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Game News

ANANTA at Gamescom ONL: Fresh Footage Coming 25 August

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It has been nearly a year since ANANTA — the free-to-play anime open-world RPG from Naked Rain and NetEase Games — last made waves in public. Singapore gamers who’ve been tracking this one since its Project Mugen days finally have a date: ANANTA is confirmed for Gamescom 2026‘s Opening Night Live showcase on 25 August, delivering a fresh gameplay look at what may be the most ambitious anime open world currently in development.

ANANTA gameplay — explosive combat sequence in the streets of Nova City
Image courtesy of NetEase Games / Naked Rain

What Is ANANTA?

Originally announced at Gamescom 2023 as Project Mugen, the game was officially renamed ANANTA — Sanskrit for “without end” — in November 2024. Built by the 800-strong team at Hangzhou studio Naked Rain, it is one of the most sprawling free-to-play titles in active development: an open-world urban RPG set in the stylised metropolis of Nova Inception Urbs, where players lead a four-character squad, parkour and rope-swing across rooftops Spider-Man-style, and dive into combo-driven melee combat against gangs and supernatural threats alike.

What sets ANANTA apart from most gacha-adjacent titles is its monetisation model: no gacha for characters. Every playable character unlocks through in-game progression — real-money spending covers cosmetics like outfits, vehicles and apartments only. For Singapore players worn down by banner pulls and limited banners, that is a genuinely meaningful distinction.

ANANTA open world — city street scene with anime protagonist in Nova City
Image courtesy of NetEase Games / Naked Rain

Watch the Gameplay Trailer

ANANTA | Gameplay Trailer — via Ananta on YouTube

Gamescom ONL — When Singapore Fans Can Watch

Geoff Keighley confirmed during pre-show announcements that players will get “a fresh look at the game live on the Opening Night Live stage.” The ONL stream begins at 8pm CEST on 25 August — which lands at 2am SGT in the early hours of Wednesday, 26 August. Not the most forgiving watch time, but recordings go live on the official ONL YouTube channel immediately after broadcast. We’ll cover whatever is revealed as soon as it drops.

ANANTA combat — martial arts battle against masked enemies in Nova City
Image courtesy of NetEase Games / Naked Rain

Will ANANTA Still Launch in 2026?

The Famitsu special supplement for Tokyo Game Show 2025 listed ANANTA as targeting a 2026 release window, but the developers have consistently declined to commit to a specific date. Given the game’s scope — a living city with dozens of mini-games, a day-night cycle, and what NetEase describes as a fully voiced narrative campaign — many in the industry have quietly revised their expectations toward 2027. A Gamescom showing could either confirm a surprise near-term window or set up a global pre-registration push ahead of a longer wait.

ANANTA is in development for PS5, PC (Steam), Android and iOS. As a free-to-play title, the base game will cost nothing at launch — particularly relevant for Singapore players wanting to experience the open world before deciding whether cosmetics are worth their SGD.

Follow GameTrader.SG’s game news for our full Gamescom ONL coverage after the show. Set that alarm or check back on the morning of 26 August.

Game News

ZHAI Reveals Elemental Combat and Memory Skill Tree for Its PC Open-World

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The story behind ZHAI begins not in a studio but in a hospital. After a near-fatal motorcycle accident left The Orange Giant’s founder in a coma, they experienced what they later described as a remarkably vivid other world — and when they woke up, they drew it. That sketch eventually became a full game universe, and this week the studio shared the first real look at how it plays.

What Is ZHAI?

ZHAI is a third-person open-world action-adventure in development for PC, targeting both Steam and the Epic Games Store. Players take the role of Zhai — a warrior who awakens in the fractured realm of Il’Navir with no name and no memories. Divided tribes, an ancient threat, and a vast landscape of forests, frozen mountains, floating islands, and towering rock formations stretch out ahead. Somewhere in all of it lie the answers to who Zhai was.

The studio, The Orange Giant, confirmed the title entered full production in late July 2026 — moving from pre-alpha into an active phase focused on combat refinement, traversal, and the visual presentation of Il’Navir.

ZHAI — bioluminescent river and floating rock islands in Il'Navir
Image courtesy of The Orange Giant

Elemental Combat Built on Tribal Bonds

Today’s reveal focused on how ZHAI’s combat system actually works. As Zhai forges bonds with Il’Navir’s rival tribes, he gains access to their elemental powers — abilities that can be layered into chains, combos, and crowd-control sequences. Japanese gaming outlet 4Gamer (Japanese) — which published its own breakdown of the reveal today — notes the system includes gravity manipulation alongside elemental attacks, and that each ability can be upgraded to alter its damage profile, utility function, or synergy with other skills.

The design intent is a personalised moveset drawn from multiple tribal traditions, adjusted to your playstyle as the world opens up — closer to an action-RPG than a straight brawler.

