Over the last few years, several major gaming franchises have made the jump to mobile devices. These projects have had varying successes, but there’s no doubt that the most successful is still Pokémon GO. The thrill of being able to wander around the real world, collect Pokémon, and complete raids with other players still manages to appeal to numerous audiences, even after almost ten years. As such, Niantic has attempted to recapture that magic with other franchises.
One of its most recent ventures is 2023’s Monster Hunter Now. Now captures the magic of squadding up with friends, hunting monsters, and using your loot to create new armor and weapons, with the augmented reality technology that Niantic has pioneered over the years. Recently, I had the opportunity to take a look at Monster Hunter Now season 7, which commemorates the game’s 2nd anniversary and adds numerous new features and updates. Based on what I saw, while I am not super invested in either Niantic’s augmented reality projects or the Monster Hunter franchise, Season 7 looks to be a fantastic new step for the game that has convinced me to at least give it a try.
Exploration Bases
Going into Season 7, the biggest feature that Niantic showed off was the inclusion of Exploration Bases. What started as a beta test earlier this year, Exploration Bases are a way to build local landmarks where you can hunt with people in your nearby vicinity. Carl Damerov, Executive Producer at Niantic, conveyed to us that the goal of Exploration Bases is to foster community spirit, create more cooperation, and serve as a place to show the visible social connection with players.
In order to use an Exploration Base, players must first obtain exploration emblems from Hunt-a-Thon or Elder Dragon Interception Points. Once you’ve obtained these emblems, you can report them to your Exploration Base, upgrading the facility even further. Plus, bases can be built over a three-week period, with monster outbreaks appearing periodically during those three weeks. Once that period ends, your accomplishments will be celebrated and rewarded with Item Box Expansions.
Based on what I saw, this seems like a fantastic feature that will help to create a broader community in Monster Hunter Now, regardless of whether players live in a small neighborhood or in a massive city. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Monster Hunter game without monsters, and thankfully, Season 7 of Now will introduce three new ones.
New Monsters and Style Customization Features
Espinas, Garangolm, and Lunagaron will make their debut, all of whom originate from Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak. Alongside these new monsters, there will be new weapons and armor based on each. There will also be new skills that can be added to the new armor and weapons, such as Pursuit, Ballistics, Reckless, Vital Fire, Vital Ice, and more. Further, Riftborne Deviljho will also make an appearance during an outbreak from September 26-27. Deviljho weapons are now also eligible for style customization.
Speaking of style customization, this feature, which first debuted in season 6, has also received new updates. The parameters that increase with each new style customization have been boosted, allowing weapons to become even stronger. There’s also a new visual effect, which helps to emphasize just how powerful these weapons are. Players can also unlock new styles for the hammer, gunlance, great sword, and more.
New layered armor sets are available as well. These include the maid/butler-themed attendant armor, the Hornet armor, and a special armor designed by Yusuke Kozaki. Kozaki is known for his work on franchises such as No More Heroes, Pokémon, AI: The Somnium Files, and more. He also created a new key art, commemorating the game’s second anniversary.
Players looking to dive deeper into hunting monsters and creating new weapons and armor will find so much enjoyment in season 7’s new additions. What will make that enjoyment even stronger are some exciting new quality-of-life features, making the progress of hunting monsters better than ever before.
New Quality-of-Life Features
Damerov set aside some time to tell us all about some of the brand-new quality-of-life features coming to season 7 of Monster Hunter Now. For starters, hunter info has now been deleted from the exploration report, making it so that your personal information isn’t leaked by mistake. In addition, you can skip the animation that triggers when you get your first exploration emblem and check your Exploration Base remotely. That last feature will be added a few weeks after the season releases on September 18.
Season 7 also includes a feature known as Monster Investigations. What this does is make it so that you can customize groups of monsters that appear in the fields, allowing you to encounter the monsters you want to hunt more often. Damerov also gave us a tease of what fans can expect in future updates.
At a later date, players can expect to see modifications to slaying emblems, as well as a hunting leaderboard, the ability to view their collected exploration emblems, a base-exclusive exchange hub, and base vs. base competition. It’s clear to see that, as mentioned previously, Niantic intends to keep Monster Hunter Now alive for the next ten years. Everything I saw has me so excited to give the game a try, especially for the game’s 2nd anniversary.
A Fantastic Way to Commemorate the 2-Year Anniversary
It is honestly impressive to see how far Monster Hunter Now has come. Niantic told us a little bit about some of the game’s key statistics, such as the most used weapon (bone gunlance) and the hardest monster (Teostra). More importantly, they told us that the game has reached 20 million downloads since it was first released on iOS and Android in 2023. To celebrate, there will, of course, be more new cosmetics, an item box expansion, and a special hat if you reach rank 300.
Season 7 is another great step in making Now a great experience for fans and newcomers alike. The addition of Exploration Bases, being able to filter which monsters you can hunt, and Espinas, Lunagaron, and Garangolm are sure to be a huge treat for players. Additionally, Niantic is clearly committed to making sure that Monster Hunter Now is the best game it can possibly be.
They made a point to tell us how they want to address some performance issues that players are experiencing on their devices. Plus, all of the planned future updates are sure to keep fans coming back for a long time. As for me, I look forward to jumping into Monster Hunter Now for the first time and experiencing the joy of hunting monsters around my neighborhood and beyond.
Monster Hunter Now Season 7: Advent of the Exploration Base launches on iOS and Android on September 18.
