For you guys saying that World is undoubtedly, objectively better than GenU, consider the following things (incoming wall of text):
What World has over GenU:
1) Graphics – The graphics are a lot nicer, models are way better, textures are way better, lighting is more realistic, etc… The color palette and art direction is more up to personal taste (I’m not personally big into the more desaturated, less colorful scheme they went with, but I admit that the models and textures, etc, are objectively better.)
2) Quality of life – While I could make an argument that some of these features are only questionably better, they are still important to note because many of them do make the game feel smoother. Gathering on the go is nice, being able to grab everything from your end quest material window is nice, moving and using items is… well I discussed earlier why this isn’t an objective good necessarily, either, just different, but let’s chalk it up to better for the game, anyway, for my argument here… and there are several more QoL improvements I can’t really get into in a reasonable post, but you World players know what they are.
3) Interactivity – With the environment, and monster – to – monster. While I personally think the environment and monster interactivity is more fluff than actually groundbreaking (everything you can do in the environment you could do with items in past entries, they’re just presented a little nicer here, and monsters fighting each other is a nice way to get a little extra damage on them and watch a cool fight, but the novelty wears off), it is a nice presentation that does add to the “living, breathing world” feel.
4) Always online – Kind of a positive and negative I feel but, this is up to individuals. Being always online means you can use the nifty flare feature to call in friends whenever, which is nice.
5) Scaling monster difficulty – Again, a positive and negative. This is more intuitive across all party sizes, but it also removes the ability to intentionally challenge yourself by doing a multiplayer hunt as a single player… player. Being able to jump into Guild hunts designed for parties of 2-3 (or even the events designed for 4) is a really big deal to some people, myself included.
5) “Open World” – While not true open world, the lack of load screens on individual maps definitely help the maps be more impressive in scale and complexity and make the game feel more fluid since you’re not interrupted by load screens. Above I explained why having different zones (via the load screens) isn’t an inherently bad thing, but it is true that the format World uses is much more fluid.
6) Story – While some people don’t care too much about it, it’s undeniable that World has a better story than GenU… mostly because GenU has no story. This doesn’t affect the gameplay, but for some people it does add motivation to play the game.
7) No gunner/blademaster equipment split & swapping gear on the fly – This is a very nice feature, and one I do hope continues (the lack of gunner/blademaster split) because it is a bit tedious to be grinding for different equipment types. That said, it’s not a huge difference when you probably want a different set of skills for your different weapons, anyway, so you’ll probably end up building more than one set regardless. Either way though, I do think this was a good change.
8) Tutorial – World has the best tutorial for any MH game. That’s pretty objective.
What GenU has over World:
1) Monsters – This is the key selling point here, and one that I think should not be underestimated. In a game about hunting monsters, monster variety is a HUGE factor in replayability and enjoyment. GenU has nearly 3x the monster roster of World which is nothing to scoff at, and even if World continues to get new monsters via DLC, there is no realistic way for it to triple its roster (or even come close) by the time we see Gen 6, or even Gen 5 on Switch.
1a) Another notable thing about the monsters is that in addition to just having a larger number of them, they are MUCH more varied in type. World suffers from having too many dinosaurs and dragons and not really much else. GenU offers the best of past generations and newcomers, ranging from owls to crabs to bears to insects… you name it, it’s probably in GenU. Because they’re so varied (and there are even monsters on skeletons not present in World), they fight very differently to one another, which is another problem World has. Due to Capcom having to reduce cost in order to lessen the impact if their huge gamble did fail, they reused not only skeletons like mad, but also animations. Several monsters are built off of Rathian, for example (Legiana, Paolumu, Pukei-Pukei), meaning that the already relatively small monster count feels even smaller when you consider that many of the monsters are extremely similar to one another.
