Adventurers and Companions Overview

Two systems, one team

Monster Hunter Outlanders is set on the island of Aesoland, and every hunt there is built around a team with two parts. An Adventurer is the playable character you control and build around: each one comes bundled with a fixed weapon type and a combat class, which together define how they fight. A Buddy — the game's term for a companion, including the ever-present Palico — is an ally that fights and provides support alongside you. You pick an Adventurer to play, bring Buddies to fill the gaps, and take that team into the hunt.

For the launch version, Capcom and developer TiMi Studio Group have confirmed a starting line-up of ten Adventurers and three Buddies. We list them below with the weapon and class each one brings. Anything beyond that roster — later additions, upgrade costs, or how strong each one turns out in practice — is not public yet, so this page describes what each role does rather than guessing at numbers.

The starting Adventurers

Every Adventurer is defined by a simple pairing: one weapon type and one class. The weapon sets the way you attack and the range you attack from; the class sets the job you do for the team. Here is the confirmed starting roster.

Adventurer	Weapon	Class
Pyro	Great Sword	Assault
Keres	Dual Blades	Disruptor
Luka	Bow	Assault
Arkaya	Lance	Support
Raya	Dual Blades	Disruptor
Ouyang Varen	Lance	Assault
Madelyn	Bow	Support
Midori	Long Sword	Assault
Pepper	Heavy Bowgun	Disruptor
Freya	Great Sword	Disruptor

Because each Adventurer is fixed to one weapon and one class, choosing a character is really choosing a role and a weapon at the same time. If you already know which weapon you enjoy — the best weapons for beginners page walks through the confirmed types — you can pick the Adventurer that carries it, or pick the role you want and learn the weapon that comes with it.

What the three classes mean

The classes describe a character's job on the team rather than a single stat. At a general level, they read like this:

• Assault — the aggressive frontline role. Assault characters are built to push damage and keep pressure on the monster, trading some safety for output. Most starting Adventurers fall here.
• Disruptor — the control role. Disruptors break the monster's rhythm, interrupt its patterns, and dictate the pace so the rest of the team can attack more freely.
• Support — the sustain role. Supports keep the team standing by healing, buffing, and covering mistakes, which matters most while everyone is still learning a hunt.

These are role labels, not a power ranking: a balanced team wants all three, and no class is better than another in the abstract. How much each one actually contributes will only become clear once players have real hunt data to work from.

The confirmed Buddies

Buddies fight beside you and each carries a class of its own. Three are confirmed for the starting line-up, including the series' familiar Palico.

Buddy	Class
Rutaco	Disruptor
Trillan	Support
Palico	Assault

Because Buddies use the same classes as Adventurers, the two systems slot together. You can bring a Support Buddy to shore up a defence-minded Assault Adventurer, or a Disruptor Buddy to open up windows for a fragile one. In practice, a good support ally gives you breathing room: it can pull a monster's attention and make fights less frantic, especially while you are still learning patterns on a touchscreen.

Where to invest early

Early resources are limited, and both Adventurers and Buddies compete for them. A rough priority order keeps you from spreading everything thin.

Investment area	Early priority	Why
One main Adventurer	High	It defines your build and carries every hunt
A complementary Buddy	Medium	Cheap stability that smooths your early fights
Extra Adventurers	Low until later	Nice to have, but splitting resources slows your main
Cosmetic or vanity upgrades	Skip for now	No gameplay impact while you're still learning

For how currencies and summon-style systems interact with this, see gacha & contracts explained before you spend premium resources on either track.

Building a well-rounded team

Once your main is stable, think about coverage. The comfortable teams usually combine a character you play well with a Buddy that fills a gap — extra survivability, more pressure, or better control. If you plan to play with other people, your choice also interacts with the group; the co-op guide explains how roles tend to balance out in a party. And if you're still deciding whether the whole system is worth your time, the worth playing page gives an honest overview.

What each starting Adventurer brings to a hunt

The weapon-and-class table tells you the shape of a character, not what they actually do once a hunt starts. Test-period coverage adds a few specifics worth knowing, and most kits are quietly coded to a monster in the way mainline fans would recognise. Madelyn, the Bow Support, is the clearest team pick: she raises the Bow's base damage, stacks poison on top of it, and her spore-attaching effect boosts explosive damage — which is why the Bow is often played as a support line in a group rather than a pure damage role. Her poison-and-spore theme nods to the Pukei-Pukei line. Keres, a Dual Blades Disruptor, is built around evasion: her kit dodges through attacks and converts accumulated skill damage into punishing openings instead of trading hits. Raya, the other Dual Blades Disruptor, leans into the Kulu-Ya-Ku rock-bird line, turning stamina into a faster Demon Gauge as she dances around the monster. Ouyang Varen runs a guard-first Lance in the Barroth mould — holding the line with his shield, then stacking Impetus to power up his thrusts. Midori plays in a flowing, dance-like rhythm, landing damage before a monster has read the pattern, with a Long Sword styled after Rathian tails. Pepper is defined by how much she works with the environment and with aerial play, including a distinctive airborne rapid-fire line — which is why she is the only Adventurer currently adapted to the Heavy Bowgun.

Freya is the outlier in the line-up. She is the story's commander who becomes playable, and a Great Sword user filed under Disruptor rather than Assault — which makes her the second named Great Sword after Pyro. Her element is fire, and she arrives through a limited Featured Recruitment pool, the "Crimson Authority" banner, rather than the standard one. Treat her as an interrupt-and-pressure pick who fits best once the party already has an Assault seat covered.

