How to get Paintballs in Monster Hunter Now, and how Paintballs work

Paintballs are Monster Hunter Now resources that allow you to take down big hunts you may have missed while walking around, even if they’re not nearby.

There are two different types of Paintballs — becoming available once you complete “Prologue 3: The Secret to Strength” in the main story — which can be obtained in different ways.

Our guide explains what Paintballs do and how to get more of them in Monster Hunter Now.

Looking for more advice? Our Monster Hunter Now tips and tricks page can give you some extra pointers.

What are Paintballs in Monster Hunter Now?

As you walk around, you may run into big monsters that you don’t really want to take down at that exact moment.

• With pink regular Paintballs, you can manually mark the large hunts so you can fight them later.
• Your Palico can also automatically hit them with blue Palico Paintballs, marking them and allowing you to fight them for a few days or so on your own time. The strength of these tagged monsters will be random.

This is great if you’re walking around or commuting, as your Felyne buddy will mark large hunts that you may miss otherwise, even if your app is closed (though your Adventure Sync needs to be on). While driving on a trip to errands, I got several notifications that my cat friend marked big hunts for me.

Be wary that although monsters can last up to 48 hours in your inventory, if you fight the monster and lose, it’ll disappear from your inventory — in other words, you have just one shot. Similarly, starting the encounter then backing out mid-fight will also see it run away, so only tackle your Paintballed monster when you are fully prepared.

How to get more Paintballs in Monster Hunter Now

Whether through regular pink Paintballs or blue Palico Paintballs, by default you can tag eight Monsters to fight later on your Paintball List.

All players get three blue Palico Paintballs for free, which will refresh once per day. Any unused Paintballs won’t roll over to the next day, so be sure to keep enough spaces free in your Paintball List to ensure they are used.

Image: Capcom/Niantic via Polygon

Meanwhile, you can purchase pink regular Paintballs (the manual Paintballs you mark yourself) from the shop at a rate of 180 gems for one and 900 gems for five. You can also get pink Paintballs rewards from certain Hunter Ranks — notably, every 10 Ranks once you reach HR 11 at 20, 30, 40, and so on.

Those familiar with Pokémon Go can equate the earn-ability of these to raid passes: blue Palico Paintballs are like the orange free raid passes, and pink ones are like the green paid passes.

At launch, the only way to increase your Paintball List and Palico Paintball supply is by purchasing the “Release Celebration Pass” from the in-game store, expanding them to 10 entries and five Paintballs respectively. Note this is a temporary increase, and will only last for 30 days.