Monster Hunter Now is good. Long-time readers of the site will know my opinion on the game from the often-gushing articles I’ve published over the past year . But from Summer Game Fest 2023, when I first played the game and fell in love , Niantic has improved the mobile title immeasurably.
Initially, the roster of monsters on offer - and the overall flavour of the multiplayer gameplay - was limited. Unless you had IRL friends to go and hunt with, you were locked into playing most of the game in single-player, which means grinding out high-end monsters and often getting backed into progression bottle-necks if you couldn’t slay certain beasts. It was a relief, then, when Niantic introduced the ability to matchmake with other players earlier this year.
It’s all very passive, and that’s kind of the point. If you load into a Hunt-a-thon that’s taking place at your local Post Office, say, and no one else is around in the real world, the game will now automatically find other players that are waiting in lobbies around the world for you to kill a Barioth with. With absolutely no extra work or button-clicking on your part, you’re suddenly teamed up with a lance user from Berlin, a sword and shield user from London, and a bow user from Seoul.
The job’s a goodun, and you’re breaking fangs and hewing off tails before you know it. All you need to do is find a hunt and take part. But this has been limited to Hunt-a-thons.
That means you can't play with players around the wo.