When do you unlock 5-star monsters in Monster Hunter Now?

Niantic and Capcom’s Monster Hunter Now starts innocuously enough. Walk around, slay some monsters, do some quests, rinse and repeat. However, if you focus strictly on completing your story quests, you’ll soon find monsters that pose a serious challenge to you. By the time you unlock 4-star monsters, you may feel the need to seriously upgrade your armor to prevent getting one-shotted. So if that’s the case, the thought of 5-star monsters in Monster Hunter Now might seem overwhelming to you. When do you unlock them in the main story, anyway?

Players progressing in Monster Hunter Now won’t have to worry about 5-star monsters until they reach the end of Chapter 9. This will spark an Urgent Quest that pits you against Rathian, who is, admittedly, just a 4-star monster. That said, Rathian is no joke to take down, especially if you’re still learning its attack patterns. Defeating Rathian will unlock 5-star monsters in the world, though Rathian itself can still appear as a 4-star encounter.

Note that all low-rarity monster encounters can still appear at this stage. Even 1-star monsters will spawn, despite the fact that you can treat them as skill charge fodder at this level.

Should you wait to unlock 5-star monsters in Monster Hunter Now?

This is, to a certain extent, a subjective question. If your weapons are stuck in the middle of Grade 3, some 5-star monsters may be too tough to take down within the time limit. Therefore, by unleashing 5-star monsters into your game, you’ll dilute your pool of encounters with monsters you want to avoid. Additionally, some anecdotal evidence suggests that 5-star monsters have similar drop rates to 4-star monsters. However, take all non-official information like this with a grain of salt.

Having said that, I don’t think you should feel afraid to push into 5-star monster territory. Many early monsters, like Pukei-Pukei or Kulu-Ya-Ku, are still very beatable with lower rarity weapons. Additionally, you’ll also unlock Rathian, which you can grind to receive some powerful weapons and armor. The pool of actually impossible encounters at this stage would be relatively slim, so the issue isn’t quite as bad as you might think at first. If you’re capable of beating 4-star Rathian, you’re more qualified at this stage of the game than you might think.

Once you have a grade-4 weapon, you’ll have a much easier time against 5-star enemies as well. So, ultimately, the approach you want to take is up to you. If you want to casually grind and don’t want to ever see harder monsters, you can hold out on making story progress. However, if you decide to press onward, you’ll probably be fine. Good luck out there!