What are the best games like Monster Hunter on PC? Fundamentally, the Monster Hunter games focus heavily on defeating bosses in large maps, all while scavenging their carcasses and the rest of the flora and fauna for new materials to upgrade your gear.
Now that these RPG games are available on PC, we can join in on the fun and indulge in the power fantasy of launching overgrown lizards into the air by swinging a hammer the size of an elephant’s hindquarters into its scaly gut. The best games like Monster Hunter do all this and more, so saddle up and follow the trail with our top picks – at least until the Monster Hunter Wild release date arrives.
Here are all the best games like Monster Hunter on PC:
The Axis Unseen
If you’re looking for a game like Monster Hunter that marries fantasy and realism, it’s hard to go wrong with The Axis Unseen. This heavy metal horror game has you explore a surreal and esoteric world on the hunt for cryptids pulled straight from real-world folklore. Its handcrafted open world is five times bigger than Skyrim – a notable achievement for ex-Bethesda developer Nate Purkeypile in his debut solo project.
Pedigree aside, The Axis Unseen also takes its cue from theHunter: Call of the Wild, boasting environmental mechanics that can make or break a hunt. Wind direction, terrain, weather, and even your heart rate converge in a streak of realism that blurs the lines between predator and prey. Instead of a modern-day rifle, our erstwhile cryptid hunter is armed with a primitive bow and arrow and a utilitarian magic system, leaving you just vulnerable enough to go from hunter to hunted once a skinwalker catches your scent. You might not have a Palico trotting after you, but our The Axis Unseen preview proves this hunting game is well worth your time.
Dragon’s Dogma 2
Dragon’s Dogma 2 is the sequel to Capcom’s other creature-slaying PC RPG series. Much like the first game, you are the Arisen, a person who was the unfortunate victim of a dragon ripping your heart from your body. However, this also means you have the claim to the throne of a nearby kingdom. Unfortunately for you, there’s already someone else claiming to be the Arisen, and powerful people want to keep him there.
You will need to get a lot of practice with your Dragon’s Dogma 2 vocations before you can go toe-to-claw with larger monsters like griffins and drakes. However, you also get access to AI-controlled pawns who will aid you in combat by doing all the damage as you sit back healing or by casting supportive spells as you clamber around for a weak spot to drive your sword in.
Dragon’s Dogma ticks a lot of boxes if you are looking for an experience similar to Monster Hunter that you can play on PC: an open world with an absolutely massive Dragon’s Dogma 2 map; huge beasts to stab in the face; a plethora of armor and gear upgrades; and a party of armed fools to lead around. While pawns are no replacement for online co-op, even without that, Dragon’s Dogma comes close enough. We felt that it does enough to justify its place on this list, and you can read more about it in our Dragon’s Dogma 2 review.
Hunt: Showdown
Hunt Showdown transplants the thrill of monster-hunting into a PvPvE horror game experience that will leave you wondering whether you are the hunter or the hunted. Descend into the gloomy swamps and deserted shanty towns of the Louisiana Bayou to eliminate the cryptids, hellbeasts, and mutants infesting the swamps and shanty towns of the Louisiana Bayou.
You’ll have all the latest firepower of the late 19th Century at your disposal for your hunt, whether you prefer the reliability of a classic hunting rifle or the flexibility of an army-issue revolver and railroad hammer. However, it’s not just your target you’ve got to watch out for. Your fellow hunters lurk in the wilderness, and once the bounty is in your possession, they’ll do anything to steal it from you and collect that reward. If you’re partial to FPS games and can’t get enough of the thrill of the hunt, then Crytek’s nightmarish battle royale might be one for you.
Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak
Monster Hunter Rise is the better starting point to the series if you fancy a slightly easier tutorial, more unique movement options, and you like Japanese culture. According to our Monster Hunter Rise review, it “takes the tactical, challenging combat that made Monster Hunter World so exhilarating and trims the fat to make its first few hours more accessible.” Rise introduces Palamutes, a new type of hunting companion, and Wirebugs that enable new aerial moves and special weapon attacks.
