A closed beta starts soon for Niantic and Capcom's Monster Hunter Now, a new AR action-RPG releasing this September.
Announced through an official blog post, Monster Hunter Now is the first AR entry for Capcom's popular series. Developed on Niantic's Lightship platform, Monster Hunter Now unsurprisingly uses a similar premise to Pokémon Go, where you encounter Monster Hunter creatures, battle them with different weapons and obtain resources to improve your hunting gear. You can see this in action below:
“Monster Hunter Now is a new and unprecedented Monster Hunter game that entices players to go out with their Palico and encounter incredible monsters in the real world,” claims series producer Ryozo Tsujimoto. Speaking in a GamesIndustry.biz interview, Tsujimoto revealed development began in March 2019, stating: "I can still remember when Niantic told me about this project, I immediately said 'Let's do it' without giving it a second thought."
Niantic is keeping itself busy in recent months with new free-to-play releases. Alongside Pokémon Go, Pikmin Bloom and Ingress Prime, NBA All-World joined its increasing line-up back in January, marking the first official NBA AR game. It’s also developing Marvel World Of Heroes, which arrives later this year and recently went into open beta in New Zealand.
Monster Hunter Now arrives in September 2023 for Android and iOS devices, available through the App Store and Google Play. While there's no guarantee you will receive access, registration for the closed beta test is now open on the official website, which begins on April 25.
