Project Mugen now has an official name and teaser trailer as NetEase shows off Ananta

• Project Mugen now has an official title, and is called Ananta
• A new PV and teaser trailer show off both gameplay and the new name
• We get a bigger glimpse of the world, characters and the enemies they face

NetEase Games’ and Naked Rain’s enigmatically-named Project Mugen now has an official title, and a teaser to go alongside it. Billing itself as an urban, open-world RPG, we’ve gotten a slightly better glimpse of what you can expect when Project Mug- sorry, Ananta, releases.

We’ve already gotten a look at some of the story, characters and world of Ananta in a new preview video as well, showing off exactly how it’s described, with a massive cityscape in the form of Nova City to explore, a diverse cast of characters and the familiar looming threat of beings from beyond that threaten to destroy both; as the forces of Chaos run rampant.

What’s interesting is that while you can of course draw more than a few parallels between NetEase’s new effort and MiHoYo’s impressive catalogue (especially Zenless Zone Zero) there’s also plenty more that makes it stand out a bit, especially where movement is concerned. But otherwise, Ananta seems to promise the mix of cutesy characters and flashy combat that seems so popular in 3D RPGs today.

From place-to-place

What stood out to me watching the PV was that we see moments where there’s a lot of impressive movement on display. Of course, until we know more it’s not clear whether the cityscape itself will be instanced (perhaps between the street and rooftops) or whether NetEase and Naked Rain are shooting for some truly Spider-manesque movement and exploration with Ananta.

Of course, as I’ve already done, you can probably draw a lot of parallels between Ananta and MiHoYo’s Hoyoverse of titles like Genshin Impact, but NetEase is far from the first to take a crack at emulating their success. The real question is whether Ananta can stand on its own two feet and maybe even dethrone the current kings of 3D gacha RPGs.

Meanwhile, if you’re in need of something to tide you over ahead of Ananta’s release, may we humbly suggest a gander at our latest list of the top five new mobile games to try this week?