Monster Hunter Stories: Every Region, Ranked (2024)

In Monster Hunter Stories, you come across multiple open areas of exploration populated with several different kinds of monsters that fit in those environments. Many of these areas scale in difficulty as they represent your progression towards the end of the storyline.

Many of the monsters you'll see wandering around these regions give you an idea of the kinds of monsties you can obtain in the monster dens. Each area also contains different items and materials that you'll need for item combinations, subquest completions, and armor/weapon upgrades.

7 Darj Snowfields

This is the first region you'll walk through where you'll need to consider having special drinks in your inventory and item bag to maintain your temperature resistance. If you have monsties that don't do well in the cold, there are increased chances that they will miss turns due to the extreme weather.

Luckily, this is the area where you're introduced to the Rites of Channeling, which allows you to mix the genes and abilities of monsties and change the elements and skills some of them have. Experimentation with certain monstie builds becomes vital as you start tackling more types of creatures with different strengths, weaknesses, and effects.

6 Trese Dessert

The classic desert zone of Monster Hunter Stories. The Trese Dessert is where you will get more involved with the main plot of Monster Hunter Stories after meeting Dr. Manelger and facing the first EX monster in the game. You also reunite with Cheval, who has become a nihilistic hunter of blighted monsters.

The most striking feature of this area is the massive skeleton of a long-dead Elder Dragon that lays strewn across the center of the area. The Monster Hunter series has always had at least one area or zone that features a massive fossil of an ancient beast, so seeing this skeleton adds to the awe of the world. The diversity of beasts includes the massive Carapacean Daimyo Hermitaur and the Ravenous Diablos.

5 Pondry Hills

The Pondry Hills is the first major area you are introduced to in Monster Hunter Stories. This is where you complete your trial to be a rider and get your first monstie. Several decent monsties for your first party setup can be found here from Arzuros to Yian Kut-Ku. You will also face your first blighted boss monster, the Nargacuga that attacked your village in the prologue.

Later on in the story, you'll be back at the Pondry Hills when Dr. Manelger meddled with the large Kinship Crystal, unleashing the Black Blight on the region and making the matchups against them chaotic and dangerous. The only way to stop them is to navigate through the area and take on the Blighted EX Tigrex.

4 Dovan Volcano

This is the point in your adventure where the difficulty starts to spike. The volcanic region is full of dangerous beasts like Uragaan and Gravios. This is also where you'll need cool drinks for your team of monsties, otherwise, you'll lose turns in a bad place. As a result, the monsties you can hatch from this region tend to have great skills and genes for fire elemental traits.

The biggest source of difficulty in the Dovan Volcano happens once you enter Manelger's Lab. Here you'll face several EX monsters that test your ability to fight multi-skilled enemies. It culminates in one of the toughest boss fights in the game, an EX-Blighted Agnaktor. This area is the part of the game where you'll need to master the battle system and level up all your monsties enough to face these new adversaries.

3 Monsonne Plains

The Monsonne Plains is a large expanse of field outside Gildegarn. Here, you'll be spending a lot of time going from one area to another completing sidequests, and progressing the mainline story as you search for clues to face the Black Blight. It's a major area that also connects to other points populated with their unique group of monsters.

Monsonne Plains is great for leveling the monsties that you have in your group. Once you reach this point in the storyline, you'll need a good spot to strengthen any new monsties you gain in the journey. It's a great place to practice new attacks and learn which items are best for mid-end game progression when things get difficult.

2 Paupau Beach

You can discover many unique creatures for combat and egg collecting on Paupau Beach, from the bizarre fanged beast Kecha Wacha to the dinosaur-like Great Jaggis and the ferocious Lagiacrus. This area is accessible shortly after escaping Manelger's clutches in the Dovan Volcano and arriving at the cat paradise known as Koapni Village.

Story-wise, this is where you can complete certain side-quests that focus on many of the side characters you've met in the previous areas. You get some additional moments with Navirou saving Pansy from a Yian Garuga and reuniting with the Numbers and other felynes from his old group.

1 Mt Celion

The final large region you can unlock through Monster Hunter Stories. Mt Celion is populated with several dangerous monsters such as the ever-hungry Deviljho, the formidable Rajang, and strangely, Brachydios, despite their inclinations for Volcanic regions in the mainline games.

Because there are so many strong monsters here, Mt. Celion is great for farming special monstie genes, and skills, and obtaining rare and powerful weapons and gear for endgame challenges from the Tower to Fatalis. Mt. Celion is also the last major area of the story, leading up to the last confrontation between Cheval and the White Dragon, Versa Pietru, before it transforms into Makili Pietru, the Black Dread for the final story-based battle against the Black Blight.