You won’t need to own the base game to play in the beta.
Monster Hunter World’s massive upcoming Iceborne expansion is still three months away, but PlayStation 4 players will be able to jump into an open beta to test it out as early as next week.
The first beta will be exclusive to PlayStation Plus subscribers and take place from June 21 to June 24, starting and ending at 3am PDT/11am BST. All PS4 players will then be able to join in a second beta the following week from June 28 to July 1. Better still, you won’t need to own Monster Hunter World to join in on the beta, and preloading will be available in the days leading up to each.
You can also watch the extensive new “tour” video released today above.
The content in the beta sounds nearly identical to what we played of Iceborne at E3. It will give players access to the three quests: an intro-level Great Jagras fight, and then two harder quests in the new Hoarfrost Reach area against either the all-new Banbaro or the returning Tigrex.
The beta demo gives you access to new high-level equipment and weapons for the fights, including the new Clutch Claw that lets you essentially hookshot yourself onto a monster’s face. And while progression won’t be directly carried over or saved in this beta, completing each quest once will earn your account “item packs containing helpful consumable items” in the full version of Iceborne.
As I said before, we got a chance to go hands-on with the same missions you’ll see in the beta (we got to kill that moose, and it was glorious) and had a lot of fun. You can read our full Iceborne impressions here (or watch the video above) including why our Monster Hunter expert Casey DeFreitas’ favorite new feature was as simple as slottable mantles.
Monster Hunter World: Iceborne releases September 6 on PS4 and Xbox One, and then sometime in the northern hemisphere’s winter on PC. You can read up on everything else revealed about Iceborne here, as well as some fan-favorite monsters we want to see return here.
Tom Marks is IGN’s Deputy Reviews Editor and resident pie maker, and he swears he will turn that moose into pants. You can follow him on Twitter.
