Ananta Has 17 Million Pre-Registrations, and Its Open World Is Getting Ridiculous

Ananta finally has a release date. NetEase and Naked Rain's free-to-play urban RPG launches January 15, 2027, with two huge cities, martial arts, flying cars, cat cafés, social media fame, more than 100 recruitable NPC stories and one very modern objective: go viral and save the world. Somehow, that sentence still leaves things out.

For years, Ananta was mostly known as that suspiciously ambitious "anime GTA" game people kept seeing in trailers. Beautiful city? Check. Cars? Check. Police chases? Check. Characters swinging between skyscrapers? Also check.

At Gamescom, Naked Rain finally stopped being mysterious and gave the game a proper date.

January 15, 2027.

It will launch worldwide on PS5, PC through Steam and Ananta's own client, iOS and Android. NetEase also says more than 17 million players across 110 countries and regions have already pre-registered.

That is a lot of people waiting to become fictional influencers.

The New Trailer Makes It Look Even More Chaotic

The new Gamescom footage introduces Chongxiao, the second major city alongside Nova City. It takes inspiration from Shanghai, Hangzhou and Tokyo, mixing dense modern streets with quieter districts, nightlife and traditional architecture.

And apparently you can do almost everything except remember why you originally came there.

There are gyms, restaurants, clothing stores, mahjong parlors, arcades, hot springs, cat cafés and maid cafés. You can drive cars and motorcycles, ride the subway, skateboard, use boats and yachts, fly helicopters, glide through the air and eventually get access to flying cars.

At some point there is technically a plot.

Probably.

Your Mission Is Literally: Go Viral. Save the World.

You play as the new Captain of the ACD, a struggling organisation responsible for dealing with increasingly bizarre problems across the city. Your father is missing, the agency is falling apart, and you need resources and allies to rebuild it.

The solution?

Become an influencer.

The game's official premise is "Go Viral. Save the World." Your reputation and social influence grow as you complete missions, solve crises and interact with the city. Becoming more famous unlocks new opportunities, resources and perks.

So imagine Batman, except Gotham occasionally requires him to stop fighting crime and upload a really good selfie.

One moment you can be fighting masked enemies in the street.

The next you are taking pictures with pedestrians.

Then you are eating noodles.

Then you are driving through traffic.

Then somebody has apparently decided a flying car is necessary.

Open-world games keep asking players to save civilisation. Ananta may be the first one brave enough to admit that civilisation apparently requires engagement metrics.

The City Is More Than a Giant Playground

The impressive part is that Naked Rain seems to be trying to give all this chaos some structure.

Chongxiao contains more than 100 NPCs with their own stories and side quests. Helping them builds relationships, and some can eventually be recruited into the ACD. Recruiting characters can unlock new combat abilities, equipment and other rewards.

You can also switch between different playable agents. Each character has their own perspective, storyline and approach to exploration and combat.

The game even lets you take on different roles, including ACD officer, hacker, delivery rider and content creator.

Somewhere, somebody is absolutely going to ignore the main story for 40 hours because they discovered the delivery missions.

The Combat Looks Like GTA, Spider-Man and an Anime Fight Scene Had a Meeting

Ananta is not trying to hide its inspirations.

The combat mixes hand-to-hand fighting, firearms, character abilities and environmental attacks. Martial arts play a major role, and players can seek out masters to learn new techniques. Objects around the environment can also become weapons during fights.

Movement is just as exaggerated. Earlier footage showed characters swinging through the city, climbing buildings and moving across rooftops, while vehicles turn the entire map into a giant playground.

Does some of it look familiar?

Absolutely.

People have compared Ananta to Grand Theft Auto, Spider-Man and the Batman Arkham games since its earliest footage.

But the latest reveal is beginning to give it something more important: its own personality.

This is not simply GTA with anime characters anymore.

GTA has never asked me to master kung fu, run an influencer account, visit a mahjong parlor, recruit my favourite NPC and then take a flying car to a maid café.

At least not yet.

And Apparently There Is No Character Gacha

This may be the detail that convinces a lot of people to actually try it.

Ananta is free-to-play, but playable characters are not expected to be locked behind a traditional random gacha system. The currently known characters are expected to be unlocked through gameplay, while monetization may focus more on cosmetics, vehicles and homes.

For a large free-to-play anime RPG, that is a significant decision.

It also makes the 17 million pre-registration number easier to understand. Players are getting a huge urban open world without an upfront purchase price, and the game is promising something closer to a traditional unlock system for its characters.

Of course, the important question is how aggressive the rest of the monetization becomes once the game actually launches.

Free-to-play games have taught us to read the phrase "cosmetic monetization" with one eyebrow slightly raised.

Ananta Is Suddenly One of Gamescom's Games to Watch

There are plenty of open-world games.

There are plenty of anime RPGs.

There are not many where your afternoon can apparently go:

kung fu fight → police chase → selfie → cat café → mahjong → helicopter → save civilisation.

And somehow Ananta is planning to put all of that onto PS5, PC and phones at the same time.

Whether Naked Rain can make a world this ambitious actually work is still the big question. Huge open worlds are easy to advertise and extremely difficult to fill with meaningful things to do.

But after years of wondering whether Ananta was mostly an impressive trailer machine, we finally know when we get to find out.

Ananta launches worldwide on January 15, 2027.

And if saving the world really does require becoming an influencer, humanity may already be doomed.