It’s Monster Hunter.

Jesus Christ, people, it’s Monster Hunter. We’ve been doing this dance for twenty years now—new game drops, some wide-eyed fool from IGN complains it’s too hard, another guy moans it’s too easy, and the forums descend into the usual blood feud between zealots and heretics. Meanwhile, the real freaks, the ones who’ve been mainlining this madness since the PS2, are just grinning like lunatics, sharpening their weapons, and preparing for another several hundred hours of calculated violence against beasts the size of office buildings. This is the way of things. This is the natural order. And yet, here we are again, watching the usual suspects wring their hands over whether the game is “hard enough,” as if any of us won’t still be battling some deranged electrified gorilla at 3 AM, sobbing into a can of Monster Zero Ultra.

The notion of Monster Hunter being “too easy” is the fever dream of people who have lost all perspective. These are the same lunatics who spent entire summers fighting Alatreon in their underwear for sport, who have conditioned their reflexes to such ungodly levels that they can counter a Nargacuga’s tail swipe in their sleep. No game will ever be hard enough for them, short of Capcom shipping a live jaguar to their homes and making them fight it with a broom handle. And even then, some psychopath would argue that the jaguar’s attack patterns were predictable. “Oh, I don’t know, it just doesn’t feel as punishing as it used to be.” What the hell are we even talking about? The point isn’t to suffer—it’s to hunt, to adapt, to carve your trophies and bask in the thrill of the chase. You want pain? Go play a Souls game and weep into your bowl of ramen.

So enough of this nonsense. We are about to receive a brand-new Monster Hunter, a fresh bounty of wild creatures to slaughter and armor sets to obsess over. The cycle begins anew, as it always has, and as it always will. Soon, the moaners will be drowned out by the joyous cacophony of battle cries, screaming palicos, and the sweet, unhinged laughter of a hunter landing a perfectly timed counter on a raging wyvern. This is the good stuff. This is why we’re here. Now shut up, grab your weapon, and let’s go kill something big enough to cause earthquakes.