So, Monster Hunter Rise is underway in development and some footage has been exposed showing gameplay. Now, if you know me, then you know that I HATED Monster hunter world with a burning fury. It had so many hand holding casualizations that ruined what made monster hunter fun for the veterans, all in the name of cash grabbing people who don't play monster hunter.

Rise seems to still be using the engine that World ran on, but it doesn't seem so broken... at the moment. So let me break it down:

Pros so far:
+Stamina drains no matter what:
In world, stamina only drained when you were in combat, meaning outside of it you could hold sprint as long as you wanted and would go at max speed. This was a problem as it made the player forget how quickly their stamina drains and how to watch it, especially in the heat of a battle. In Rise, inside or outside of battle, your stamina will drain if you sprint.
+Only one camp:
One of the humiliating things when you get knocked out and carted in monster hunter is being sent all the way back to the camp and having to slowly find your way back to the monster. This gives you time to cool off from your anger and shock of being knocked out, as well as rethink your strategy. World instead had many camps in a single map and you were taken to the closest one when you were knocked out, letting you get RIGHT back into the fight and get your ass kicked without learning anything. Rise abolished multi camps, you only get one.
+Map is one large room meaning no more AI lock hallways for the monsters:
By making the map a single "room", it allows the monsters and the player to avoid having to traverse long empty hallways with nothing in them. Monsters would not pay attention to the hunter and so it was just a slog to the next area. The monsters still have "areas" they choose to fight in, but the transition is more like they run around a corner, not running off 3km west.
+No tracking bugs:
World ruined a lot of it's gameplay elements by including tracking bugs, which were a giant green neon blob that was splattered all over the screen and CONSTANTLY pointed at the monster's location. It was not unlike a GPS device and it frequently was as irritating as one by telling you where you were supposed to go all the time. Rise doesn't have that. You instead can actually SEE the screen and environment.
+No slinger:
The slinger was the replacement for throwing objects and it was extremely stupid. It's gone in Rise, instead giving you commands where you can play with you Palamute and Felyne. Why? Just because.
+Blood splatter:
In ALL monster hunter games, you determined the damage you were dealing by two things: Weapon sticking and blood splatter effect. If you hit a soft spot, your animation would make your weapon "stick" for a moment and you'd get a big blood splatter. If you hit a bad spot, you'd get next to no blood and your animation ran at full speed. World ruined this by removing all blood AND changing the sound effects to the same ones as when you whiff, meaning it was difficult to tell IF you hit the monster at all.
+No mantles:
Mantles were cooldown items that gave you entire G rank armor set abilities and broke what little difficulty the game had. They are gone from Rise.
+Humor and fun:
They made it a point that idle actions with your felyne/partner are just that, something fun, which was missing from World which pushed a grimdark, "serious" tone, lacking the needed comedy the series is known for.
+NO FUCKING HANDLER:
World had this ugly bitch constantly yammering at me no matter what I was doing, berating me for not playing the game the way SHE wanted me to play it. She's gone and there is no replacement in Rise.
+No wild bugs that give mega potion health boosts:
The struggle of having enough potions when you haven't gotten good yet is part of the learning experience of monster hunter as a whole. World introduced "random bugs" that you could slap and get an entire mega potion worth of health back. You often didn't even need to look for them, they would just land on you randomly and poof, a bunch of health back. They don't have those in Rise. Instead there are tiny bugs that can give you a max heath or stamina bonus, but it's a VERY TINY amount and you have to go WAY off the beaten path to grab them.

Now it's not all pure sugar. There is some salt in here.

Negatives so far:
-Damage numbers return:
Hunters don't need these. As stated before, blood splatter and weapon sticking was how we determined how much damage we were doing. We didn't need numbers floating over every hit. Granted, they can be turned off, but they are on by default, making my fears of "cater to the casual who doesn't play monster hunter" stronger.
-Can heal/eat while moving:
One of the worst things from World has returned in Rise. Granted, as it stands in Rise, you are SO SLOW in Rise when you're eating, you're practically standing still. Perhaps it'll still encourage people to watch what the monster is doing instead of mashing the healing button.
-The perk of the Palamute is almost null because of that last negative.:
The big thing about the Palamute was that they showed that, while riding it, you have infinite sprinting stamina and can eat/heal/sharpen on the move. However, if you can heal while moving OFF the palamute... then most of what is special about the palamute is rendered null right out the gate. I'll be keeping two Felynes with me.
-The focus has been to show off "how awesome" the hunter is instead of "look at how the AWESOME monsters are gonna RUN YOUR ASS OVER if you don't get good":
This was one of the first warning flags for me about World, which is that EVERY monster hunter showed that the hunter was 100% outclassed in a head-to-head encounter with the monster. You had to use wits and determination to best them. World went "look how you can roflstomp the monsters!" Rise is starting off doing that too so I'm worried.

As for a few other things I have no personal opinion about yet.

Undetermined:
?Weapons can be traded out at camp: This alone is no real issue, but may imply you can change your armor, which IS a big deal as that is what determines your field skills. Now, if it remains true that there is no fast travel to camp and there is only one camp, then it would still be foolish to try and break off the hunt, run all the way back to camp, swap armor, then run all the way back to the monster.
?Item box at camp: This implies you have access to all your items from the home zone, which means shitters will waste up the first 30 minutes of a hunt playing in their item box instead of hunting and preparing for a hunt BEFORE accepting the mission.
?No footage of a large monster roaring yet: I need to see a large monster roaring to see if the screen distorts properly and if the sound balancing is good. World was garbage in this regard as you could never tell when a monster was roaring. No shockwaves and no defined roar meant that you only knew the monster was roaring if your hunter just stopped moving.

Now there is a long time before the game is actually out and maybe some of these things will change. So far, the pros outweigh the cons... Maybe I will get this game.