Later this summer, Niantic, creators of the world-renowned Pokémon Go phenomenon, and their new partnership with Capcom’s Monster Hunter franchise, will launch a new game in a game called Monster Hunter Now. The new Android and iOS mobile game.
While this may seem like another attempt at replicating the social phenomenon of letting the world walk and capture Pokémon in the summer of 2016, the story and backstory of the Monster Hunter series is very much here, and unraveling the mystery of these creatures appearing in our world will be Our main task, as the senior producer of the filmSakae OsumiAs told us in an interview at Summer Game Fest in Los Angeles.
It was during that presentation, when we asked him how he would integrate the backstory into the title, that he made it clear that MH Now’s story will be very rich and in line with the main series’legend。
“Yeah, since you mentioned the legend, we have this backstory, like, to tell you why the monster suddenly appeared in our world, and it starts with a storyline, a quest. So, you gradually understand why the monster will appear in our world, what do you need to do, and how do you fight monsters, how do you hunt monsters, how do you make equipment, and how do you upgrade these equipment, and continue your journey. So, the main line, the main story mission, The important part, takes players to Monster Hunter Now.
With this strong story in place, the next step is to connect people to each other and to the game. Ohsumi talked about a shared vision with Niantic of going out hunting with friends or other local players in cities and countryside, where the monsters we find will also be tied to the local ecosystem and the player’s geographic constraints.
“We’re using real world map data, so some monsters that live in water, have a higher chance of encountering these monsters on the river or ocean side. For desert type monsters, maybe there are more chances of encountering them in places like California. The actual desert areas to find desert type monsters, but we’re not limited to deserts, because if you live in a city, you don’t have much time to travel out of town, and you’ll be stuck in the concrete jungle.
So we’re finding the balance of this fantasy world, blending into real world settings, but in order to provide equal opportunity to a wide range of people living in cities or in the countryside, the habitats of these monsters are randomly rotated, and they change every day.
Monster Hunter Now will release on Apple and Android phones in September, with an undecided date.
