How did Monster Hunter's 14 weapons evolve?

Fourteen weapons strong since 2013, built up one game at a time, and every one of them plays like a different game.

The 2004 original shipped in Japan with six weapon classes. Its Western release added the Dual Blades, making seven, the first and only time a localisation expanded the armoury. Dos added four more in 2006: the Long Sword, Gunlance, Hunting Horn, and Bow. Tri contributed the transforming Switch Axe in 2009, and Monster Hunter 4 completed the set in 2013 with the acrobatic Insect Glaive and the morphing shield of the Charge Blade: the thirteenth and fourteenth weapons.

Counting the exclusives, the universe holds eighteen weapon types. The four absentees are the one-game Medium Bowgun (Tri only), Frontier’s Tonfa and Magnet Spike, lost with that game’s servers, and the Accel Axe from the mobile Explore. The fourteen survivors have now held steady for over a decade, each with its own community, speedrun scene, and devoted mains.