I thought Monster Hunter Now’s latest feature would be inconsequential, but it’s made me launch the app every day to send my friends some love

I play Monster Hunter Now quite frequently. In fact, I’d say it’s probably the game I consistently spend time with more than any other, phone or otherwise. I may not have a gigantic hour count to prove it – it’s a mobile game designed for short sessions, after all – but I can tell you that it’s incredibly rare that a day goes by without me at least launching it once.

I do my dailies, keep up with seasonal challenges, stay on top of gear upgrades, and I occasionally even spend money in the store. All of that is to say that I don’t really need more reasons to be engaged. But a recently-added feature has made me more compelled to open the app every morning, even when I don’t want to play.

Towards the end of last year, just as Monster Hunter Now’s third season was coming to a close, the Season 4 update introduced the new Friend Cheering function. Every friend on your list now has a heart on their card. When you press it, you cheer them on, which increases their maximum health for that day.

Every time you log in, you can immediately see if someone has sent you a cheer while you were away. Everyone gets free cheers that refresh daily, and you can tell which of your friends you already sent some love to when you browse the Friend list. The boost is small, and there’s a cap on how large your HP can get from it (likely to prevent exploiting), so it’s not something that’s likely to ever make a difference in a fight.

Cheering is entirely free, too, and doesn’t factor into your daily grind – you can totally ignore it, and your experience with Monster Hunter Now would hardly be affected.

Now, I fully understand this is done to boost engagement. If Niantic can show investors that players have been spending more time on the app (I don’t really think they care if you’re actively playing or not), then that’s going to look great. I am also aware that these types of community features typically start out as free extras, and later get rolled into battle pass bonuses, or outright turn into items you can buy in the store.

But the effect it had on me is undeniable. Just like with dating apps, I feel excited when I get a match, despite knowing it has about a 20% chance of turning into an actual date, and an even lower chance of moving beyond that.

I don’t think it has much to do with the people I have on my friends list, either. There’s only one person on my list that I know from outside the game; the rest I just got from Reddit. People always leave their friend codes on the Monster Hunter Now subreddit to get help with Friend Quests and such. All of that is to say I don’t have much of an emotional connection with those people, but damn it if I don’t want to cheer them on every chance I get.

It used to be that Daily Quests was the first page I’d check upon launching the game. Now, that has turned into the Friend List! I never managed to catch the Gacha anime bug, but I can tell Monster Hunter Now is becoming that game for me. Its gameplay is not as involved, or world as gigantic, and it’s certainly nowhere near as exploitative – but it brings me joy more often than it frustrates – which counts for a lot these days.