The Memory Skill Tree

ZHAI — the warrior Zhai surveys a snow-covered mountain landscape of Il'Navir
Image courtesy of The Orange Giant

The most distinctive system on paper is the Memory Skill Tree. Rather than earning skill points through conventional levelling, you unlock new abilities by recovering fragments of Zhai’s lost past. Reclaiming a memory restores a forgotten technique — and reveals something about the person you used to be. It is a narrative-progression loop that ties every power-up directly to a plot beat, which should appeal strongly to anyone who gravitates toward story-driven open-world RPGs.

A World Born from a Real Near-Death Experience

ZHAI — a twilight landscape with fire-lit trees and floating rock formations in Il'Navir
Image courtesy of The Orange Giant

What makes Il’Navir unusual is that it is not pure fantasy invention. The Orange Giant’s creative director sketched out the world’s geography and atmosphere directly from the visions they experienced during their coma — snow-covered ridges, sky settlements, bioluminescent rivers, and towering rock formations with endemic plant life that reads as genuinely alien. It is a design process with no real precedent in game development.

“Entering full production marks an important step for ZHAI and for The Orange Giant,” said Kevin Grunder of The Orange Giant, as relayed via GlobeNewswire. Today’s gameplay reveal is also the first press release the studio has distributed in Japan — a sign they are actively building an audience in a market that has historically rewarded narrative-driven open-world games.

On Steam Now to Wishlist

A release date has not been officially confirmed — the Steam store page currently lists the date as TBA. No price has been announced. Singapore PC gamers who want to keep tabs on ZHAI can add it to their wishlist on Steam now; the Epic Games Store page is expected to follow. For more on upcoming PC game releases, check back as the studio shares more of Il’Navir.

Game News

Where Winds Meet 2.0 — Hidden Mountain Expansion Drops 23 July, Free for All Players

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If you have been sleeping on Where Winds Meet, the wuxia open-world RPG from Everstone Studio, this Thursday is the wake-up call. Version 2.0 — dubbed the Hidden Mountain expansion — launches globally on 23 July (UTC), and it is entirely free for every player on every platform.

A warrior gazes up at towering mountain cliffs in Where Winds Meet Hidden Mountain
Image courtesy of Everstone Studio / NetEase Games

What Is the Hidden Mountain Expansion?

Hidden Mountain introduces an entirely new region built around the Mohist Hill Sect — a legendary order of engineers who, in the game’s lore, transformed an entire mountain into one colossal working machine. The zone itself is unlike anything in the base game: instead of the usual open plains, it stacks multiple distinct layers vertically, taking players from underwater trenches and underground palaces all the way up through cloud-piercing peaks and, at the very top, floating sky cities suspended above the clouds. The developers are calling the visual direction Eastern Steampunk, and from the screenshots it is exactly what that sounds like — traditional Song-dynasty architecture wrapped in clockwork gears, rope bridges and mechanical cranes.

Bird's-eye view of the Mohist Sect mechanical engineering complex in Where Winds Meet Hidden Mountain
Image courtesy of Everstone Studio / NetEase Games

A Mountain Turned Into a Machine

The Mohist Sect is the first faction in Where Winds Meet built entirely around construction and crafting. Joining them unlocks a DIY building system that lets you assemble custom mechanical contraptions and vehicles from collected components — not just for base decoration but for actively navigating the terrain. These mechanical vehicles are a new traversal tool, letting you ride up steep cliff faces and reach hidden enclaves that Lightness Skill alone cannot reach.

Player using the Mohist crafting system to assemble a mechanical contraption in Where Winds Meet
Image courtesy of Everstone Studio / NetEase Games

The expansion carries a new main storyline that follows directly from the Imperial Palace arc, so returning players will have immediate narrative context for why they are venturing into this mountain stronghold.

Where Winds Meet – Hidden Mountain Expansion Official Trailer — via PlayStation on YouTube

New Weapons and Bosses Built for the Mountain

Two new disciplines arrive with the expansion. The Gauntlets are close-quarters fist weapons designed for rapid combos and burst damage — martial-monk brawling that prioritises aggression over distance. The Rope Dart pairs well with the vertical terrain, swinging players across gaps and pulling enemies into range. Both weapons feed into new boss encounters tuned for the mechanical theme: a massive insect-like construct with a bulkhead weapon, a serpentine enemy whose pincers can snare players mid-dodge, and the most visually striking of the three — groups of marionette puppets that attack in eerie synchronised patterns.

