Monster Hunter is pretty good right now. Longtime readers of the site will know my thoughts on gaming from the gushing articles I’ve published over the past year. But since Summer Game Festival 2023, when I first played the game and fell in love with it, Niantic has improved the mobile game immeasurably.
Initially, the roster of monsters on offer, as well as the overall style of multiplayer, were limited. Unless you have real-life friends to hunt with, you can only play most of the game in single-player, which means killing high-end monsters and generally getting stuck in a progression bottleneck if you can’t kill certain beasts.
Manage cookie settings
There was a sigh of relief when Niantic launched the ability to match-match with other players earlier this year. It’s all very passive, and that’s the point. For example, if you load into a huntathon being held at your local post office and no one else is in the real world, the game will now automatically find other players waiting for you in lobbies around the world to kill a barrio.
Without requiring you to do any extra work or click a button at all, you’re suddenly teamed up with a spear user from Berlin, a sword and shield user from London, and a bow user from Seoul. It’s a great job, you’ll be breaking fangs and chopping off tails before you know it. All you need to do is find a hunt and join in.
But that’s only for hunting marathons. This means you can’t play with players from around the world to beat the tricky 8-star Aqua Chang in your local park. You can’t get some random numbers to punch Radobaan’s horns. You can’t recruit bow users to shred the dragon’s wings while you work to separate the dragon’s tail from its body. This is a problem that makes the game feel lonely.
Well, good news! As of Friday, June 26, a new feature in the game applies the same matchmaking logic we’ve been using in huntathons for the past few months to regular encounters in the wild. Niantic calls this new feature “Dimension Linking,” which basically means some monsters on the map will be “trapped between worlds.” When you select them, you’ll be taken to a quick lobby (similar to the ones you’d find in a Huntathon), and from here it’ll automatically populate with other players waiting to kill the same monster you are.
This may seem a bit useless, but it makes sense when you consider that you get more rewards when you hunt in a group, and that certain monsters at your level may be harder to kill alone. There are also missions that require you to hunt in groups from time to time, and this new feature will make it easier to complete those missions in a timely manner (and hopefully mean you don’t have to buy tickets to speed up the process up…).
Niantic estimates that over 15 million people are currently playing the game, so you should never be looking for someone to join you in the lobby. I play three to four huntathons a day, and usually during these matches the lobby fills up in seconds. I think the same is true here.
“With over 15 million downloads worldwide, we know our community is enjoying the opportunity to hunt monsters anytime, anywhere, and we’re excited for these players to invite their friends to hunt with players from around the world, whether they are or not.” Niantic Product Marketing “Whether you’re a long-time fan of the Monster Hunter series or new to the series, there’s never been a better time to join Monster Hunter Now,” senior director Archit Bhargava said in a pre-briefing about the update.
Yes, that’s a pretty PR-heavy statement, but it’s true: If you’re new to the game, or just thinking about getting in on the action, then thanks to the hype surrounding Monster Hunter Wilds, you can compete with the rest of the world Player Making Connections The first few hours will definitely be easier for new players.
I’ve probably played over 500 hours in Monster Hunter Now so far, and I’m still not bored. Download it, play it, and make waiting for Wilds easier – you won’t regret it.
The Dimensional Link update for Monster Hunter Now will be available on Friday, June 26th.
