The goal of Monster Hunter is pretty much in the name. You track down epic monsters, gaining more efficiency with each hunt until you've created that perfect build or perfect set of armor. Stats and skills are important, but looks are just as much so.

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Monster Hunter has always had great designs for its armor sets, fit to match the ferocity and style of the monster they're made from. Layered armors even let you style yourself without ruining your build. In Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak, Master Rank comes with a bunch of refreshed armors, though this list is exclusively going to focus on brand new sets, in particular the male variant.

8 Astalos

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Astalos is a fearsome beast that attacks without relent, shocking the area around it and supercharging its own body parts to extend their attacks. its design is just as tantalizing — a black chitinous body with sharpened talons, an electrifying horn, and webbed, insect-like wings.

Its armor set condenses this down. Those insect wings adorn the armor on the shoulders and helmet, with hard, black armor all around. Your feet and hands are turned into sharpened claws, with a luminous green energy flowing across your whole body. It's an intense look, one that has you fit to strike just as fast and fiercely as Astalos itself.

7 Guild Palace Set

High quality render of Arlow with his Gunlance and helm in hand

In the base Rise, arena challenges were some of the hardest you could attempt. Pitting you against one or more monsters by yourself with preset loadouts, it's a true achievement to emerge victorious, and with great rewards to boot. Sunbreak adds plenty more of this, while being just as challenging — and just as rewarding.

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The Guild Palace Set takes long enough to unlock, and requires even more time to eventually craft, but it's a gorgeous set. A long cape with a turreted end adorns your back, with fur wrapped over your shoulders. You're suited from head to toe in heavy armor, and there are golden adornments and badges attached all over. It demands reverence, and any player that sees you with it knows you've went through extreme ordeals to achieve it.

6 Snowshear

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Plenty of armor sets in Rise are unlocked the obvious way: hunt a specific monster and get its armor set. Some are a little more hidden, requiring you to acquire certain items or complete certain quests. For the Snowshear set, you'll need to acquire grooved bones from the Meowcenaries, which simply demands you pray it turns up.

The set is a simple, yet imposing one. Dressed from top to bottom in heavy dark leather, the set is covered with fur around every edge, from the hem of the hood and cape to the tops of your boots. It feels like that of a trained hunter who's survived the wild and become stronger for it, and the skills sure help you keep up the offensive too.

5 Arc/Storge

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When you first encounter Gore Magala in Sunbreak, you might be surprised that they're not part of an urgent quest seeing as they feel so imposing. Worry not, because their evolved form, Shagaru Magala is. And they're an Elder Dragon to boot. Divine intervention itself, Shagaru has a heavenly set to match.

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Unlike many other sets, Shagaru actually has a male set (Arc) and a female set (Storge). They both play off the same idea, but in slightly different ways. The Arc set is covered completely by armor, a crown of metallic horns gracing your head. Gilded, demented wings sprout from your back. The Storge set, meanwhile, is a tad more revealing around the arms, and has a helmet resembling that of an iron maiden with a resplendent sun atop it. The wings, however, are just as horrifying.

4 Sinister Grudge

An official render of Scorned Magnamalo overlaid over the Citadel

Being the flagship monster of Rise, Magnamalo has been given plenty of attention. Fearsome, fast, and with an odd amount of aerial maneuverability, it's a great foe to hunt. So important is this monster that, as of Sunbreak, Magnamalo actually has four armor sets — from the base game, the amiibo, Master Rank, and its Scorned variant.

Scorned Magnamalo is a more terrifying beast than its regular version, and the armor attempts to share that malice. Donning the same black, purple and red of the base versions, it drops much of the Japanese armor look to become more maniacal. Hellfire floats about you, a wispy cloak flows from your shoulders, an eye of the helmet glows red, and one of its horns is broken to match the monster it came from.

3 Barbania

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Who doesn't love pirates? There's countless stories of them and their search for treasure, though it might be hard to see how exactly they'd fit in Monster Hunter. But with an expansion dotted with ships that take you across the seas, it's only natural. With some backroom deals from the Argosy, you'll have a pirate's kit of your own in no time.

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The Barbania set is simply that of a pirate, with skills made to make sure you get plenty of rewards from your hunts. In a humorous twist, the male version is actually more revealing than the female version, with a deep v-neck down your chest. Belts and buckles are scattered across the set, yet perhaps most stylishly is the way you wear your jacket straddled over your shoulders like a cape. And yes, of course there's an eye patch.

2 Grand Divine Ire

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Rajang is just scary. There are no grand words to describe it. If you see a Rajang and you don't expect it, you're dead. Even if you did expect it, you still might die. The game doesn't even try to hide how powerful Rajang is, constantly putting it in the highest tier of hunts, either alongside another Rajang or others. And with Sunbreak, Capcom added Furious Rajang, as if the normal version wasn't furious enough.

Just to hammer home how overpowered Rajang is, the set doesn't have a simple name. It had to be called Grand Divine Ire, obviously. Much like Furious Rajang itself, the armor is covered in golden fur standing on end. The eyes glow a piercing red, with the hair here spiked. The only area not covered in fur is the abdomen, an overly muscled area to show you that yes, Rajang is overly buff. They must have a sick workout routine.

1 Archfiend

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In wonderful Monster Hunter tradition, the flagship monster is never really the greatest threat in the game. There's always another bigger bad. And in the most expected plot twist possible, Gaismagorm appears after the defeat of Malzeno, a gargantuan beast with an insatiable hunger and a tremendous size.

Looking at Gaismagorm, it would be hard to fashion an armor set to look like it, so instead the set embodies it. Across black shards and curled horns, blue energy pulsates through the entire set, culminating in an open heart at its center — like a black hole ready to absorb you. The helmet has this same abyss, twisted horns adding to the dread. Dangling by your sides are the hollowed-out hands of Gaismagorm itself, to show that you not only defeated a great hunger, you absorbed it.

NEXT: Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak - Complete Guide And Walkthrough