your available stamina shrinks. Like, the bar literally gets smaller as the fight goes on.

The best way to combat this stamina shrinkage is to once again disengage from the fight, run into the jungle far enough that you feel safe for a few seconds, sheath your weapons (as usual), and eat some rations or a meal. The game typically provides plenty of rations (the same way it gives you first aid kits), it’s just up to you to use them.

Fine, fine, but this UI is insane – how do I actually take potions?

AHA! Correct, you are! The UI is a nightmare to get used to. I can tell you to take potions and eat rations and sharpen your weapons, but how do you actually do that?

Okay, first off, you always want to sheath your weapons. Nothing works if you don’t do that first. Maybe practice doing this outside of the context of a fight to get the muscle memory down – “this is how I pull my weapons out, and this is how I put them away”. Even after hundreds of hours, I still screw this up on occasion, so it's worth five minutes to practice. 

Now, you want to hold down the left bumper button (not the trigger!). On PlayStation, that’s the L1 button. That allows you to toggle through the item bar with the face buttons to pick what you want. On PlayStation, you use Square and Circle to navigate the item bar, on Xbox it is X and B. Once you have what you want highlighted in the UI, you use Square or X to use that item/function. I usually keep Mega Potions highlighted as my default, then toggle over to what I need from there. 

But you didn’t tell me about hot drinks, and traps, and flowferns, and all that other stuff…

Look, I really want to go play Monster Hunter Wilds. There are plenty of tutorials online to teach you all that more advanced stuff, and the game will also show you in a half-ass way. But what I’ve shared above should get you more than halfway. You should be able to fight and keep yourself alive, which is a LOT of the battle in Monster Hunter. Not to sound like a Capcom dev, but fiddle around a little bit. You’ll figure more stuff out as you go.

But I hope that you have found this helpful enough to get over the initial hump with Monster Hunter games. They are some of the best games on the market, and once you get through the learning curve, you are going to have a blast with them. I promise.

Now get out there and kill some Rathalos, you crazy kid. Go nuts! Make a lizard hat! The point is to have fun, and I hope you do. See you out there.