The Genshin Impact Studio Is Making A Pokémon-Like Game: May God Have Mercy On Our Souls

The gameplay trailer is a bit more concrete and shows the player navigating a city. In one section, they use an Anima as if it were a Genshin/Breath of the Wild-style glider, while in another, they ride on the back of a horse-like critter. There appears to be an emphasis on exploration, customization, and mini-games, some of which have you playing as Anima directly.

As for its core combat, it looks like an auto-battler where you draft items for your creatures and watch them fight for themselves from a top-down perspective. Dota Auto Chess popularized this style of gameplay, which has since been utilized in other titles, such as Teamfight Tactics and more.

While Honkai: Nexus Anima‘s monetization hasn’t been announced yet, based on miHoYo’s other releases, it will almost certainly be a free-to-play gacha game where players use real or in-game currency to receive randomized rewards. This model has proven incredibly popular with the studio’s previous games, especially Genshin Impact, which helped popularize a new type of gacha title that pairs high-scale production value with this style of monetization.

Honestly, the rise of gacha is a bit of a nightmare and a situation that has frequently been criticized for its exploitative effects, as rolling for these randomized items is basically a cutesy form of gambling that can create emotional and fiscal dependency. Outside of video games, this style of blind box monetization, where you don’t know what you’re buying, has very much breached trading card containment and caught on in the United States, perhaps best exemplified by the ongoing Labubu trend; get those little freaks away from me. Maybe Honkai: Nexus Anima will surprise us, but it’s more than likely that it will be another piece in the company’s growing gacha empire.