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Capcom, Niantic Release Monster Hunter Now AR Game on September 14

CAPCOM and Niantic announced on Thursday that they will release Monster Hunter Now, a new augmented reality (AR) smartphone game in CAPCOM's Monster Hunter game series, worldwide for iOS and Android devices on September 14. Pre-registration is open now. The companies streamed a showcase video that previews the gameplay, weapons, and monsters:

Weapons available at launch will include Sword & Shield, Great Sword, Long Sword, Hammer, Light Bowgun, and Bow.

The game will feature the following 13 monsters at launch: Great Jagras, Kulu-Ya-Ku, Pukei-Pukei, Barroth, Great Girros, Tobi-Kadachi, Jyuratodus, Paolumu, Anjanath, Rathian, Legiana, Rathalos, and Diablos.

The game is billed as one where players can "hunt monsters in the real world." Similar to Niantic's other AR games, players will be able to use their smartphone and camera to hunt monsters scattered in the real-life environment. New to the game is the Paintball, which allows players to mark monsters for later hunting solo or with friends if they are unable to do so at the moment. The player's Palico can also be set to automatically Paintball passing monsters, even if the player is not currently playing the game, so that players can hunt them at their leisure later.

Niantic and The Pokémon Company International launched the Pokémon GO app in select countries including the United States in July 2016. Niantic also developed Pikmin Bloom, an AR app based on Nintendo's Pikmin franchise,which debuted in 2021.

Niantic's Ingress AR app inspired an anime adaptation that premiered in October 2018. Netflix began streaming the anime worldwide in April 2019. Sentai Filmworks licensed the anime and released it on Blu-ray Disc in March 2022.

Niantic was most recently developing the Transformers: Heavy Metal AR mobile game, but canceled the game in July 2022.

Monster Hunter Rise, the latest game in CAPCOM's Monster Hunter franchise, launched on Switch in March 2021 and then launched on PC via Steam in January 2022. CAPCOM released the game on the PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows, and Xbox Game Pass on January 20. The Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak expansion for the game debuted for Switch and PC via Steam in June 2022, and launched on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows, and Xbox Game Pass on April 28.

Sources: Monster Hunter Now game's website, Polygon (Oli Welsh)