Read all of that as flavour rather than a ranking. Once the game is live, the numbers behind each kit will matter more than any description, and the roster is expected to grow well past the starting ten.

How Buddies actually grow

Buddies are not static helpers. The three starting Buddies unlock as you move through the main story, and each earns experience of its own after every hunt. Levelling raises their headline strength: an attack Buddy's damage climbs, a support Buddy's healing gets stronger, and the trap-focused Buddy picks up additional trap types. Buddies can also be equipped with gear of their own, crafted from materials you gather in the field, and each Buddy item carries a proficiency value that starts at zero and only rises through use — so a Buddy you take on every hunt ends up measurably better than one you leave behind.

Two limits are worth remembering. First, Buddies have finite health: hit one too often and it is knocked out of the fight for a while, which makes keeping it out of the worst of the damage part of your job. Second, a Buddy competes with your Adventurer for the same early materials, which is why the investment order above concentrates on one main and one Buddy rather than the whole roster.

Which stat to raise on each Buddy

Levelling a Buddy raises everything a little; the growth stat is what makes it genuinely good at its job. Each of the three starting Buddies has a single attribute that gates its best behaviour, and reaching the threshold is what unlocks the rest of its kit.

Buddy	Raise first	What it unlocks
Palico	Speed to its threshold, then hit rate	The speed threshold activates its attack-rhythm bonus, and hit rate is what makes its follow-up counters fire reliably. Once both are met it breaks parts and holds attention, switching freely between close-range pressure, mid-range sonic disruption, and thrown flash bombs.
Trillan	Resonance strength	Resonance decides the level and duration of its song effects — the difference between a small area buff and full team healing plus attack and defence boosts.
Rutaco	Charge strength	Charge strength is what turns it into a real controller: a leap and a wide landing hit, and the ability to link traps and bait devices into paralysis, path blocking, and interruptions.

Palico is the one to start with, because it is the Buddy you meet first and the one with the widest range of jobs. Trillan's payback scales with group size, so it is the obvious second investment if you play with other people. Rutaco is the pick when you would rather shut a monster down than out-damage it.

What the three starting Buddies do

Buddy	Class	In a hunt
Palico	Assault	Fights both up close and at range, helps break parts, and pulls a monster's attention so you get cleaner openings. It also gathers items for you and can be switched between several forms.
Trillan	Support	Buffs through song rather than attacking: area healing plus attack and defence boosts. Because the effect covers an area, it pays off most in a group and cuts how many healing items you burn.
Rutaco	Disruptor	Places traps and devices — bait dolls and paralysis ballistas among them — with shooting and demolition points you can aim manually. It also helps you move faster through awkward maps and gathers resources while you explore.

Palico deserves a note of its own because it is the Buddy most players meet first: its tool proficiency starts at zero and climbs as you take it out, and while it is idle it trains on its own for a slow trickle of experience. Any of the three can be kitted out with Buddy-specific gear, so the Buddy you actually use is never a wasted investment.

Higher-rarity Buddies and what they add

A later test build added two Buddies at the top rarity, and they show where the class system is heading. Both carry team-wide effects on top of their own passive, which makes them noticeably stronger in a group than a single-target helper.

Buddy	Passive	Ultimate
Dave	Raises your dragon-element damage for a short window whenever you deal combo damage, and gives the whole team a small damage bonus while it is on the field	Suppresses the monster and makes it take increased damage for 20 seconds — a burst window for the whole group
Tiaotiao	Raises your water-element damage while airborne, gives non-active characters an all-element attack boost, and adds a team-wide damage bonus	Taunts the monster, then suppresses it once the effect ends

Tiaotiao's airborne condition is a direct pairing hint: Pepper's aerial Heavy Bowgun line keeps a hunt in the air more than most characters do, which is why Tiaotiao is usually recommended alongside her. Dave's long vulnerability window is the more flexible of the two and fits almost anyone.

Both arrived in a test build, so expect the numbers to be tuned. What is likely to stay is the shape: a team buff plus a control ultimate.

Co-op synergy: the shared charge bar

The game's co-op skill — described in some coverage as a "joint hunt skill" — works differently from an ordinary party attack. Its defining feature is a per-player energy bar: each member of the squad fills their own by fighting, and the skill can only fire when everyone's bar is full at the same time. When it is, one member initiates and a highlighted area appears on screen; the initiator aims it at a specific part of the monster, and the squad concentrates its attacks on that same part together.

The payoff is control, not raw damage. A coordinated strike on one part is what shortens the kill and, more importantly, what puts the monster on the ground — and while it is down it has far less room to resist, making that the safest place in the fight to commit your heaviest attacks. Grouping damage on one part inside a short window also stacks a team attack buff on top of the knockdown, and if the window is strong enough to break the part outright, it triggers a coordinated execution that deals a large chunk of damage and briefly paralyses the monster.

The catch is timing. Four players have to hold their energy rather than spending it as it fills, so the skill rewards a squad that communicates far more than one that simply piles on damage. The numbers attached to the bonus come from test coverage and will be balanced, but the habit — save the bars, call the target, fire together — is worth building now. For how that plays out in a real party, see the co-op guide.

What we still don't know

The confirmed starting roster settles who is playable at launch, but not how strong each one becomes. Upgrade costs, unlock pacing, and how generously the systems feed you resources only become clear once the game is live and players have tested it. Rather than pretend otherwise, use this page to match Adventurers, weapons, and Buddy classes to the way you like to play, and let the in-game details fill in the rest after launch.