Monster Hunter Rise feels fresh and exciting, and it’s not just because Wirebugs make heavier weapons easier to use. There are a wide variety of new and returning monsters to fight, some taking inspiration from Japanese folklore. In addition, each monster has a unique fighting style, such as the Tetranadon’s sumo wrestling slaps or the returning Mizutsune bubbles.
If you want more of the same high-quality hunting experience found in Monster Hunter World, playing Monster Hunter Rise is a no-brainer. However, it gets even better with the Sunbreak expansion as it introduces some European folklore-inspired beasts, such as the Lunagaron. There’s even a new endgame mechanic that makes regular hunts much more complex and gives Elder Dragons some much-needed spiciness. With more updates coming in 2023, expect to see some more surprises soon to one of the best PC games out there right now.
Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin
Okay, okay, so this has less in common with classic Monster Hunter games and shares more mechanics with Pokémon games, but our Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin review highlights just how hard Monster Hunter Stories 2 – Wings of Ruin tries to capture the hearts of fans of the main games. Sure, there are times when it feels like you’re watching a Saturday morning cartoon, but there are some genuine attempts at ensuring that this feels like a Monster Hunter game at heart.
You and your battalion of monsties (the tamed versions of monsters) ride out into the open wilderness, fulfilling quests for locals in each of the towns, slaying monsters, and crafting new equipment for your character. Monsties can also have their genes spliced to gain new buffs, which is great if you want to give your main monstie a new trait, like being able to breathe fire. Stories 2 is worth giving a chance, even if you’re on the fence about its cartoonish look.
Monster Hunter World: Iceborne
As the first Monster Hunter game on PC, Monster Hunter World kickstarted a new era in the long-running series. Gone are the segmented zones with tons of loading screens; in their place are a handful of biomes represented as massive maps. Previous games required hunters to throw paintballs to track where monsters disappear. In World and its expansion, Iceborne, fireflies analyze tracks and carcasses to narrow down a monster’s initial location.
The result is one of the most fun co-op games you can play now. There are vast numbers of monsters to hunt, from new dinosaur-inspired beasts to fan favorites across the series. Constant updates and the Iceborne expansion make this one of the biggest Monster Hunter games ever.
Toukiden 2
The idea in Toukiden 2 is to slay gargantuan demons known as Oni in order to protect humanity from destruction. In short, take Monster Hunter and swap out the wyverns and dinosaurs for the horrors of Japanese medieval folklore, and, hey presto, you have Toukiden.
There are so many similarities between Monster Hunter and Toukiden that, in distinguishing them, you may as well be trying to spot the difference between a Rathalos and a Rathian. Both involve hunting gigantic snotty beasts, bringing friends along for the slaughter, upgrading your weapons and gear using resources from fallen enemies, and originating on handheld consoles.
You could buy Toukiden: Kiwami, which is the enhanced version of the first game that was released on PC. But for a better experience, you will want to try Toukiden 2, as it was made with PC in mind from the start. It is also the only open-world game in the Toukiden series, making it the equivalent of Monster Hunter: World for its respective series.
Dark Souls 3
Look, despite some questionable assessments out there, Monster Hunter has little in common with Dark Souls 3. But hear us out.
With dragon slaying, plunging attacks, and plenty of blunts and blades to specialize in, Dark Souls 3 is a decent alternative to Monster Hunter. The series is notorious for its challenging boss battles, after all. You can even cut the tails off some mighty lizards and turn them into weapons, just like in Monster Hunter.
Where Dark Souls 3 differs, however, is in its more prominent interest in worldbuilding, atmosphere, and storytelling. Rather than your progress being visualized as a carved-up hide worn as a piece of grotesque armor, Dark Souls 3 metes it out through the bonfires you springboard from throughout each area. There is a greater focus on learning how to conquer regions, not to mention an underlying interest in tying together convoluted plot threads between characters, locations, and item descriptions.
