We’ve known Niantic would bring its familiar mobile flair to the Monster Hunter franchisesince April, with the launch date revealed for September 14th. Well, it would appear someone opened the floodgates early, as the game is now available across Android and iOS. There’s no mistake; this isn’t a preload, I’m playing the full game right now, and you can too if you jump on over to the Play Store to snag the install.
The trailer above offers a brief glimpse of what you can expect from Monster Hunter Now. This is the latest release from Niantic, the developer behind Pokémon GO, as well as many of its failed clones, such as that NBA game nobody played (NBA All World) or that Settlers of Catan game nobody played. But hey, Niantic is determined to repeat the success of Pokémon GO, and so the latest brand to get slapped on top of Niantic’s familiar map-based gameplay is Monster Hunter. And guess what? You’ll hunt monsters within a real-world map, much like one hunts Pokémon in Pokémon GO.
As you would expect of a free-to-play mobile game wearing the skin of a popular brand (how appropriate for a Monster Hunter game, amirite), in-app purchases are very much included, and they just so happen to range up to $99.99 per item. Thankfully, Apple is more transparent than Google,so we can see these IAPs primarily exist for purchasing gem packs(since the game hides the store from players until they’ve gone through the full tutorial). Gems can be used to purchase all the tools you need to capture monsters because, of course.
All in all, Niantic’s latest effort is pretty similar to the last, as well as every other game that came before it. Yes, this time around, you’ll hunt familiar monsters from the Monster Hunter franchise, but is that really enough to get people spending tons of money on what is essentially yet another clone of Pokémon GO? I know for me, it isn’t, so I’ll inevitably wait for this game to shut down, just like Niantic’s previous attempts to recapture lightning in a bottle.
