The fifth mainline installment in the Monster Hunter series, it was released worldwide for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in January 2018, with a Windows version following in August 2018.

In the game, the player takes the role of a Hunter, tasked to hunt down and either kill or trap monsters that roam in one of several environmental spaces.

Changes made in Monster Hunter: World include creating environmental spaces that are fully connected and removing the "zones" that were necessary for the PlayStation 2 and handheld games, more advanced monster artificial intelligence and physics, a more persistent cooperative multiplayer experience, and a refinement of the game's tutorials and user interface to help with bringing new players into the series.

A DLC expansion pack, subtitled Iceborne, was released for home consoles in September 2019 and for Windows in January 2020, and reached 10 million sales by December 2022.

Similar to previous games in the series, the player takes the role of a player-created character who travels to the "New World", an unpopulated landmass filled with monsters, to join the Research Commission that studies the land from their central command base of Astera.

Astera acts as a central hub where the player can buy and sell goods, manage their inventory, craft new equipment, and gain new quests.

After taking a quest in Astera, or after choosing to simply go on an open-ended expedition, the player is taken to a base camp in one of six large regions that make up the New World.

[3][4] Once a monster is located, the player can take several approaches to either slay or capture it using traps once sufficiently weakened, using a combination of their weapons and items they are carrying.

[18] There is paid downloadable content available for the game, but with the exception of the Iceborne expansion, these are limited to cosmetic items only, such as gestures, character customization options, and stickers used in communicating with other players.

After being rescued and arriving at the base camp, known as Astera, the Hunter and their Handler undertake various tasks to explore the area and study Zorah Magdaros at the behest of the Commander of the Expedition.

After escaping the ambush, Zorah Magdaros unexpectedly enters the Everstream, a massive underground river that runs under the entire New World, rather than traveling to the Rotten Vale.

With no time to evacuate, the Expedition develops an emergency plan to intercept Zorah Magdaros and drive it to the ocean, where its released bio-energy will form a new aquatic ecosystem.

With the Elder Crossing now fully understood, the Expedition is considered finished, but members are offered the chance to stay in the New World to continue their research.

[22] Tsujimoto said that past games typically had arcane rules, and the zoned-area structure made each zone feel isolated, and wanted to change that approach.

[23] They have also wanted to implement living worlds and ecosystems, with complex artificial intelligence interactions between monsters and the environment but have been limited in the past by handheld gaming hardware.

[24] A prototype of this more open world approach took about 18 months to complete by November 2015 with a team of 50-70 developers to test the seamless transition in the map, and how monsters would behave in these varied environments.

"[5] Tokuda said that they were not simplifying the game, but instead "It's more that we want to have this great core action gameplay where players observe monster behaviour and then learn how to take advantage of that and manipulate that to assist in hunting them.

[6][20] Capcom opted not to use a numerical title, such as Monster Hunter 5, as that would give the impression that players needed to have completed other games in the series to play this one.

[6] The game uses a modified version of Capcom's internally developed MT Framework engine which provided a minimum of 30 frames per seconds on all platforms.

[12] Tsujimoto and Tokuda said the delay on the Windows version release was to make sure it was "optimized and fine-tuned for the PC as much as possible", with all work being done internally within Capcom to avoid treating the game as an outsourced port.

[30] They also seek to have Monster Hunter: World support a wide variety of personal computer configurations, and need the additional time to achieve this broad range.

[36] A limited run of PlayStation 4 Pro consoles emblazoned with Monster Hunter: World art was released in Japan on December 7, 2017.

[37] A three-disc original soundtrack of the game's music was released in Japan on February 14, 2018, composed by Tadayoshi Makino, Zhenlan Kang, Akihiko Narita, and Yuko Komiyama.

[49] As with previous games in the series, Monster Hunter: World has offered limited time quests that involve cross-promotion of other Capcom properties and from other third-parties.

[50][51] Since release, other events have offered costumes and other elements based on Mega Man,[52] Street Fighter's Ryu and Sakura,[53] and Devil May Cry's Dante.

Learning that Capcom was seeking to expand Monster Hunter to a global audience, Yoshida offered the idea of the potential cross-promotion between their games, and the two began working out the details and implementation.

The campaign met its initial funding goals of €150,000 (~$180,000) within ten minutes of launching,[63] and ultimately ended up raising €3,448,262 (~$4,144,121) from 20,398 backers (excluding Late Pledges).

[68] Monster Hunter: World received "universal acclaim" from critics on Xbox One and PlayStation 4, and a "generally favourable" reception on PC, according to review aggregator Metacritic.

[85][86] Monster Hunter: World shipped over five million copies three days after release, including digital sales, which exceeded all other previous games in the series.

[96][97] Just prior to the game's Windows release, Capcom reported that the number had risen to more than 8.3 million, which helped to raise its quarterly profit by nearly 50% from the previous year.