2) Equipment variety – More monsters means more gear, and more gear means more build variety. (Also GenU has a far superior transmog system cough) There’s not one end-all equipment set in GenU, meaning you have freedom to experiment. (Atal-Ka is the closest thing to an end-all set, and even then there are sets that are better than it for certain things; Atal just makes it easier to get certain charm skills.) This means you’re not really playing the game to build the unequivocally best set of gear, and kind of lose your way after that. You have freedom to invest in several sets of your choosing, each one fitting to your playstyle (and being visually unique for all you fashion hunters out there).
3) Map count – While World has more sprawling, more seamless maps, GenU’s map count is nothing to scoff at, either. It boasts an impressive 27 maps, bringing nearly all the ones from past titles back and adding a couple new ones, too. So, while the maps may not be as big, they are considerably more varied.
4) Arts/Styles – this one is (for some reason) controversial, because a lot of people complained about them. That said, Guild Style exists in order to retain the original gameplay feel, so the other 5 styles just add variability to weapons, which I can’t wrap my head around why that would ever be a bad thing. All of the styles are well-balanced (although like with anything, certain styles are better for certain weapons) and add a lot of flavor and customization to your weapons along with the arts. In fact, certain attacks introduced by styles were added into the base attacks of World’s weapon changes (ie aerial dual blades’ spin attack was added to World’s DB kit). The point I’m making here, though, is that the extreme customization and variability that arts and styles bring to weapons is quite literally a gamechanger (love or hate), and something that Capcom did right by retaining the Guild style to not force change down someone’s throat who didn’t want it. But for those of us who like the variety, it is extremely welcomed!
5) Prowler mode – An additional “weapon” type on top of everything else is definitely notable. Whether you play it or not, Prowler is a nifty, non-fluff feature that gives the already huge weapon variety of GenU an additional edge. Adding a new, balanced weapon type in a game where weapons and monsters are the most important features is a definite positive in my eyes.
6) Difficulty – While difficulty does not make for an inherently better game (although I’d argue that in this case it does make for a better Monster Hunter game), the fact that GenU is not only inherently more challenging than World, but also gives players the option to take on quests solo that are scaled in difficulty for multiple players is pretty huge.
7) Portability / local play – The importance of these features are subjective, since, especially in the west this isn’t as key as it is in other parts of the globe… but considering GenU has this + online play means it is an undeniable benefit when you consider the mass of people whom this does affect positively. Whether you care about it or not, other people do, and that adds to the quality of the game.
8) Content, content, content! There is just so much content! I have only scraped the surface here of the amount of content GenU has, but it is a very meaty game, and that really is something worth considering.
Other notes:
-> While GenU’s “tutorial” is a little better than previous entries, World does blow it out of the water here. That being said, with the breadth of resources for GenU out there, putting in a little extra research isn’t too hard, and once you know what you’re doing, the meat of the game is what matters. World is better for newcomers, but GenU is strong for returning players, so I can’t really chalk a better tutorial as making for a better MH game, even if it does make it a better game for new players.
-> Yes, we know GenU is “clunkier” than World and more difficult to initially get into, but once you are into it and get used to the jankiness, (which a lot of people do get used to, if they weren’t already from previous titles) there is just far more to do and see.
-> Having worse graphics and being less intuitive does NOT put a nail in the coffin and make something a worse game. A lot of people consider Ocarina of Time to be a far superior game to Breath of the Wild, even though BotW undoubtedly looks a lot nicer and is smoother to play. Quality-of-life is a big benefit to any game, yes, but in a situation like this where QoL is effectively all it has over past entries, it becomes much blurrier to determine which is a better title.
Final thoughts:
I could make this post significantly longer, but I’m going to cut it short here… The whole point I’m trying to make is that World is NOT a definitively-better game than GenU; they both have a variety of positives and negatives, and ultimately many people prefer one over the other. If World was an objectively better game, there wouldn’t be such a community divide over preference (and it is a HUGE community divide, especially now that the honeymoon period for World being the new, shiny thing is starting to wear off).
Is World a better game than GenU? I don’t know, maybe it’s a better “game.” But calling it a better Monster Hunter game is a very hard sell.
