- Four new weapons - Hunting Horn, Bow, Gunlance, and Dual Blades return from MHFU
- bowguns are prebuilt like the other weapons and come in either Light or Heavy varieties
- Reworked and new armors and armor skills
- entirely new difficulty mode for online quests
- high rank Moga Village quests
- rank up as soon as you complete the prerequisite key quests
- switches back to the HRP system after beating the final G-rank elder dragon
- Over 200 quests
- Start with different beginning default armor set & access to 1 of every 12 weapon types
- 5 more small monsters (Gagua,Bullfango,Furogi, Anteka & Zuwaroposu)
- 11 more boss monsters (includes an exclusive new final boss)
- 22 subspecies + color variation boss monsters (17 of which are based on old boss monsters from MH Tri)
- Subspecies/Color Variation monsters have some new attacks & some are smaller/larger/more aggressive/ slower/different elemental & ailment weaknesses/ different weak spots/different element and/or status ailment/ stronger roars than the original boss monsters they are based on
- Kayanba, a 2nd AI companion is introduced
- You can bring Cha-Cha & Kayanba with you on single player campaign quests
- Cha-Cha and Kayanba get some new masks
- High rank monsters now appear in D. Island Free Hunt mode during the night
- Target Camera Mode (optional experimental camera mode, Capcom is going to refine this feature in MH 4)
- Touch screen can be used for customized access to menu screens, inventory, & HUD elements
- Adds realistic shadows to boss monsters, but round shadows will still be used for when bosses are flying
- MH Tri's Loc Lac online city is replaced with Tanjia Port
- Mountain Stream map (features 9 areas) is added to the game, some other ares are added including Tower 3 arena & exclusive new boss-specific map, Disastrous Sea
- D. Island Free Hunt mode map adds extra monsters ( such as Barroth, Black Diablos, Bracchidios, G. Baggi, & Dosfurogi)
- Moga Farm system now lets you cultivate other items like thunderbugs
- Connect with up to three friends in four player local play via the Nintendo 3DS or online via the Wii U. Wii U players can also link up with Nintendo 3DS players over a local connection
- Share your save data between your Wii U home console and the Nintendo 3DS
- Capcom said it would reveal more potentially exclusive features