What is it like having giant monsters roam around the world, seeing them in places you’ve been, and fighting them to kill them off? Monster Hunter Now, a mobile game addition to the Monster Hunter series, brings classic monsters to life. Monster Hunter Now has you defeating monsters that appear in the real world, through a map that populates based on your real world location.
Much like the developer’s other, and perhaps best known game, Pokemon Go, monsters spawn around your real world location encouraging you to go outside and explore while playing. As you travel around, you can find monsters to take on, see their challenge rating, battle them with other local players (or on your own), and gather resources. These resources gained from fighting enemies and gathering are then used to level up your armor and you can also gather potions to heal yourself up between fights, so that you can continue fighting.
These fights are one of the main gameplay elements. When fighting against monsters, you can tap or long tap to use different attacks. You can also dodge and combo up attacks, as well as lock onto specific parts of the monsters in an attempt to kill them quickly. There is a timer, so being on your toes and making sure you are able to beat that time is required, otherwise you will be defeated or the beast will flee.
A lot of your attacking power can be affected by the weapons and armor you have on your character. Monster Hunter Now has a lot of different armor and weapons to pick from, which really change how you fight and play. Some weapons allow you to use range attacks, others allow you to do a lot of close up damage. Some armor gives you a more tank-y effect, others can help against specific monsters you might encounter.
As you can fight with up to three of local friends, you can use your weapons and armor choices to create balanced teams that can take on much larger creatures. This community and team element is a big focus for Monster Hunter Now, as playing together and fighting monsters is a lot of the draw.
Moving around the real world will show you monsters from different biomes in the game, and biomes switch around each day, so you are able to experience them all without needing to travel far, if you are willing to wait. There is also a feature that allows your helper to go off and find up to three monsters a day for you to battle later, which will be marked with paintballs. If you have any specific monsters that you see but want to take on later, possibly with some friends or while you are less busy, you can also paintball them to hold onto them until you are ready to attack!
In the limited demo that I was able to take a look at, at Gamescom, I saw a lot of depth within the game Monster Hunter Now. It’s a game with a lot of potential, and it will be really cool to see these monsters in AR view, in the world around us. You can currently Pre-Register for the game, which can unlock some neat goals.
