Ananta Wants to Be Marvel’s Spider-Man, And Just About Any Other Game Too

By Diego Nicolás Argüello | September 29, 2025 | 11:30am

Video Games Features ananta

Ananta Wants to Be Marvel’s Spider-Man, And Just About Any Other Game Too

It’s hard to describe what Naked Rain and NetEase’s Ananta is about, and its booth at Tokyo Game Show was an apt encapsulation of its rather confusing premise. The space itself was massive, with screens displaying a variety of characters indulging in all sorts of city activities. There was a photo opp section with cosplayers and faux train station signs. While waiting for a demo station to open up, every screen around me seemed to display a different game altogether. If things weren’t overwhelming enough, the fact that the staff all wore t-shirts with a quote from Blade Runner made for an almost dreamlike experience. Indeed, I, too, have seen things you people wouldn’t believe.

According to the official site, over 13 million players have pre-registered to play the ”free-spirited urban open world RPG.” My 30-minute demo was split into two sections, a story mode introduction and free roam. Based on what I had seen of trailers, which feature a myriad of mechanics and features from other games with seemingly no subtlety about the influence on display, let’s say I had some expectations.

Ananta

The story mode started off with a combat section featuring a cop character who, alongside his own body, guns, and melee weapons, also has Venom-like powers to boot. He can use his tentacles to grab enemies and throw them around, or slam the ground with his arms and take down multiple foes at once. There were also instances of parrying and perfect dodging, and aside from borrowing from Insomniac’s Spider-Man, there’s a bit of that Batman: Arkham series DNA present as well. The amount of time it took to kill individual enemies was a bit longer than I would have preferred, but it all felt fluid, albeit quite familiar.

Most Popular

Then, the story continued with a second character coming to the rescue, only to result in a hot pursuit section where I began shooting trucks in highways and open streets, which collided with other vehicles and environmental objects with a very clearly scripted cinematic flair. Of course, there were QTEs involved at some point, and then I switched to the driver seat, boosting the car speed and drifting in corners. All the while, the characters chatted with one another, but the writing itself was an assortment of cliche phrases to match the stylish choreography, as if watching a Marvel flick.

The absurdity didn’t really ramp up until the second half of the demo in exploration mode, which was an even bigger showcase of these influences. Ananta’s focus seems to be all over the place, offering different things for everyone. I did a combat sequence that felt ripped straight out of Spider-Man, fighting in a construction site at the top of a skyscraper that included the same environmental traps to use. This was even more aggravated by the fact that you can swing to move around the city using your tentacles.

Surprisingly, switching to a different character—an action that basically has the same zoom out animation as the mechanic in Grand Theft Auto V—led to a substantial difference compared to the main cop guy. I chose a bunny-looking character who was inside her apartment. After exiting the building, I summoned a one wheel e-bike with absurdly high speed, which immediately started playing a local radio station. There was even a button to turn on RGB lights for the wheel. Ironically, this felt like a moment of identity for Ananta, right until a few minutes after where I was doing a basketball mini game followed by a visit to an arcade, also featuring different mini games to play.

There seems to be a lot to do in Ananta, and it’s hard to say who this amalgamation of, well, several other ideas that have been thoroughly explored elsewhere is for. During a time in which Pocketpair is dealing with a lawsuit issued by Nintendo regarding alleged infringement of patent rights around Palworld, it’s surprising to see a game like Ananta be so obvious about its influences and with such little care about making sense of them and their ideas. It’s odd to see a game like this existing—but I’m curious about it all the same.

Diego Nicolás Argüello is a freelance journalist from Argentina who has learned English thanks to videogames. You can read his work in places like Polygon, the New York Times, The Verge, and more. You can also find him on Bluesky.