Capcom’s May 2022Monster HunterDigital Event revealed a lot of new information about the upcomingMonster Hunter Rise: Sunbreakexpansion. Not only willSeregios joinRisealongside Somnacanth and Almudron subspecies, Capcom is also shaking up gameplay mechanics with new features like Switch Skill Swap and Follower Quests. Being able to swap between two sets of abilities on any given weapon type will be fun to see, as it should make more hunting strategies viable.
Switch Skill Swap will be an especially useful tool because of the “Swap Evade” technique, in which players are able to dodge out of a monster’s path while equipping their second set of skills. This isn’t the only addition that will impact the way fans use Silkbind Attacks. Shortly after the Digital Event highlighted Switch Skill Swap,Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreakdirector Yoshitake Suzuki revealed players will be able to decide whether they want to ride a vulnerable monster just by attacking it, which fixes perhaps the most annoying aspect of a solid mechanic.
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How Monster Hunter Rise Evolved the Series' Mounting Mechanic
The ability to mount mostMonster Hunterboss creatures was introduced in fourth-gen games, coinciding withMonster Hunter 4and4 Ultimate’s vertical map designs. Every hunter could mount a monster by leaping from high ground or jumping off a wall and striking from midair. However, it was generally seen as a skill best utilized by thethen-new Insect Glaive weapon type, which has a built-in ability to pole vault for aerial combos.
Monster Hunter GenerationsandGenerations Ultimatemade mounting more accessible through the “Aerial” Hunting Style, which gave any user an evade that transitions into a high jump if it connects with monsters.Monster Hunter Worldsimilarly made things easierthrough the use of players' Slinger, which could swing in midair through the use of Wedge Beetles and can help grapple onto monsters. In all these cases, mounting was a mini-game once initiated: players dealt damage to the monster until it became staggered and fell over, at which point other hunters could freely do damage. If the monster tried to buck its rider, they simply had to hold on.
ThenMonster Hunter Rise’s Wyvern Riding systemchanged the dynamic. To initiate a Wyvern Ride, players make a monster vulnerable by attacking it with Silkbind Attacks, at which point the hunter can use their Wirebugs to puppeteer the beast so that it attacks other Large Monsters or rams into walls. The Puppet Spider Endemic Life found across different maps can also be used to automatically bind a target.
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Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak’s Added Settings are Appreciated
WhileRise’s Wyvern Riding mechanic is more dynamicgiven it provides users full control over their target, used to damage or apply status effects to other creatures, it does have drawbacks. Most notably, whenever a monster is bound, any player can initiate the Wyvern Ride by using a basic attack rather than actively initiating the technique. This is especially problematic given one of the passive subquests a hunter can select asks them to ride a certain number of monsters. Without proper communication, a player attempting to complete this task could lose every mounting opportunity to their partner’s mistimed attacks.
Even without issues tied tocompleting aMonster Hunter Risesubquest, leaving Wyvern Riding open to anyone also leads to mismatched strategies. One player may be worse at the mechanic and potentially fail to disrupt the monster in time, blowing the opportunity; or they could simply ram their target into a wall when someone else may have preferred using one monster to injure a more prominent target.
Capcom adding a setting for players to only ride vulnerable monsters using the active command in Sunbreak is a great way to keep this engaging mechanic while making its usage more calculated. Alongside other quality-of-life changes such as automatically running up walls without having to use aWirebug leap, it’s clear the developer took a lot of player feedback to heart when designing Sunbreak. Hopefully that makes its launch next month a big success.
Monster Hunter Riseis available now for PC and Switch. Its Sunbreak expansion launches on Jul 24, 2025.
