“Monster Hunter Now” continues to improve each season, and in the latest chapter, which launches today, Niantic’s mobile game features one additional weapon, two big improvements and several new monsters with a few of them temporarily going away.
In Season 3: Curse of the Wandering Flames, players will get their hands on the Heavy Bowgun, another ranged weapon from the series. If last season is any indication, it’s best to focus on powering up and figuring the ins and outs of the Heavy Bowgun as it will likely be key in several quests over the next few weeks.
NEW WEAPON AND FEATURES
With Season 2: Dancing in the Tempest, the Gunlance shined and was indispensable when tackling elder dragons such as Kushala Daora. The Heavy Bowgun will likely be an ideal weapon to learn and the team is helping players adjust to the new weapon through Heavy Bowgun Training Quests, which rewards players with material to upgrade the Bone Shooter.
Niantic’s Japan team is also introducing a longtime franchise feature — cooking. Players will now be able to cook Raw Meat over a fire and depending on their timing, they can get a Well-Done Steak (the best result), Burnt Meat (poor) and Rare Steak (not so bad). Eating a Well-Done Steak before a hunt “will let you start a hunt with the Special Guage at max for up to 5 minutes,” according to a blog post.
This will be indispensable for weapons reliant on their special attacks such as Dual Blades. When it comes to the lesser-cooked meats, they offer the Special Gauage at max for up to 1 minute. Players can obtain Raw Meat as a supply item from the in-game shop. Players will be able to grab 2 pieces of Raw Meat daily with up to 10 total pieces of meats in storage.
Veterans who know the timing of the cooking mini-game’s should have no problem nailing Well-Done steaks regularly. Meanwhile, newcomers will have to figure out the timing of when to lift the meat from the flame. It’s usually one or two seconds after the cooking song is finished. I’m also assuming that Raw Meat can be purchased separately as well.
A STREAMER MODE
The second big feature is a Streamer Mode. This is for current or aspiring content creators, and it allows players to share their gameplay while maintaining some privacy. In this mode, a Hunter name, guild card, friend-related info and location data are restricted and players can hide roads so that viewers can’t where they’re playing.
If it’s well-received, it should be a mode that should be added to Niantic’s other big geolocation-based title, “Pokemon Go.” It seems basic for now, but Streamer Mode could be better if players could fine tune and pick what they want to be revealed.
NEW MONSTERS
Lastly, three new monsters are confirmed for this season: Magnamalo (the cover beast for this season), Aknosom and Rajang will be appearing on the field. They’ll be joined by Mizutsune and Nightshade Paolumu, who were the stars of “Monster Hunter Now’s” first ticketed event.
If you’re looking for last season’s creatures, they’ll appear after players unlock them through urgent quests from this Season 3’s story. They include the new monsters as well as Zinogre, Mizutsune, Black Diablos, Pink Rathian, Azure Rathalos, Coral Pukei-Pukei and Nighshade Paolumu.
It appears that Radobaan, Banbaro, Tzitzi-Ya-Ku, Odogaron, Basarios and Khezu will temporarily disappear from the field. Don’t worry, they’ll likely come back at a later date.
To spread the word, Niantic is holding a repost campaign on X, and if it reaches 5,000 reposts,Niantic will unlock an offer code that will give hunters 2 Potions, 20 Machalite Ore, 10 Dragonite Ore, 15 Earth Crystal, 15 Monster Bone+ and 1 Weapon Refining Parts.