[Discussion] Monster Hunter World - Currently known features and changes!

Hello, fellow hunters! It's been a while.

So MHW was announced and I know I'm super jazzed, so I just thought I'd sort of break down all the information we've gathered so far. Without further ado, 行きましょう!

Here's a list of features (and some changes) in Monster Hunter World, the newly announced 5th generation game in Capcom's Monster Hunter series, coming to PS4, Xbox One, and later to PC. These details were made known in various press releases, and also shown in the ... *cough* ahem, ^leaked ^footage ^^ssshhhh.

• You're no longer locked in place when you use items including potions and meat, and even gathering items from the ground. No more flex! You can move, but you do walk slowly.

-- Some people thought this to be a good change since it felt weird and clunky, and others decried it since it was part of the risk/reward premise of the series. But it looks like the potion heals over the course of the animation instead of fully giving you the hp at a certain point of the animation. My guess would be that they will make it so you won't get the full heal of the potion if you get hit during the animation. (thanks, u/rigshaw for the explanation!)

• You can change your equipment in the middle of a hunt by going to base camp! :O Reportedly very fast, not a lot of loading.

• Full day/night cycle while hunting.

• You can't like leave area to a different room to rest up anymore, since the different zones are huge seamless interconnected ecosystems with tons of verticality and dynamic levels.

• The maps are big enough there are even some fast travel options. You ride in dangling from a pterodactyl type monster, using...

• The Slinger! A grappling hook you can use to swing across gaps, pull down destructible environment traps, and even rope yourself back to the monster if you get thrown off while mounting it.

• Speaking of maps, the one from the footage looks like it has different objective markers, and multiple layers/floors, with a slider to change depth. There also appears to be indicators on the map, perhaps to show resource nodes? Are the constant this time around? Or maybe they're reinstanced to a different random location every time you join a new map and will be "permanent" in that location for the duration of that hunt, and are marked when you discover it? No idea if or how resources are changing, other than the aforementioned ability to pick them up while moving.

• There's a brand new mini-map! Instead of floating in the right side of the screen, instead it's a more traditional style, being circular and tracking your current location. It sits in the bottom left corner, and occasionally glows white, or red, possibly (and probably) to indicate Monster Aggro?

• In those same screenshots of the mini-map, we can see an indicator just above it that shows new items that are picked up, along with other notifications, each with their own icon.

• New environmental features like tall brush you can hide in, destructibles such as rocks or fruit you can knock down to change the environment, or vines to swing across to get to hard to reach areas. There was also a sort of set-piece moment where a dam was broken at the top of a cliff, and the water came rushing out and took the Large Monsters and the Players down the cliff into the river beneath.

• Destructible environment example! Rathalos was floating in front of a tree... Heavy Barrel Bomb placed in front of tree, lit and detonated with a small one... the tree near the Rath FALLS and HITS the Rathalos in midair.

• Lots of random little critters to interact with that provide buffs or bonuses. Grabbing the green goo being carried by a wasp monster healed for about a Green Herb's worth of health.

• There are new items called "mantles," that vary in effects, such as camouflage to help in sneaking through environments and getting the drop on enemies, or the "challenger mantle" which pulls monster aggro on you to keep their attention.

• Players now always have a lantern attached to their belts so you will never not have a light source and need a torch.

• Monsters AI and animations have been improved drastically to be more animalistic and lifelike, interacting not just with the environment, but with each other. Such as two large monsters being territorial and fighting each other. And not just awkward swinging and biting, but awesome animations where they like go for the throat, the T-rex monster picking one up in its jaws and swinging it around, etc. Fewer stiff and floaty predictable animations, and more dynamic in-between movement.

• You can also distract the monsters with sound, like by throwing a rock to mislead a monster to follow the noise. Works on big or small monsters.

• Monster mounting has been enhanced, with the ability to mount specific parts of the monster's body, Head, body, tail, etc. There was no blue bar from MH4U that showed progress in knocking it down vs. being thrown off, but it's possible the mini-map glow represents how in danger you are of being thrown.

• "Scout flies" are a feature to help you track down your hunt instead of running around randomly trying to find it, or knowing the exact room it spawns in and bum-rushing it. Monsters will leave a trail in their path, of footprints and stains and marks, etc. So immersive!

• We know we can have more than 2 large monsters in one map. Thanks to the leaked demo we see the great Jagras, Anjanath and Rathalos in the same quest. They don't all enter the same area. There are 4 large monsters on the map, one of which is the target. (thanks u/s_guamguy!)

• All 14 weapons from gen 4 are returning, along with mainstay mechanics like stamina and sharpness, charging greatswords, longsword comboslash gauges, etc. Controls have also been optimized for dual triggers, such as for the Bow, to L2 aim and R2 shoot.

• Long Sword has a new attack - looks like a lunging stab followed by a vault into the air and then a downward slice that uses up your "outer" Spirit Gauge (the white/yellow/red one). Don't yet know if it uses up the whole gauge regardless of level, because both times shown the player only had white. Point is, special attack that consumes gauge to deal damage. Neat! (thanks u/11tracer!)

• Great sword has a new attack, where after a charge attack, the player flips forward into another charge attack with a second swing. Also a "sword shoryuken" with a downward stab. Potentially a jump attack, as it was done after jumping from a sliding-down-a-hill animation.

• Can move while firing Heavy (and probably light) bowgun, at least with certain ammo types.

• New ammo types! The gatling gun fire was from a specific new ammo type. Also a cluster bomb like a Mortar shot.

• New movement abilities and enhanced agility/mobility, such as being able to sprint up the trunk of a tree and jump off for a mounting attack. No more need for the quick double-tap A turn around. Any weapon can do this.

• Damage numbers from the player are now shown upon attacking. This has been a point of some debate, but I think it's a positive change as it will very clearly and specifically indicate if you are doing more or less damage based on what part of the monster you hit, or if you're a gunner, your distance to the target as well.

• Items are now used in a number of different ways it seems. The leaked footage showed "Item Bar" when holding L1, but there's also the Radial menu of items, which seems like it'd use the Right Analog stick to select. Footage also showed what looked like a shortcut menu mapped to the D-pad for quick access to certain items. Screenshot example of radial and D-pad menu.

• Click R3 to bring up the radial quick access menu. Each of the 4 D-pad buttons is then used to quickly change between categories such as Healing items, Ammo types, Multiplayer Specific things/communication (gestures?), and Favorite Items.

• It has fluid drop in drop out co-op where players can join you mid mission. Using a flare item will enable multiplayer for your hunt.

• There is also in-game voice chat, to supplement this co-op.

• It has full voice acting. So I can't imagine they'd do something like that if there was no story in it.

So yeah!
That's most of what I've gotten out of it so far. Please let me know if there's anything else major that I missed and I'll be sure to add it to the list here.

A full album of my screenshots and pictures used in this post can be found here. I'll be adding more pictures to it as I get them.

So what do you all think of Monster Hunter World so far? Are you as totally friggin jazzed as I am?!

##ALL ABOARD, HUNTERS! THIS TRAIN HAS NO BRAKES

EDIT 1: ProJared's Monster Hunter World @E3 video has given us LOTS of juicy details! I've updated my list to include his notes, along with a couple of helpful comments. :)