Monster Hunter Now’s New Season Is Doing What Pokemon Go Will not

Monster Hunter Now’s progress during the last 9 months has been spectacular. What may have been a low-effort Pokemon Go clone has grown right into a implausible location-based cell recreation in its personal proper, and one thing worthy of the Monster Hunter title. With the brand new Elder Dragon Interceptions added on this week’s Season 2 launch, Monster Hunter Now’s even outdoing Pokemon Go in a couple of necessary methods.

Should you’ve performed Monster Hunter Now, that shouldn’t be shocking. For the reason that starting, it’s had options that immediately responded to frequent criticisms of Pokemon Go. I’m an enormous fan of Now’s map, which reveals you biomes, sources, and monsters inside a big radius round you. As a substitute of aimlessly wandering my neighborhood like I do once I play Go, Now lets me plan my route primarily based on the improve supplies I want to gather. It additionally has a much more participating fight expertise, which is to be anticipated from a Monster Hunter recreation.

Final 12 months, Pokemon Go launched Routes, a brand new mechanic that rewards gamers for exploring particular routes whereas taking part in. This has helped give some path to my play time, however not as a lot as Monster Hunter’s detailed map.

The brand new season introducees Elder Dragon Interceptions, which unsurprisingly, perform equally to raids in Pokemon Go. The primary Elder Dragon, Kushala Daora, will seem at gathering nodes all over the world, giving gamers a high-difficulty encounter and an opportunity to earn crafting supplies for high-tier weapons and armor.

Just like the Hunt-a-thon factors launched final season, Elder Dragon Interceptions have a matchmaking possibility. Should you queue right into a Kushala Daora hunt and there aren’t another gamers within the space that can assist you, the sport will robotically pair you with different folks all over the world who’re concurrently queuing to battle Kushala of their native space. This manner you received’t find yourself in a scenario the place you’ve made the effort and time to go discover an Elder Dragon Interception, however you possibly can’t take part as a result of there’s nobody there that can assist you.

This sort of matchmaking helps even the taking part in subject for rural and suburban gamers who usually battle to seek out different folks to play with, and it’s one thing that Pokemon Go raids have desperately wanted for years. Whereas Niantic makes an attempt to devalue Distant Raid Passes and disincentive folks from utilizing them, the Monster Hunter Now staff has successfully solved the issue by including a matchmaking system for group content material.

There are different delicate variations between Pokemon Go raids and Elder Dragon Interceptions. Reasonably than use some form of cross to entry the Interceptions, you’re as an alternative placed on a 180 minute cooldown earlier than you possibly can hunt an Elder Dragon once more. Naturally, you should purchase Extremely Searching Tickets to bypass the cooldown.

A Niantic rep I spoke with says Extremely Searching Tickets are usually not presently earnable in recreation, however that it’s one thing the studio will discover sooner or later.

You additionally don’t need to defeat the Elder Dragon to earn rewards. The monster’s well being bar has two segments, and if you happen to’re capable of harm it midway you’ll earn extra time on the clock to attempt to end it off. Should you can’t kill it, the monster will likely be repelled and also you’ll nonetheless earn partial rewards. This manner, you possibly can nonetheless farm Elder Dragons even if you happen to aren’t but sturdy sufficient to defeat them.

Niantic can also be including a brand new Good friend Quest system that enables folks to staff up and full aims collectively over the course of per week. Because of participant suggestions, you’ll additionally be capable of ship good friend requests on the finish of a multiplayer hunt to anybody you performed with. These options are all designed to boost the social capabilities of Monster Hunter now and make it simpler for folks to play collectively.

It’s unusual to see Monster Hunter Now fixing issues that Pokemon Go gamers have been complaining about for years in only a matter of months. I’m glad that comparable video games from the identical studio might be so completely different, however at this level, I’m trying to Monster Hunter Now because the studio’s flagship recreation. It’s revolutionary in ways in which Pokemon Go received’t, or can’t be, and I’m excited to see the way it continues to develop from right here.