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.
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"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 does. Another tool was the Devil May Cry emote featuring Dante's guns, which deals about twice as much damage as the Hadoken, but much less reliably and in a wide spread. This made it tough to use, but still handy for small but welcome DPS boosts in the right situations.
Monster Hunter world Emotes only is possible. I've played the entire game using emotes as my only form of damage with my hunter. from great jagras to xenojiva. this dumb challenge run has been completed as of 06/01/2025. i believe i am the first person to of done this at this point of time. from r/MonsterHunter
"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 explains. There are other damaging gestures, but they have their hangups. "The other emotes I had mentioned, either they are more paid emotes or are locked behind certain requirements that meant already completing the game once to access the emotes. Witcher's Fire and FF14 Jump, both of which could provide some help against some monsters such as dodging their attack overall or using the elemental damage to my advantage. In the end it merely came down to situational actions against certain monsters."
The good news is that with no weapon skills to worry about, Aaron could build his Monster Hunter World loadouts around defensive and utility skills like Windproof, Earplugs, and Tremor Resistance. If it makes it easier to land Hadokens or it keeps you alive, it's useful. This mainly came into play later in the game with High Rank Elder Dragons, with Kushala Daora proving especially challenging. Luckily, flash bombs saved the day.
If you're wondering, Aaron did have a Palico along to help, but specced for healing and really not contributing much damage. One of the most impressive things about this run is Aaron's ability to fight these monsters for so long without getting whittled down. With a normal build, killing monsters faster reduces the damage you'll take in the long run and cuts down on opportunities to make mistakes, but Aaron was deliberately following the complete opposite strategy.
Another wall was Zorah Magdaros, a volcano-like beast with a lot of health that's normally chipped away with special environmental fixtures like cannons. Aaron's followers agreed that environmental damage was permissible here, lest Zorah kill the run, so cannons and ballistas – also not technically hunter weapons – were allowed.
Aaron's final fight with Xeno'jiiva is something to see – and about half as long as a film, at that. "The challenge is complete!" he says triumphantly. "It is possible to beat Monster Hunter World with emotes only!" For the cherry on top, he pulled a rare gem out of the monster's corpse. He says he's now "taking some much-needed time to think about this time I spent since November doing this challenge and how in a way it was rewarding to finally see it accomplished after six years."
