Monster Hunter Now’s Dimensional Links show a conscious effort to include rural players

• Monster Hunter Now to introduce new multiplayer feature Dimensional Links today, July 25th
• Now’s development team consciously considers accessibility features

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Niantic’s geolocation giant Monster Hunter Now is introducing a brand-new multiplayer feature called Dimensional Links, designed to bolster multiplayer accessibility for rural players.

Starting today, July 25th, monsters influenced by Dimensional Links will begin to randomly appear on the in-game map with a unique twist: they can only be hunted in online groups.

Monsters being linked to other players’ spawns around the world will create more opportunities for countryside hunters to match up with others globally, giving everyone the chance to be a team player.

These Dimensional Link hunts don’t have a local multiplayer option either, preventing hunters in bustling metropolises who are surrounded by fellow players from sticking to local co-op; they’ll connect globally just like everyone else, boosting the chances of those more rural gamers finding people to pair with.

That doesn’t mean local play has been removed though – this “faraway” setting only applies to the new Dimensional Link monsters, with vague spawn rates “above 1% and below 100%” creating an air of mystery and excitement around their appearance.

Listening to fans

The Monster Hunter Now team reviews fan feedback on Discord, Reddit, and Twitter to decide which direction to take the game in to deliver something fans will enjoy. An update to group hunts has been one of the top requests since launch.

Niantic originally addressed this with Hunt-a-thons, which have set spawn times for all players at real-world points of interest.

Originally, hunters had to hope others would head to the same places to play together, but this was changed to online matchmaking in April to reward players for making an effort to reach them – pairing with others who reached their own local points of interest instead of the exact same place.

Now, the new, random Dimensional Links will see spawns anywhere and everywhere with the same type of matchmaking at play, levelling up accessibility to Now’s multiplayer wherever hunters happen to be.

Furthermore, there is no cooldown on hunting monsters with Dimensional Links, meaning players can battle as many as they can find. This marks another big win for accessibility, in contrast to the Hunt-a-thons’ 180-minute cooldown period for free-to-play hunters.

Accessibility has been a core part of Now’s design philosophy throughout its development, so the team has made “a conscious effort” to ensure rural players can access content.

Many Niantic employees are fans of the Monster Hunter franchise too, and play Now themselves. They also provide feedback to the development team.

While Now is “a Niantic game designed by Niantic,” Capcom is “extremely involved” as the owner of the Monster Hunter IP. The companies communicate almost daily and meet every week to discuss which monsters and weapons to include and even which new features to include.

Niantic’s Tokyo studio is fully focused on developing Monster Hunter Now and is a separate team from Pokémon Go, which is developed in San Francisco. The two do share learnings and are part of “one Niantic,” but they are otherwise distinct.

Design philosophy

“We launched Monster Hunter Now in September 2023 with a focus in Japan,” said Niantic senior director of product Archit Bhargava.

“Since then, it’s crossed 15 million downloads, and the Tokyo studio team has shipped many features and functionality and added loads of new monsters. We’re really excited about where the game is and where it’s going.”

This focus on Japan was evident at launch with the game’s advertising campaigns, which was unsurprising given the Monster Hunter franchise’s overwhelming popularity in its home country compared to the rest of the world.

Now also launched in time for the series’ 20th anniversary, which was celebrated in March this year and provided “incredible momentum”. It was a prevalent “milestone” during the game’s four years of pre-launch development but was never a deadline: “making a fun game” was more important.

That date was ultimately met, but with the series’ 20th-anniversary celebrations now over and Now’s own one-year anniversary still two months away, the team looked to new opportunities to grow and improve the game.

Dimensional Links form part of that initiative, as does Now’s first external brand collaboration with YouTube’s biggest creator, MrBeast. The Now team hopes to leverage his audience to give an extra boost to the new multiplayer feature, and is introducing a quest line on July 27th to bring players exclusive items too.

“In Western markets the weather is nice and warm, people are hopefully on vacation, and they’re out and about. So we were thinking about how to bring back energy and excitement to Monster Hunter Now for our Western audiences,” said Bhargava.

With all its frequent updates and multiplayer considerations, Monster Hunter Now has arguably done more for rural players in its first year than Pokémon Go has in eight.

The Niantic team hopes Now will also continue to be “healthy and growing for years and years and years”.