‘Monster Hunter Now’ to kick off new Skybound Scalestorm season

As “Monster Hunter Now” heads into season 9, Niantic has polished the game and introduced enough features that it has fallen into a great rhythm. In the past, the seasonal quest was enough to carry the mobile game from month to month, but as players have leveled up weapons and crafted better gear, they needed more worthwhile activities and challenges.

That led to the introduction of bases and more powerful Rift monsters. The two have combined to create a better formula for seasonal play that integrates those two elements along with new gear.

BETTER WAY TO PLAYThe new format gives players an objective to work toward with event builds. These are developer-designed loadouts that take the guesswork out of theory-crafting new builds. Hunter can pick a recommended loadout and grind toward improving it. The second part of the season involves Base Defense, in which players use the gear they’ve built out over the season to defeat a Riftcharged Monster attacking the location they’ve been building up with the community.

It gives players direction and is a smart way to reward them for their work over the past weeks, while also making base building more worthwhile and turning it into a gathering focal point. Players are drawn to the rewards of fighting Riftcharged Monsters, as they’re scored on performance and rewarded with materials and cosmetic items.

A LOOK AT THE NEW SEASONWith “Skybound Scalestorm” arriving March 19, players will finally have a new weapon in the aerial-centric insect glaive. The new armament features a Kinsect that harvest extract as players attack. It sounds like a high-skill weapon that will give fans another option.

When it comes to monsters, players will have three new targets headed to the field with Seregios, Viper Tobi-Kadachi and Alumdron. The first doesn’t have an element while the latter two have poison-paralysis and water, respectively.

Their gear is tied to new skills. They are the following:

• Attack Efficacy: It boosts attack power for those raw builds
• Critical Strength: A skill that boosts attack power per 1% of a weapons affinity. It could be a boon to high affinity weapons.
• Advanced Water Attack: A skill that increases a weapon’s water element value when water attack 5+ is active. It’s the water version of Advanced Thunder Attack, which came out with Astalos recently. Water weapons need boost in power.
• Advanced Burst: It’s the burst version of the skill when Burst is at 5+, and it could be great for dual blade users and other rapid fire weapons.
• Combo Master: A skill that increases damage dealt after performing an action multiple times. It’s again a skill that would pair well with dual blade and the advanced burst.

POWER UP THE ZINOGRE GEARThe Rifitborne monster this season is Zinogre, which is somewhat of a disappointment. These monsters offer materials to some of the strongest weapons in the game, but the current season just introduced Riftborne Kezu, which offered a Thunder-based weapon. Players are getting another one.

Lastly, Capcom is introducing Friend Link, which allows friends to jump into a hunt from anywhere in the world. It lets players invite friends to battle creatures from paintballs or Elder Dragon Interceptions. It’s an ideal feature for players who have a wide network of reliable friends. It allows them to find dependable partners and even coordinate better so the group can have a better mix of support and attack gear equipped. The feature requires a Friend Link Item.