The Monster Hunter franchise has a fun hidden mechanic that allows for monsters to have varying sizes. Some fly under the radar, but others are oddly small or unbelievably huge. Previous games had quests including “World Eater” monsters that took the maximum size to the extreme. Conversely, there were “World Nibbler” quests that took large monsters like Gammoth and shrunk them down to ridiculous miniature size. These maximum and minimum sizes for monsters have lately been included as an in-game stat that you can track, meaning you can put in the work to earn golden crowns for the outrageous sizes of each monster!

The appearance of these maximum and minimum sized monsters is random, but in Monster Hunter Wilds you’re given a very useful tool to aid in your search. The binoculars that are part of your default loadout. They allow you to look at monsters and see a key visual indicator near the monster’s name and difficulty. If a monster is larger or smaller than normal, you’ll see silver or golden crowns to symbolize their status. If you ever see a monster that seems abnormal compared to ones you’ve seen before you can always whip out the binoculars and check! And in the case you come across a monster that has a gold crown for its respective size, you can head to the map menu and save that monster as an investigation. That means you’ll have a saved quest in your investigation log that allows you to hunt that specific monster, with that exact size, up to three more times. You can also always start a hunt during your expedition right then and there to claim your crown.

As mentioned, the appearance of these crown-bearing monsters is randomly dictated. Currently only three monsters have pre-set sizes that do not change, those being: Jin Dahaad, Guardian Arkveld and Zoh Shia. There is a chance that any quest could throw you at an abnormally sized monster, but the odds are low. Some determining factors seem to be the monster’s difficulty rating, denoted by the pink diamonds over its head, both on the quest list and shown when inspecting them with binoculars. It seems that with higher difficulty ratings monsters are more likely to have a large size crown. This also seems to be affected by the monster’s status as a normal or tempered monster, with the latter also having higher odds for large size. Small monsters seem to generally have the lowest odds of appearing, and are thus more difficult to track down.

Monster Hunter Wilds provides players with five major locales to run around hunting various monsters, the Windward Plains, Scarlet Forest, Oilwell Basin, Iceshard Cliffs and the Ruins of Wyveria. Each of these locales have day and night, as well as weather cycles, that might change which monsters appear. Each locale also has an Apex monster that typically appears during that location’s season of inclemency. So there are a lot of additional factors to consider when inspecting a location for large or small monsters! However, there is a small work-around for this for a majority of the monsters in this game, though.

There is technically a sixth locale in Monster Hunter Wilds, which would be the arena. Also known as the Wounded Hollow, the arena allows one single monster to appear for a set period of time. Nearly every monster can appear in the Wounded Hollow. The exception to this would be the Apex monsters of each locale and the Guardian Monsters, which are only found in the Ruins of Wyveria. 

There are two methods available to rapidly net yourself maximum and minimum size crowns. For any monster that appears in the Wounded Hollow you can repeat one simple method that randomly reassigns the monster’s size. If you travel to the Wounded Hollow’s arena, you can quickly open the map and move to another location and then once again head back to the Wounded Hollow. My personal preference was fast-traveling back and forth from the Wounded Hollow to Suja, the Peaks of Accord. The loading times for this felt the quickest for me. When you return to the arena it may seem like nothing has changed, but every single time you repeat this method the monster at the Wounded Hollow will have its size modifier re-rolled. This allows you to quickly reset and check the monster’s size repeatedly. The duration of a monster’s stay in the Wounded Hollow allows for dozens of these resets. The more you reset the higher odds you have of landing a monster with a special size difference. Though, this process may take a fair amount of time. Once you see the monster with the size you want or need you can open the map menu, select the monster and create a quest to save it as an investigation. Or simply dive right into a hunt!

I would like to note that if you find a max or min sized monster and save it as an investigation and then continue searching for its opposing size counterpart, you will not be able to save the next crown as an investigation. The game considers the investigation as the same monster and you cannot overwrite the previous saved investigation, so you would have to either hunt the second crown on the spot, or simply save the first crown and move on to your next target.

Wounded Hollow Method:

• Head to the Wounded Hollow
• Check the monster’s size with the binoculars
• No crown? fast travel to Suja & back to the Wounded Hollow
• Rinse and repeat!
• If the monster has a gold crown you can save it as an investigation or hunt it right away!

The second method is equally time consuming, and some players may not consider it a legitimate option. For the unique hunts like the Guardians or Apex monsters, you can rest at one of your camps in a given locale. While resting you can spend your guild points to set the season and the time of day. This will change the time and weather as well as all monsters appearing in that location. Important to note this also saves your game if you have auto-save enabled. After changing the weather or time, you can ride around the environment looking for your target monster. If you’re lucky you’ll see a golden crown when you inspect with the binoculars. But if there’s no crown to be seen just quit back to the menu without saving. Then boot back into the game. You’ll start just after you changed the weather, and also re-roll the size for all monsters in all locations! You can loop that routine until you spot a crowned monster. Once you see the crown: save the investigation and save your game to move on to your next target!

The Quit-Out method:

• Rest at a camp and set the time and weather as needed
• Head out and search for your target monster, check for a crown
• If there’s no crown, quit to the menu without saving
• Repeat until you find your crowned monster!

There is a secret third tactic: playing with other people! There are plenty of forums where folks are actively sharing their saved investigations with others to assist in the pursuit of all the golden crowns the game has to offer. You can use your favorite web-browser to search for folks who are offering to help. Monster Hunter is already a franchise that thrives on the companionship of players, and this is certainly no exception.

Whichever method you use, I wish you the best of luck in pursuing gold crown monsters! And stop by Boss Rush for more tips and tricks for other games in the future. Or head on over to our Discord and let us know what you think of this guide!

Featured Image: Capcom