Monster Hunter Now is the latest augmented reality mobile game from Niantic, the makers of Pokemon Go.
Capcom has teamed up with Pokemon Go developer Niantic to make a new augmented reality mobile title, Monster Hunter Now.
Like Pokemon Go before it, Monster Hunter Now will see players roaming real-world locations in search of fantastical critters, with swipe and tap gestures used to fight them. Those fights will take a relatively compact 75 seconds, while a separate feature will allow players to bookmark monsters so they can be fought elsewhere.
Of all the AR games Niantic has produced so far, Pokemon Go has been by far its biggest hit, with around 147 million active users playing it at its peak and billions earned in revenue. Other Niantic mobile ventures haven’t quite captured players’ imaginations in the same way; Harry Potter: Wizards Unite shut down last year after garnering a fraction of Pokemon Go’s user base, while the cute-but-oddly-dull Pikmin Bloom is still going, albeit with a comparatively tiny stream of revenue compared to Pokemon Go's.
“Games are a hit-driven business,” Niantic’s chief product officer Kei Kawai told GI.biz during a Monster Hunter Now press briefing. “I do not want to speculate how big this will be. What we can focus on and what we can control is making a fun game with the great talent and great hitmakers at Capcom. I strongly believe we have a hit on our hands, that the world will like this and have fun out there, so we’re going to focus on that. And we do want this game to last a very long time.”
Niantic’s announcement comes not long after its decision to close its Trading Post NFT project. The firm’s other big project for 2023 is Peridot, a monster breeding, Tamagochi-like AR game also loosely in the vein of Pokemon Go.
Monster Hunter Now is scheduled for launch on iOS and Android in September, though a beta test phase is set to begin on 25 April. Spaces for the beta are limited to around 10,000, but you can still sign up on Monster Hunter World's site.
