The delayed Monster Hunter December 2025 showcase was released today, sharing a lot of exciting info about Monster Hunter Wilds and Monster Hunter Stories 3.
- Too long, didn’t watch?
- Monster Hunter Stories 3: Habitat Restoration
- Dual-element monsties
- Monster Hunter Stories 3 release date
- Monster Hunter Wilds: Title Update 4 – Gogmazios and more
- Upgrades
- Festival of Accord: Lumenhymn
- Monster Hunter Wilds performance optimizations
- Expansion?
- AT monsters
- Summary
The latter showed off a new system, based on restoration of monster habitats and their importance to your “monstie” partners’ abilities. It’s a brand new system for the MH Stories sub-series and makes the upcoming release even more interesting.
Too long, didn’t watch?
The MH Wilds side of the showcase devoted most time to presenting the star of upcoming Title Update 4. The giant Elder Dragon Gogmazios will arrive with an 8-hunter megahunt and provide resources for the endgame weapon and armor improvement system. News about new cosmetic content, a winter event, and performance improvements were also given some spotlight.
Let’s talk about the details Capcom’s Ryozo Tsujimoto shared!
Monster Hunter Stories 3: Habitat Restoration
MHS3, the turn-based RPG MH spin-off, was the first game shown off during the pre-recorded showcase. Previous trailers focused on the characters and the story, this one decided to go for a system showcase.
One of your duties as a Ranger will be restoring balance to the ecosystem in a less destructive manner than in the core series. Due to a disaster affecting the world, certain monsters become invasive species, forcing out each region’s native monster populations. Your job will be to push against it by discovering the eggs on endangered species and releasing the hatched monsters into the environment so that they can reclaim it.
This will be gamified, of course. The stronger a reintroduced species becomes in the region, the more likely you will be to catch a specimen with strong abilities and traits, and, perhaps, maybe even a rare variant, such as Dreadqueen Rathian as opposed to a regular Rathian.
Dual-element monsties
Monsters you hatch will also be able to acquire new elemental affinities based on the region’s environment, such as the usually Thunder-based Tobi-Kadachi getting access to Fire-based abilities, with a suitable appearance shift as well.
Monster Hunter Stories 3 release date
It sounds like the depth and breadth of Monstie fostering have greatly expanded from MHS2. When it launches for Switch 2, Steam, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S on March 16. 2026, there will be quite an adventure to go on.
Monster Hunter Wilds: Title Update 4 – Gogmazios and more
The biggest thing about Monster Hunter Wilds Title Update 4, releasing on December 16th, is absolutely the arrival of Gogmazios, the first proper Elder Dragon in Wilds.
It comes with an 8-hunter mission, by default intended for 4 players and 4 NPC support hunters. It is uncertain if solo players will be able to enjoy the hunt with 7 supports, or 3 supports and four Palicos. We’ll know soon. We do know there will be two new permanently available Support Hunters, and a temporary return of Nadia, a hunter well known to the series’ veteran fans.
Upgrades
The materials earned by fighting Gogmazios will, of course, provide new armor and weapons, but also open a path to a new system of endgame upgrades. Specifically: you’ll be able to boost lower-rank armor to higher ranks and improve their gem slots. It will make early sets with valuable skill setups and elemental resistances more viable in the endgame, expanding player options.
Gog’s materials will also boost your Artian weapons to a new level of power, improving their bonuses and adding one Set Bonus Skill and one Group Skill (both rerollable), clearing the way for more interesting builds.
Festival of Accord: Lumenhymn
A new seasonal event is dropping into MH Wilds on December 19th and will last until January 14th. As usual for the events, it will feature new gear, new cosmetic items, and special event quests. It will also come with new paid cosmetic DLC, as is tradition.
Monster Hunter Wilds performance optimizations
The showcase also talked about large-scale, specific plans for improving Wilds’ infamously unsatisfying technical performance. TU4 will come with a range of fixes applicable to all platforms, while deeper PC-specific improvements are coming in January 2026 and February 2026.
You can see the planned changes described in more detail on a blogpost on Monster Hunter’s official website.
Expansion?
Sadly, at this time no information regarding a Master Rank-type expansion has been offered, possibly saved for a better occasion.
AT monsters
What we have been told about is the arrival of Arch-Tempered Jin Dahaad on December 24th, while the update planned for February 2026 will bring Arch-Tempered Arkveld. As usual, both monsters will have their own gamma armor sets to earn, and will present a much harder challenge compared even to their tempered counterparts.
Summary
That about covers the crucial announcements from the December 11th Monster Hunter Showcase, in gist and in detail. The future of the series looks very promising, and hopefully news about an expansion will drop soon to make that future even brighter.
If you want to catch up on Wilds or earlier games in the series, our marketplace has plenty of deals which should make expanding your monster-hunting adventure a breeze.