Monster Hunter: World player clears campaign in insane emote-only challenge run

Some madman has taken on the entirety of the Monster Hunter: World campaign using only emotes.

It’s hard to believe it’s been seven years since the release of Monster Hunter: World but the game still has a dedicated player base. In 2024 the game reached a three-year peak in its concurrent player count thanks to Capcom’s Return to World initiative.

In that time, it managed to draw in old and new fans alike; even converting popular streamer Asmongold into a franchise fan. With its long-awaited sequel Monster Hunter: Wilds on the horizon, you’d think players would have squeezed all they could out of the 2018 hit.

You’d be wrong in that assumption because Monster Hunter player UncleAaronT has just completed the most impressive challenge run of Monster Hunter: World we’ve ever seen. They’ve finished the entirety of the base campaign using only emotes as their primary source of damage and never swinging a single weapon.

Monster Hunter World player beats game using Ryu’s Hadouken emote

UncleAaronT began this challenge all the way back in February 2019 when he uploaded his takedown of Great Jagras using only the Hadouken emote. The emote was added to the game as part of a Street Fighter 5 collaboration and is one of few methods in the game that deals damage without using a weapon.

Granted, the damage it deals is a flat 13 and the Monster Hunter franchise is known for its excessive health pools. Couple this with the fact that Monster Hunter: World’s campaign hunts have a time limit of 50 minutes and you start to see just how impressive this feat is.

UncleAaronT also made use of a Shoryuken emote from the same Street Fighter 5 collab and an emote from a Devil May Cry crossover that uses Dante’s guns. “In the end the Hadoken really came out on top, giving a flat damage number that was constant but also allowed me enough time to learn the pattern when I needed to dodge,” Aaron explained.

Those following the challenge made an exception for Zorah Magdaros owing to the unique nature of its hunts but outside of that, Aaron used only emotes to take down every Large Monster in the campaign from Great Jagras to Xenojiva.

As evidence of his achievement, Aaron uploaded his entire journey in individual episodes on YouTube so you can see exactly how he managed to topple each monster in the allotted time.

It should be noted that Aaron did use items and a Palico to help in this one-of-a-kind Monster Hunter World challenge run but even with those caveats, it’s still insanely impressive.