Project Mugen was revealed back in 2023 as an open-world fantasy RPG about people with superpowers investigating strange anomalies that threaten their urban paradise. Think Genshin Impact in Manhattan with Spider-Man-like traversal. On Thursday, it got another incredible-looking trailer and a new name.
Project Mugen will now be called Ananta when it launches on PlayStation 5, PS4, PC, and mobile sometime in the future. It continues to look gorgeous. At first-glance it might feel indistinguishable from miHoYo’s Honkai: Star Rail and the recent influx of other anime-styled, big-budget gacha RPGs, but even if it looks like just “another one of those,” it looks like a damn good one.
In-between running down X-Files-like supernatural occurrences and fighting monsters, there’s aerial platforming, street races, and tons of mini-games. The game’s developers at NetEase and Naked Rain are promising a combination of kung-fu movie action and everyday city socializing. Today’s trailer also kicks off pre-registration for the game, which I’m guessing will have a couple of closed and open betas between now and release.
Ultimately, however, it won’t matter how good Ananta looks and feels if its neat world and cool designs are in service of an all-consuming gacha grind, which seems to be the way of all big free-to-play blockbuster RPGs at the moment. Honkai: Star Rail, which seems very similar in a lot of ways, is a good game as long as you don’t mind constantly auto-battling through hordes of enemies to fill up all the meters you need in order to actually engage with its progression.
We’ll find out where in the grind vs. microtransaction RNG spectrum Ananta falls when it finally arrives, which hopefully will be fairly soon.
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