Play on Hunsterverse

Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit, about 8 GB free. If something goes wrong, open Troubleshooting below the steps.

1. Get the game client

   The folder Monster Hunter Frontier Online, about 5.5 GB. It comes from a community Google Drive folder, not from us, and the folder also holds server files you do not need.

   Client (Google Drive)
2. Copy it to C:\Games\MHFZ and exclude it from your antivirus

   Copy, do not move, so that dat and mhf.exe sit directly inside. Not in Program Files. Add the antivirus exclusion before you patch: mhf.exe is the file most often flagged, and a quarantine in the middle of a copy leaves a half patched install.

3. Apply our client patch before the first launch

   Unzip Frontier_Patch.zip (50.9 MB) over the game folder. The launcher cannot fetch it on a connection slower than about 3 MB/s. A PowerShell script that also backs up the files it replaces is in Apply the patch with a script below.

   Frontier_Patch.zip
4. Install the Mezeporta launcher into the same folder

   Extract it so that Mezeporta.exe sits next to dat, not in a subfolder. The launcher is by LilButter (GPL-2.0, original); this is our build with a longer patch download timeout, for slow connections (our source).

   Mezeporta-Windows.zip (1.5.4-hv1)
5. Install Visual C++ 2015-2022, x86

   The game is 32-bit, so the x86 package is the one that matters.

   vc_redist.x86.exe
6. Install the DirectX End-User Runtime (June 2010)

   Windows 10 and 11 do not ship the old D3DX libraries; without them you get "d3dx9_43.dll was not found".

   DirectX runtime
7. Start Mezeporta.exe

   Windows may say "Windows protected your PC": the launcher is not code-signed. Choose More info, then Run anyway, only for the file from the releases page above.

8. Press ADD A SERVER and enter the server settings

   Field	Value	Copy
   Name	Hunsterverse
   Host	129.213.54.221
   Launcher Port	8080
   Game Port	53310
   Mode	API (the default)
   Version	ZZ

   If API mode will not log in, use Launcher Port 53312 and Mode SignV1: it plays the same, without the news and banners.

9. Make your account, then log in

   Make it on this site (you can do this first, before installing anything), or press REGISTER in the launcher: both make the same kind of account. The username is case-sensitive: Hunter and hunter are different accounts, so type it exactly the same way every time. Do not type a new name into LOG IN: the server refuses a name that was not registered. Then pick the Hunsterverse server, log in, create a character and launch. The launcher window closing is normal.

   Create an account
10. Optional: sign in on this site and link Discord

    Use the same username and password. The account page shows your link command; run it in the Hunsterverse Discord to get backups and the bot commands (the list).

    Sign in

$game = "C:\Games\MHFZ"

# 1. download and unpack the patch
$patchUrl = "https://github.com/EclipseKnight/hvmhfz.eclipseforge.xyz/releases/" +
            "download/client_patch/Frontier_Patch.zip"
$zip = "$env:TEMP\Frontier_Patch.zip"
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $patchUrl -OutFile $zip
Expand-Archive -Path $zip -DestinationPath "$env:TEMP\Frontier_Patch" -Force
$src = (Get-Item "$env:TEMP\Frontier_Patch\Frontier_Patch").FullName.TrimEnd("\")

# 2. back up every game file the patch replaces
Get-ChildItem $src -Recurse -File | ForEach-Object {
  $rel = $_.FullName.Substring($src.Length + 1)
  $orig = Join-Path $game $rel
  $backup = Join-Path "$game\original-files" $rel
  if ((Test-Path $orig) -and -not (Test-Path $backup)) {
    New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path (Split-Path $backup) | Out-Null
    Copy-Item $orig $backup
  }
}

# 3. copy the patch over the game
Copy-Item "$src\*" -Destination $game -Recurse -Force

Tested on Arch based systems (CachyOS) with Wine. Steam Deck is not tested yet: SteamOS cannot install packages with pacman and the launcher needs a system Wine, so this method may not work there. If you try it, tell us in the Discord. The commands below are for Arch based systems; Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE and others are under Install Wine and 32-bit support.

1. Get the game client

   The folder Monster Hunter Frontier Online, about 5.5 GB, from a community Google Drive folder. You need about 12 GB free in all.

   Client (Google Drive)
2. Install Wine and 32-bit support

   Enable multilib, then install Wine, winetricks and the libraries the game needs. The exact commands, for each distribution: Install Wine and 32-bit support below.

3. Copy the client to ~/Games/MHFZ

   Check that dat/, mhf.exe, mhfo.dll, mhfo-hd.dll, mhl.dll and mhf.ini are there.

4. Apply our client patch before the first launch

   Unzip it over the game folder. The commands that also back up what it replaces are in Apply the patch with commands below.

   Frontier_Patch.zip
5. Install the Mezeporta launcher into the same folder

   By LilButter (GPL-2.0, original); our build with a longer patch download timeout (our source). Unzip it next to dat/, not inside it, then make run-mezeporta.sh and mezeporta-bin executable (chmod +x).

   Mezeporta-Linux.zip (1.5.4-hv1)
6. Create the Wine prefix, the launch wrapper and the launcher options

   Two short steps with commands: the prefix and the launcher options, and the launch wrapper. They depend on your distribution and graphics card.

7. Press ADD A SERVER and enter the server settings

   Field	Value	Copy
   Name	Hunsterverse
   Host	129.213.54.221
   Launcher Port	8080
   Game Port	53310
   Mode	API (the default)
   Version	ZZ

   If API mode will not log in, use Launcher Port 53312 and Mode SignV1: it plays the same, without the news and banners.