God Eater 2 Rage Burst
The weapons you use in God Eater 2 are one of its biggest draws. Called God Arcs, they are developed from the cells of the Aragami – the huge monsters you are sent out to defeat. This means you can collect materials from the dead bodies of your large opponents to upgrade your arsenal. God Eater lives up to its name by letting you devour the monstrous corpses you create.
While all the weapons in God Eater 2 seem to have been manufactured in the same factory as other anime games – they are huge, glow yellow, and cause a lot of blood to gush – they are as varied as Monster Hunter’s roster of blades, blunts, and ballistics. There is plenty of room to specialize here – you can charge into battle with a scythe dragging at your heels, stand back and take pop shots with a sniper rifle, or move in cautiously with a short blade to pierce enemies in fast flurries. Not only are there a bunch of weapons to choose from that allow for different playstyles, but they each also have different forms you can transform them into – knowing when to deploy the right form can give you the upper hand in battle.
Wild Hearts
With the success of recent Monster Hunter games on PC, it was only a matter of time until others attempted to replicate the same formula. Wild Hearts has the player use ancient technology alongside an arsenal of frankly ridiculous weapons against a diverse list of Kemono – the game’s monsters. Our Wild Hearts review describes it as a “massively entertaining game that introduces some unique twists to the monster-hunting formula”.
The only snags that Wild Hearts has are that it requires a beefy PC to keep it running smoothly, and it didn’t get much in the way of post-launch support. It seems like EA is ending support, so what is here is all we’ll likely ever get. It’s a shame, really, as when it works well, Wild Hearts does enough differently that it’s worth at least giving it a go.
Another aspect of Monster Hunter games that God Eater 2 nails is supplying you with hundreds of missions so you can farm for items and materials to upgrade your equipment. Some will find it repetitive, others will relish the chance to watch the numbers tick upwards as they get incrementally better at dishing out swathes of ultraviolence.
That said, you get the same sense of achievement when you return to an area with an upgraded blade and slice through enemies with the ease of chomping on a piece of cooked meat. You will still want to hunt for items, farm them before big battles, and acquire materials to upgrade your gear. One beast even has the head of a crocodile and the agility of a dog – squint, and you might mistake it for Monster Hunter: World’s dreaded Odogaron.
Dauntless
Dauntless is a free PC game that takes the Monster Hunter experience and streamlines it by taking out the legwork between fights. That means you can visit the game’s bustling social arena, Ramsgate, in one moment and then be hunting a Dauntless Behemoth in the next moment.
All the usual loot-based incentives are still intact, too, and there are plenty of Dauntless Exotic weapons and armor to go after. If you’re unsure about taking on a massive game like Monster Hunter, this is a handy alternative as it’s free-to-play. So you don’t have to worry about forking out for something you may not gel with.
Destiny 2
This one is a bit of a curveball, but Destiny 2 does have its fair share of similarities to Monster Hunter. Yes, the sci-fi setting is worlds apart, and the FPS game format puts it in another category entirely. But Destiny 2 is a game with instance-based conflicts against some large-bodied aliens.
The MMORPG side of the game also runs parallel to the item management and stats upgrades of Monster Hunter. You will run through the same areas, popping off headshots, and grabbing loot left, right, and center. Unfortunately, you cannot cut the skin and body parts of the fallen to repurpose as armor in Destiny 2 – a real shame, as we quite fancy sporting a metallic Vex outfit – but there is Glimmer to spend, Shards to install, and Destiny Exotics to infuse.
As you can see, Destiny 2 can compete with Monster Hunter regarding odd nouns, too. For every Anjanath, Malachite Ore, and Gajalaka that Monster Hunter has to offer, Destiny 2 retorts with Hunter Arcstriders, Telestos, and Xur. This, indeed, is where the real conflict lies.
Of course, when it comes to monster hunting nothing quit beats the latest entry in the Monster Hunter series. Now that we’ve had a chance to take on the big beasties in the the Monster Hunter Wilds beta, prepare for with the best Monster Hunter Wild weapons and the system requirements for best performance. We’ve also got the lowdown on Monster Hunter Wilds crossplay to experience the upcoming PC game with a friend.