Hunter Rank (HR) is a measure of your experience as a hunter. It’s displayed on the file selection screen, your hunter’s Status screen, as well as your Guild Card.

How to Increase Hunter Rank¶

When you begin the game, your Hunter Rank will start at HR 1. To increase it, you must unlock higher difficulty quests in the Gathering Hub, either by completing Urgent Quests from Minoto the Hub Maiden or by taking on Special License Tests from Hinoa the Quest Maiden.

Each time you unlock the next tier of Hub Quests, your Hunter Rank will rise by 1. Up to HR 7, your Hunter Rank will match the highest star rating of Hub Quests that are available to you. For example, if you’re at HR 5, you can accept up to 5-star Hub Quests.

Once you’re at HR 4 (and you’ve unlocked 4-star Hub Quests), you can begin tackling High Rank quests and earn High Rank equipment etc.

Uncapped Hunter Rank¶

After you’ve completed the Urgent Hub Quest “Serpent Goddess of Thunder”, which requires slaying Thunder Serpent Narwa, you will ascend to HR 8 and your Hunter Rank will become “uncapped”.

What this means is that your Hunter Rank will slowly increase with each and every quest you complete. There are no 8-star Quests; instead, all quests provide HR points, needed to increase your Hunter Rank. In general, the harder the quest, the more HR points you’ll receive from it.

The maximum Hunter Rank is HR 999, although there are some soft caps, which require completing additional Urgent Quests to unlock.

New Features¶

As soon as your Hunter Rank is uncapped, you can enjoy the following:

• Apex Arzuros and Bazelgeuse will appear in 7-star Hub Quests.
• Apex Rathalos and Apex Diablos will appear in Rampage Quests.
• New 6-star Village Quests after speaking to Elder Fugen.
• New weapon trees, armor, items and Petalaces.
• New skills and Rampage skills.
• Armor upgrade Level cap will increase.
• New decorations can be forged at the Smithy.
• Layered armor can be forged at the Smithy.
• Palico and Palamute layered armor can be forged at the Buddy Smithy.
• Palico and Palamute Level cap will increase to 50.
• Higher level Palico and Palamute can be hired from the Buddy Scout.

In addition, there’s some new content when your HR reaches a certain level:

How to Increase Hunter Rank Cap¶

Even though your Hunter Rank is uncapped, it’s not fully uncapped. Once you reach HR 20, you must complete a new Urgent Hub Quest to increase your HR cap. Then you must do the same thing when you reach HR 30 and HR 40. After that though, your HR can increase without limit (up to 999).