What in the gacha theft auto. Developer Naked Rain and publisher NetEase Games dropped a new trailer for the free-to-play open world RPG Ananta, and it’s a lot to see and be impressed with.
In this long 7-minute trailer, Ananta reminds everyone that this isn’t just an open world gacha game, it’s also every urban open world game, and then some.
There’s a lot to take in, so here’s a cliff notes of how many things being showcased in the latest Ananta trailer, just to show the ridiculous breadth in gameplay and content it has to offer:
- Licensed music
- Driving
- With unique passenger animation
- Wingsuit gliding
- Boat driving
- Dogs
- Public transportation including suspended monorails
- Various NPC townfolks with unique animations
- GTA-style rectangle mini-map on the bottom left screen
- Camera mode via in-game phone
- Selfies included
- Motorcyle riding
- Stunt jumps
- Concerts in night clubs
- Spider-Man style web-swinging
- Dance emotes
- Hand-to-hand and melee combat, Batman Arkham-style
- Includes environmental finishes
- Weapons include web slinging thing, baseball bats, badminton racquets, golf clubs, sledgehammers
- In-game social media feed via in-game phone
- Stealth takedowns
- Gunplay, with rocket launchers, miniguns and flamethrowers included with the usual pistols and assault rifles
- GTA-style weapon wheel
- sneaking through human-sized vents
- Big set-pieces featuring giant robots, floating trains and city destruction
- GTA V-style character switching (camera moves to a top-down angle, zoom out, zooms in to another part of a map and then to the new character in the middle of doing something before player assumes control)
- NPC interaction includes the ability to arrest people
- Car chases where someone is dangling on the back of a truck
- Stealth sequence
- Watch Dogs-style controllable spider drone
- Pilot a helicopter
- Hack the city
- A garage filled with cars
- Outfit customisation for each character
- Play basketball
- Take a bath (implied)
- Slap someone in an underground fight pit
- Hold hands with an NPC while running away from a mob
- Destructible boxes (with particle effects)
- Run on a treadmill
- First-person view
- Meet an out-of-shape superhero
- Emote with another character
The trailer ends with an extended footage of the web-swinging gameplay.
In Ananta, players take on the role of the new captain of a special task force in Nova City. You’ll be meeting and befriending a cast of characters (some of them are humans with animal features), and even play as them as you carry out missions for various organisations.
The latter part is important, as being able to play as different characters is how Ananta allows for all the diverse gameplay and themes to be part of the game. The captain may be a cop, and there are at least two members of the police force on show in the trailer, but you can also play as other folks, from a delivery man racing through to meet their quota to a hacker that can infiltrate the internet, even a livestreamer.
Per the press release, Ananta is boasting how interactive its world is whether during combat or city exploration, how full of life the city is not just with interactable NPCs but also activities, as well as “ultra-free 3C (Character, Camera, Control) system to reach anywhere in sight.”
Does Ananta looks derivative of its many inspirations? Yes. But Ananta does it in such a breadth that hasn’t been seen thus far. And this is all for a free-to-play game that’ll likely have gacha elements. Wild.
Ananta isn’t the only free-to-play open world urban RPG that’s trying to be more than just an action game. Neverness To Everness should pique the interest of car and racing game fans with how it portrays street racing, on top of the supernatural themes it has at the center of that title.
Ananta still has no release date yet but it’s coming to PS5, PC and mobile.