Maps

Kotou (Solitary Island)

In order to generate a completely new type of hunting experience, the hunting ground has been moved to an island and underwater hunting is one of the major new features. When hunting underwater, besides the usual left-right-front-back movements, you can swim up and down as well. However, there won’t be much differences between hunting on the ground and underwater. A gauge will appear on screen to tell players about their breathing status, similar to the stamina gauge that depletes as time goes by but it will not be something that you’ll have to constantly aware of.

Sunahara (Sandy Plain)

Another new hunting field, Sunahara is mostly covered by yellow sand but like the desert featured in previous games, there are areas with oasis and caves.

Volcano

The volcano in MH3 looks much more atmospheric now, probably because its darker and steam cloud are everywhere. However, there are plenty of details being added and it seems to contain more variety in the areas now.

Suibotsurin (Submerged Forest)

Another example for the main theme of the game, which is water. Most of Suibotsurin (Submerged Forest) is covered in water and it becomes a heaven for many monsters and plants. This is also the home of one of the new monsters, Tyanagaduru. Pyramids can be seen in one of the screens in Weekly Famitsu, which appears to indicate that there are some kind of civilization before in this area. As the screens below will show, cave and waterfall can be found in this field too.