8. Make your account, then log in

   Make it on this site, or press REGISTER in the launcher. The username is case-sensitive: type it exactly the same way every time. Then pick the Hunsterverse server, log in, create a character and launch. Do not type a new name into LOG IN: the server refuses a name that was not registered.

   Create an account

grep -q '^\[multilib\]' /etc/pacman.conf && echo "multilib enabled" || echo "multilib NOT enabled"

sudo pacman -Syu --needed wine winetricks cabextract p7zip fuse2 \
  gstreamer gst-plugins-base gst-plugins-good gst-plugins-bad \
  gst-plugins-ugly gst-plugin-pipewire gst-libav \
  vulkan-tools mesa-utils gamemode

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo apt update
sudo apt install wine wine32:i386 winetricks cabextract p7zip-full \
  gstreamer1.0-plugins-base gstreamer1.0-plugins-good \
  gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly \
  gstreamer1.0-pipewire vulkan-tools mesa-utils gamemode

sudo dnf install wine winetricks cabextract p7zip \
  gstreamer1-plugins-base gstreamer1-plugins-good gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free \
  gstreamer1-plugins-ugly gstreamer1-plugin-pipewire \
  vulkan-tools glx-utils gamemode

sudo zypper install wine wine-32bit winetricks cabextract p7zip \
  gstreamer-plugins-base gstreamer-plugins-good gstreamer-plugins-bad \
  gstreamer-plugins-ugly gstreamer-plugin-pipewire \
  vulkan-tools Mesa-demo-x gamemode

curl -L -o /tmp/Frontier_Patch.zip \
  "https://github.com/EclipseKnight/hvmhfz.eclipseforge.xyz/releases/download/client_patch/Frontier_Patch.zip"
unzip -q -o /tmp/Frontier_Patch.zip -d /tmp/fp

cd ~/Games/MHFZ
(cd /tmp/fp/Frontier_Patch && find . -type f) | while read -r f; do
  if [ -e "$f" ] && [ ! -e "original-files/$f" ]; then
    mkdir -p "original-files/$(dirname "$f")" && cp -p "$f" "original-files/$f"
  fi
done

rsync -rlt /tmp/fp/Frontier_Patch/ ~/Games/MHFZ/

cd ~/Games/MHFZ
bash SetupDeps/mezeporta-setup-arch.sh --prefix "$HOME/Games/MHFZ-prefix"      # Arch
bash SetupDeps/mezeporta-setup-ubuntu.sh --prefix "$HOME/Games/MHFZ-prefix"    # Debian, Ubuntu
bash SetupDeps/mezeporta-setup-arch.sh --verify                                # check at the end (same with -ubuntu)

cd ~/Games/MHFZ
export WINEPREFIX="$HOME/Games/MHFZ-prefix"
export WINEDEBUG=-all
mkdir -p "$WINEPREFIX"
wineboot -u
wineserver -w
WINETRICKS_DISABLE_LNK=1 WINETRICKS_OPT_SHAREDPREFIX=0 \
  winetricks -q d3dcompiler_47 dxvk vcrun2022
wineserver -w
# only with a gamepad:
for dll in xinput1_3 dinput d8input; do
  wine reg add 'HKCU\Software\Wine\DllOverrides' /v "$dll" /t REG_SZ /d 'native,builtin' /f
done
wineserver -w

cat > ~/Games/MHFZ/run-mezeporta-x11.sh <<'EOF'
#!/usr/bin/env sh
export GDK_BACKEND=x11
export WEBKIT_DMABUF_RENDERER_FORCE_SHM=1
exec "$(dirname "$0")/run-mezeporta.sh" "$@"
EOF
chmod +x ~/Games/MHFZ/run-mezeporta-x11.sh
~/Games/MHFZ/run-mezeporta-x11.sh

Only saves from the ZZ client work. A character from an older client version (G or earlier) cannot be imported.

1. Get your file from the old server

   What you need depends on where your character is now:

   Where your character is	How to get the file	Result
   A server running a newer Erupe	In the Mezeporta launcher, select that server and use the character Export.	An export .json: imports fully.
   A server with a Discord bot backup command	Run its backup command and keep the zip it sends.	A .zip: send it as it is, do not extract it.
   Hunsterverse (another account)	Discord /backup, or the Backups tab on the account page.	Our .zip: imports fully.
   An older Erupe server, or the export fails with an error 500	Ask the server's staff for your character's save files, as a zip.	A zip of saves imports fully; a bare savedata file only replaces that part.
   A server on an older client (G or earlier)	Not possible.	Not usable: ZZ only.

2. Turn the file into a character with the transfer wizard

   Sign in with your game account, or create one, then give the wizard your file. It shows what is in the file, makes it a new character on your account (or replaces the save of one you have), and logs it. No throwaway character, and nothing to install first.

   Start the transfer wizard
3. Install the game and log in

   Follow the Windows or Linux checklist, log in with the same account and pick your character in the list.

4. Or import with Discord

   Into a character that was played once. On the account page, copy your link command and run it in the Hunsterverse Discord: /link with your code. Then run /import, attach the file and choose the character.

5. Log in and check your character

   Your warehouse, guild and guild box are kept by the server, not in the file, so they do not come with you. The account page's Backups tab lists what a backup holds.