Monster Hunter World Guide - Investigate the Unknown Monster Tracks

Posted in monster hunter world

Monster Hunter World is pretty good at guiding you through the early quests and helping you understand the games' mechanics. Unfortunately, that support goes silent midway when you reach the "Investigate the Unknown Monster Tracks" quest. In this guide you'll find a simple foolproof tutorial for progressing the High Rank monster hunts.

Since you've reached this stage in the game, this post does contain details about High Rank quests which would otherwise be spoilers. With the all clear, let's get down to the guide with a recap on how you got here.

Recap: Unlocking High Rank

At this point in time you'll have defeated the campaigns final BOSS, the awesome Zorah Magdaros, and then straight after a harder version of Pukei-Pukei. High Rank is automatically unlocked for you, along with new armour sets (Alpha and Beta), high rank quests, investigations and tonnes of other end-game content.

A short cutscene plays back at the Astera, with the council saying:

"Since we resolved the mystery surrounding Zorah Magdaros, I have received some alarming news." He goes on to say "The field team reports that they're observing a shift in monster behaviour, namely invading other territories."

A new objective new appears:



"Investigate the unknown monster tracks"- Search for Rathian tracks

Naturally you would assume that this quest is simply a case of returning to each of the maps and finding these unknown monster tracks? WRONG!

How to find Rathian

The real key to progressing is to understand that Capcam are throwing you off the scent here, in an attempt to slow you down. Think about it, you've just unlocked High Rank and certainly aren't ready for those fights yet!

Therefore the way to progress is to simply continue engaging in other quests, monster fights etc. As you complete each of these, the meter for the "Investigate the unknown monster tracks" actually fills up itself, whether you find these mysterious tracks or not.



Eventually, the meter reaches a stage where a new quest unlocks and the monsters origin is revealed. Now it's time to go into that High Rank fight, hopefully fully prepared with Alpha or Beta gear.

I hope that this simple guide has helped save you some time - I know for one that I was going a little mad trying to work this one out!