Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak

Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak is a paid expansion for Monster Hunter Rise, the 2021 action role-playing game developed and published by Capcom. The base game launched on Nintendo Switch on March 26, 2021, reached Windows on January 12, 2022, and arrived on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on January 20, 2023. Sunbreak came out for the Switch and Windows versions on June 30, 2022, and followed on PlayStation and Xbox on April 28, 2023. Owning Monster Hunter Rise is required, and the new content opens up once the 7-star Hub quest “Serpent Goddess of Thunder” has been cleared.

The story picks up after the Rampage has ended and Kamura Village is at peace. A wolf-like monster called Lunagaron appears near the village, and a knight named Fiorayne arrives from the kingdom of Elgado to drive it off. She asks the Hunter to help her homeland against the Three Lords, a trio made up of Lunagaron, the armored beast Garangolm, and the Elder Dragon Malzeno. The Hunter sails to Elgado Outpost, the expansion’s new base, where glowing red creatures known as Qurio turn out to be linked to a far older threat beneath the sea.

The core loop of Monster Hunter Rise carries over: hunters track and slay or capture large monsters, then turn the materials they collect into new weapons and armor. Rise added the Wirebug for swinging across terrain and mounting certain monsters, along with the dog-like Palamute companion that hunters can ride. Sunbreak introduces a tougher Master Rank tier of hunts, new Wirebug abilities for all 14 weapon types, and a Switch Skill Swap feature that lets hunters change between two skill sets in the middle of a hunt.

Beyond new monsters, Sunbreak brings back creatures from earlier entries in the series that were not part of the base game, and it adds new hunting areas. Characters at the hunting hubs can be befriended and then join the Hunter on quests as companions. The base game supports local and online multiplayer.

Rise was built on Capcom’s RE Engine under director Yasunori Ichinose and producer Ryozo Tsujimoto, and its title refers to the vertical design of its maps and movement. Sunbreak shipped two million copies within five days of launch and had sold more than six million units by June 30, 2023. The expansion holds a 93 percent critic recommendation rate on OpenCritic, and it won the Grand Award at the 2023 Japan Game Awards.