7 years later, Monster Hunter World player finally beats the whole game without using weapons, mostly with a Street Fighter Hadoken emote dealing 13 damage at a time

gamesradar.com:

Way back in January 2018, streamer and Monster Hunter fan UncleAaronT was intrigued by a clip that showed Monster Hunter World's Rathian being taken down by the Street Fighter 5 Hadoken emote available in a collaboration bundle. Realizing this thing could hurt monsters, he immediately used the emote for the first Hadoken-only hunt of Great Jagras.

Fast forward roughly seven years and Aaron has now used the Hadoken, combined with a few other emotes, to beat Monster Hunter World in its entirety without swinging or firing a single weapon, which I would compare to assembling a bookshelf using only your mouth. He started seriously grinding the challenge in November. To put things into perspective, one of his Nergigante hunts took 41 minutes.

After months of work, Aaron shared his achievement with the Monster Hunter World Reddit community earlier this week, and I immediately reached out to talk through this long journey. From Great Jagras to Xeno'jiiva, the Monster Hunter World campaign lineup was powerless before the Hadoken, as evidenced by Aaron's extensive emote-only playthrough archive. There's also a handy explainer video to catch you up.

"I couldn't keep doing the challenge at the time due to life commitments, but fast forward to the end of the Monster Hunter Wilds beta, I had the idea return to my head," Aaron tells GamesRadar+. "I had the evening time more readily available and in turn returned to complete the challenge. The gesture/emote-only really just felt like something I knew I could do. While there's others that might've done no damage or other related challenges, I couldn't find anyone that seemed to have done what I did. It doesn't help I'm a stubborn kind of person, so when I set myself to a challenge I'll put the commitment in to see it through to the end."

The Hadoken was the lynchpin because it's a reliable ranged gesture that deals consistent critical damage – a whopping 13 on a clean hit – without eating all your stamina like the Shoryuken gesture