Player fighting the marionette puppet boss in Where Winds Meet Hidden Mountain expansion
Image courtesy of Everstone Studio / NetEase Games

Ray-Tracing, Wind Dynamics and Reworked Textures

The 2.0 label is not just branding: Everstone Studio has shipped a significant technical overhaul alongside the new content. Rock textures across the mountain have been rebuilt to show realistic weathering from wind, water and time rather than the static tiling of before. A new light rendering and ray-tracing system handles the complex, layered illumination of a multi-altitude environment — think shafts of sunlight cutting through underground caverns, then golden-hour glow at the sky-city peaks. Wind itself now behaves dynamically, creating layered acoustic layers as gusts move through canyon passages. It is the kind of across-the-board polish pass that makes the whole game feel like a new release.

Player swings on a rope dart across floating platforms in Where Winds Meet Hidden Mountain
Image courtesy of Everstone Studio / NetEase Games

Available in Singapore — Free on All Platforms

Where Winds Meet is free to play, and Hidden Mountain is a free content update — no expansion pass, no separate purchase. The game is available in Singapore on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC (Steam — App ID 3564740), iOS and Android, with full cross-progress sync between all platforms. For players who have been riding the Genshin Impact and Wuthering Waves wave, this is worth bookmarking: the Eastern setting, Lightness Skill traversal system and high production values put it squarely in the same conversation, and version 2.0 is the most substantial single update the game has seen since launch.

Hidden Mountain goes live on 23 July 2026 (UTC) — check the official Where Winds Meet website for the exact regional unlock time.

Game News

DragonSword: Awakening Launches 23 July on Steam — No Gacha, Just Action

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If Dragon Nest defined your teenage years, the team behind it has been quietly building its spiritual successor — and it launches in ten days. DragonSword: Awakening, an anime-style open-world action RPG built with Unreal Engine 5, hits Steam on 23 July 2026 as a buy-to-play title priced at USD 29.99 (SGD price to be confirmed in the Steam store). No gacha, no stamina bars, no monthly battle pass. You pay once and own it.

Official Preview Trailer — via DragonSword : Awakening on YouTube

Dragon Nest DNA, Rebuilt for 2026

Developer Hound13 was founded in 2014 by veterans of Dragon Nest, the beloved fast-paced action MMORPG from Eyedentity Games that had an enormous following across Southeast Asia — Singapore very much included. CEO Park Jeong-sik directed Dragon Nest before leaving to start Hound13 with the goal of carrying that fast, combo-driven action into a new era.

The result is the Continent of Orbis: a radiant, warmly lit fantasy world that draws clear visual inspiration from classic anime and Japanese RPGs, running on Unreal Engine 5 for crisp lighting and detailed environments. Whether you are crossing rope bridges over sweeping gorges or tearing into cathedral-sized boss arenas, the production quality punches well above the game’s price point.

DragonSword Awakening — open-world exploration across the Continent of Orbis
Image courtesy of Hound13

Tag-Team Combat and 19 Heroes

The combat system is built around switching on the fly between up to three active heroes drawn from a roster of 19 characters, each with a distinct weapon archetype and status-ailment toolkit. Stacking ailments — bleed, freeze, poison — on an enemy builds up the conditions for a devastating Signal Skill chain that deals massive burst damage. It reads like a more deliberate, team-synergy version of the frenetic single-character action Dragon Nest fans know.

Beyond the main story, the game supports online co-op, letting you bring friends in for tougher encounters — a welcome layer for Southeast Asian players who have always found Dragon Nest more fun with a party.

DragonSword Awakening — boss fight in a cathedral interior
Image courtesy of Hound13
DragonSword Awakening — tag-team combat against an outdoor dragon enemy
Image courtesy of Hound13

The Publisher Fallout That Changed Everything

DragonSword: Awakening’s journey to Steam has been anything but straightforward. The game originally launched in South Korea in January 2026 under publisher Webzen as a free-to-play live-service title. One month in, Hound13 announced it was terminating the publishing contract — citing, among other issues, unpaid fees. Webzen disputed the termination, and when Hound13 announced the buy-to-play reboot in April 2026, Webzen filed an injunction to block the release.

The injunction does not appear to have succeeded: the game’s Steam page is live, the July 23 date is locked in, and Hound13 has not signalled any delay as of writing. As reported by Simulation Daily, the reboot drops the gacha entirely — cosmetics and Familiars (collectible companions) can still be purchased, but core gameplay rewards are earned through play.

DragonSword Awakening — character attacking a tree-golem enemy in a forest
Image courtesy of Hound13

What Singapore Players Need to Know

At USD 29.99 this is firmly in the range of a premium indie release — cheaper than most AAA titles and priced to compete with games like Genshin Impact‘s rough equivalent spend for a month of serious play. The SGD Steam price will be visible once the game goes live on 23 July; keep an eye on the Steam store page for the confirmed local price.

A free demo is available on Steam now if you want to try the combat before committing. Minimum specs are modest — an i5-9400F with a GTX 1660 will run it — so mid-range gaming PCs from the past few years should handle it fine. SSD storage (25 GB) is required, however.

For more game news and upcoming releases, stay tuned to GameTrader.SG.