ANANTA’s road to release has run through three publicly visible milestones: the Project Mugen reveal at Gamescom 2023, the ANANTA rebrand in December 2024, and the Tokyo Game Show 2025 playable demo. Behind those three beats sits a 700-plus person team at Naked Rain, NetEase Thunderfire’s studio split between Hangzhou and Montreal.
Overview
ANANTA is a long-cycle, big-budget project that has shifted public posture significantly since its first reveal:
- 2023 — announced as Project Mugen with an early promotional video.
- 2024 — formally rebranded to ANANTA, with Nova City revealed as the setting.
- 2025 — playable for the public at Tokyo Game Show, with two demo modes and a new gameplay trailer.
- 2026 — still pre-launch; the release tracker is the live page for platform and date status.
Studio: Naked Rain (NetEase Thunderfire)
ANANTA is developed by Naked Rain, a studio operating under Hangzhou NetEase Thunderfire Technology Co., Ltd. Public material confirms:
- Studios in both Hangzhou, China and Montreal, Canada.
- A combined team of over 700 people working on the project.
- Built on the Unity engine.
The name Ananta is taken from Sanskrit, meaning “without end” or “infinite” — a deliberate signal of the open-world scope the studio wants to convey.
Project Mugen codename era (Gamescom 2023)
ANANTA was first revealed to the public on August 24, 2023 at Gamescom, under the working title Project Mugen. The reveal included:
- A first promotional video.
- An initial pitch that put modern-city open-world traversal and supernatural elements in front of a global audience.
- Early genre comparisons that the team later moved to differentiate themselves from.
For a long stretch after the Mugen reveal, public information was sparse — a normal pattern for a NetEase project of this scale.
The ANANTA rebrand (December 2024)
On December 5, 2024, NetEase Games and Naked Rain formally reintroduced the project as ANANTA. The rebrand package included:
- The final title.
- A new gameplay trailer.
- Updated story details.
- The reveal of Nova City as the game’s open-world setting.
This was the moment the project’s identity solidified: an urban open-world RPG in a modern Manhattan-sized metropolis, anchored by the Anti-Chaos Directorate and the Captain protagonist (see the Setting & Story guide for the lore side).
Tokyo Game Show 2025
On September 16, 2025, NetEase and Naked Rain announced that ANANTA would be playable at Tokyo Game Show 2025, held September 25–28, 2025 at Makuhari Messe, Chiba, Japan.
The TGS demo ran on PC and offered two modes:
- Story Mode — a car chase mission inside Nova City.
- Exploration Mode — free-roam across multiple Nova City districts.
Players who completed the demo received a limited-edition 3D commemorative card.
Supporting media releases:
- September 22, 2025 — a 7-minute gameplay trailer plus detailed gameplay information.
- September 25, 2025 (TGS day) — a 10-minute gameplay video featuring the Story Mode car chase.
TGS 2025 was the first time the wider public could actually hold the game in their hands, and it set the current baseline for what is publicly known about combat, traversal, and city design.
Engine, team, and global release plan
Confirmed production facts to keep in one place:
- Engine: Unity.
- Studios: Hangzhou (HQ) and Montreal.
- Team size: 700+ developers.
- Platforms: Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 5, iOS, Android.
- Release model: simultaneous global release planned.
- Pre-registration: open on the official website.
- Release date: not announced.
- Beta date: not announced.
For the freshest status — including the May 2026 NetEase 520 showcase context — see the May 2026 news roundup and the release tracker.
How this differs from other NetEase global launches
A few choices stand out compared to recent NetEase service-game launches:
- No character gacha at launch (cosmetic-only monetisation; see the Gameplay & Mechanics guide).
- Global simultaneous launch rather than a China-first staggered rollout.
- A bilingual studio footprint (Hangzhou + Montreal) supporting a globally targeted product.
These signal a clear intent: NetEase wants ANANTA to compete as a global open-world RPG rather than as a regional service title.
Sources
- ANANTA Fandom — ANANTA hub page: https://ananta.fandom.com/wiki/ANANTA
- Official ANANTA website (NetEase / Naked Rain): https://ananta.netease.com/
- NetEase Games: Enter A New Era of Urban Open World RPG with ANANTA (2024-12-05)
- NetEase Games: ANANTA playable at TGS 2025 (2025-09-16)
- NetEase Games: ANANTA, the Highly-Anticipated Urban Open World RPG, Releases New Trailer and Gameplay Details for Tokyo Game Show (2025-09-22)
- Project Mugen | Disclosure of Production Information (2024-11-29)