New to Monster Hunter Outlanders? This beginner guide covers how to play the early game efficiently: whether to reroll, what to do first, what to upgrade, what to do every day, how to get unstuck, and which content can wait.
What Kind of Game Is It?
In Monster Hunter Outlanders, you collect a wide range of adventurers and hunt monsters with them. Many monsters return from past Monster Hunter games, and you can also hunt the new Radiant monsters and new Elder Dragons.
Adventurer List / Monster List
Should You Reroll?
Reroll only if there's a specific adventurer you want. The protagonist is strong enough to clear the content, and you can change their weapon type and Ultimate, so they stay useful in most situations. You won't get stuck on the story without rerolling.
How to Progress Early On
Here's the order that gets you through the early game efficiently. Clear the minimum story first, then repeat a loop of gathering upgrade materials and upgrading your party.
- Push the story to the end of Chapter 3
- Upgrade your party
- Explore the map
- Raise your Adventurer Rank
- Gather upgrade materials
1. Push the story to the end of Chapter 3
Early on, prioritize the story. It unlocks the features you need to upgrade adventurers and makes exploring the map smoother. Fights up to Chapter 3 are doable with minimal upgrades, but from Chapter 4 on, a lot of content expects you to have prepared and upgraded across the board.
By the end of Chapter 3, you unlock forging and upgrading weapons and armor, seasons, daily tasks, and some of the content that refreshes regularly. The Monster Challenge in particular is important because it gives Rutacoin on a regular basis.
From Chapter 4 on, you need to raise your party's overall hunting power by leveling up their gear, elemental resonance, and levels evenly. This matters not only for the story but especially for higher ecology levels and high-difficulty challenges.
2. Upgrade your party
Once the main features are unlocked, upgrade the adventurers in your party while exploring the map to build up a steady supply of materials and visages. When the early game gets hard, upgrading your party usually solves it.
Clearing the story quest "Where Adventurers Gather" unlocks recruitment (the gacha) and the shop. When you pull is up to you, but some SSR adventurers and Buddies can be earned from events, so it's also fine to wait until you've claimed those event rewards.
Adventurer Tier List / Buddy List
3. Explore the map
Exploring the map lets you collect the Rutacoin you need for recruiting and set up Camps for fast travel. Unlocking the whole map is worth it for later quests and hunts, including every Camp and watchtower.
As you explore, area tasks reward Rutacoin. You can also earn it from field tasks you take on against monsters you run into, so exploring pays off.
To explore and later collect visages and materials efficiently, build Catapults and gathering facilities. Shorter travel times and automatic material gathering make a big difference later. Raising a watchtower's level increases how many you can place.
4. Raise your Adventurer Rank
You need to raise your Adventurer Rank to unlock upgrade-related systems such as gear upgrades and the ecology level. There's a daily cap on how much EXP you can earn, so start early: clear your daily tasks and spend your energy every day.
Raising your Adventurer Rank unlocks gear upgrade tiers step by step. Later story chapters and high-difficulty content require higher defense, so the higher your rank, the better your party survives.
The ecology level cap is tied to your Adventurer Rank. The ecology level affects how far you can limit-break adventurers and Buddies and how tough the monsters you hunt are, so raising it is a must for further upgrades. It also has downsides, though, so only raise it as far as you can handle.
5. Gather upgrade materials
Collect upgrade materials for the adventurers in your party: souvenirs, Buddy level-up materials, and monster materials for weapons and armor. Most of them come from Hunt Requests in the play guide, which cost energy. The harder Hunt Requests, which give materials more efficiently, unlock as you raise the ecology level.
Materials for weapons and armor come from hunting monsters in dens and in the field. Put together recommended gear for at least one full party: it makes farming content and later visage collecting more efficient and easier.
Item and Material List / Monster List
Do Your Dailies
Monster Hunter Outlanders has a lot of content, such as time-limited events and daily tasks, that pays off best when you chip away at it every day. Some events even give recruitment tickets or adventurers.
Spend your energy
Spending energy gets you materials and EXP. You can never have too many materials for your Adventurer Rank and adventurer upgrades, so use up your energy every day.
Daily tasks
Clearing your daily tasks every day earns worthwhile rewards such as EXP and Rutacoin.
Current events
Check and clear the tasks of current events every day. Especially early on, many events make it easy to get things you tend to run short of, like materials and adventurers, so they're one of the keys to a smooth early game.
Features to Unlock First
| Feature | Why |
|---|---|
| Events | Beginner events give generous rewards, including adventurers and recruitment tickets. |
| Daily tasks | You get rewards for clearing the adventure suggestions offered each day, and events also require daily logins. |
| Map facilities | They make getting around the field comfortable, cut the time spent on quests and traveling to field monsters, and gather Research Points and crafting materials. |
| Monster Challenge | It gives Rutacoin and refreshes regularly. |
Most features unlock by the end of Chapter 3, but some deserve priority. Events, daily tasks, and map facilities in particular make quests and adventurer upgrades far more efficient.
If You Get Stuck
If you hit a wall, try these three things: recruit adventurers, upgrade your gear, or call for help in multiplayer.
Recruit adventurers
A common cause of early trouble is a party missing a damage dealer or a support. Recruiting doesn't just get you SSR adventurers: picking up the insights of SR adventurers also strengthens your party and widens your lineup options. Monsters have elemental and damage-type weaknesses, so train or recruit adventurers that match them. Some adventurers are especially strong and can help you progress.
Getting more copies of an adventurer raises their insight cap. Equip their unique insights to push them further and lift your overall strength.
Adventurer Tier List / Adventurer List
Upgrade your gear
Another common cause is gear that isn't upgraded or doesn't suit the adventurer or the monster. Craft and upgrade gear that counters the monster's weaknesses and attacks and plays to your adventurer's strengths. Upgrading armor that suits each adventurer raises defense so they survive longer, and it also strengthens the skills on that armor.
Adventurers other than the protagonist have a fixed weapon type and element, so you have fewer weapon options than armor options. Keep upgrading the weapons of the adventurers you control most often.
Weapon List / Armor List / Skill List
Call for help in multiplayer
If a hunt is giving you trouble, for example while farming materials, call in other players' adventurers through multiplayer. Even when you can't win solo, teaming up to take a monster down is what Monster Hunter is all about.
What Can Wait
Free Hunt tasks
Some quests require Free Hunts, but beyond those, they aren't essential early on. You may do them to farm materials for gear, but the Free Hunt tasks themselves give little EXP, so it's safe to leave them for later.
Raising the ecology level
The ecology level raises the limit-break cap for adventurers and Buddies and unlocks harder Hunt Requests, but it also makes field monsters tougher. As a rule, raise it when you need to limit-break your adventurers.
Collecting Esoteric Tomes for cooking
Early on, the benefits of cooking aren't big enough to make or break your progress, so this can wait. Cooking does become important in high-difficulty content, though, so collecting tomes along the way doesn't hurt.
This guide reflects the game as of October 29, 2026.