Is Ananta a Gacha Game? No: How Ananta Will Make Money, What Was Said at Gamescom 2026, and Who Makes It

No, Ananta is not a gacha game: every playable character unlocks for free as you progress through the story, and the game will make its money from skins and cosmetics that, the developers say, do not affect progression or fairness. NetEase first said there would be no character gacha in 2025, and Tian Yu of the development team gave three reasons for it in an interview with the Japanese site GAME Watch at Gamescom, published on 28 August 2026.

GameCross went through that interview the next day, from an English translation posted on X, and added his own read on what it means for a free-to-play game with no banners to sell. This page keeps the layers apart: what the developers said on the record, what has only been reported, and what GameCross expects. Ananta launches on 15 January 2027 on PC, PS5, iOS and Android, so nothing below has been seen in a shop yet. Every screenshot is from his video, with its timestamp, and the gameplay is pre-release footage.

Is Ananta a gacha game? No, and the developers said it again in August 2026

A gacha game sells random draws: you spend currency on a banner and hope the character you want comes out. Ananta has no such banner for characters. The interviewer from GAME Watch opened the topic with “It has been officially stated that the game will not have a ‘character gacha’ system”, which is the position NetEase has held since 2025, when producer Ash Qi told Famitsu that locking characters behind a gacha would have clashed with the game’s freedom, as Automaton reported.

What the 2026 interview adds is the reasoning, in three numbered points. One wording detail matters for anyone searching “Ananta gacha system”: the promise is about characters. Neither GAME Watch nor any NetEase statement we have found says whether weapons, outfits or anything else will ever be sold through random draws. Nothing suggests they will; nothing rules it out in writing either.

Why Ananta has no gacha: the three reasons from Gamescom 2026

GameCross reads them from 2:58. The wording below follows the translation on his screen, which we compared with the Japanese article.

1. Reach. “Ananta is a free-to-play, multiplatform game, and we want as many players as possible to enjoy it.”
2. The story. “Every character appearing in the game is extremely important to the world and story. If players had to pay money to obtain characters, the story would no longer be complete.” Characters come “for free by progressing through the story”.
3. Cosmetics instead. Money will come “through skins, cosmetics, and similar items. Just like how you might buy new clothes when something good happens in your real life.” And: “these elements will not affect game progression or fairness.”

A small correction to the translation. The words “Delivering the ‘Best Experience’ on Mobile Platforms” at the end of reason three are not part of the answer; in the GAME Watch article they read as the heading of the next question, about the mobile version. GameCross reads them as part of the quote at 4:50, which makes the sentence sound as if cosmetics were tied to mobile. They are not. The Japanese text for the fairness line says the items do not affect “ゲームの進行や平等性”, the game’s progression or equality between players.

The second reason is the one GameCross dwells on, from 3:32. His argument: Ananta is a story-driven game built around a fixed cast, so a gacha would break its own design, because a story cannot be told coherently if half of the people in it sit behind a paywall. We agree with the logic. The character roster is a story cast, with the Captain at its centre and Taffy and the ACD around him, not a list of units to collect.

How will Ananta make money? Skins, cosmetics, and probably a battle pass

The confirmed answer is short: skins, cosmetics “and similar items”. The 2025 statements reported by Automaton add paid skins and limited-time content. That is the whole official list. No prices, no currency name and no shop screen have been shown as of 7 October 2026.

The battle pass is the open question. The only detailed report is from Gurugamer, which described a 120-level pass with a free track and two paid tiers at 68 and 128 RMB, apparently from a Chinese test build. No second source has confirmed it, NetEase has not announced a pass for the global release, and the GAME Watch interview does not mention one. Treat the numbers as unverified.

GameCross assumes a pass will exist. From 5:12 he says Ananta is “one of those games that people would be okay with supporting a battle pass”, and predicts that players who enjoy the first 30 minutes to an hour will buy it “just to kick back a couple dollars”, because the game looks like it respects them. His worry, at 5:05, is the other kind of spending: “time savers and things of that nature” slipped in later. That is his concern, not something the developers have announced, but it is the right thing to watch when the shop opens.

He also expects the game to “monetize the hell out of Taffy” (1:36), after the Taffy backpacks handed out at Tokyo Game Show 2025 drew long queues, which the interview confirms. Merchandise is not in-game spending, though, and nothing has been announced.

Ananta monetization model: confirmed, reported and unknown

Sorted by how solid each claim is, as of 7 October 2026. “Developers” means NetEase or Naked Rain said it on the record.

Item	Status	Source
Playable characters	Free, unlocked through the story	Developers (Famitsu 2025, GAME Watch 2026)
Character gacha	None	Developers
Skins and cosmetics	Paid, no effect on progression or fairness	Developers
Limited-time content	Planned, paid or free not specified	Developers, via Automaton 2025
Battle pass	120 levels, 68 and 128 RMB paid tiers	Reported by Gurugamer only
Vehicle skins, housing items	Not specified	Not confirmed
Gacha for weapons or items	Not addressed	Unknown
Prices, premium currency	Not announced	Unknown

Our old version of this page listed vehicle skins and housing decorations as paid items. No developer statement we can trace says so, so they now sit in the “not specified” row until the shop is shown.

Is Ananta pay to win?

On what has been said, no. Characters cannot be bought, and the developers say the paid items “will not affect game progression or fairness”. There is also little to win: Ananta is built around a single-player story, and the developers describe multiplayer only as part of the plan, and lead producer Ash Qi spoke in 2023 of “a strong focus on solo play”, as our gameplay previews page covers. Until the shop exists, nobody can rule out the time savers GameCross worries about, like paid boosts to skip a grind. That is the line to check on 15 January 2027. It is also why our tier list ranks nobody yet: with no stats and no paid power, there is nothing to rank.

Is there an Ananta beta before launch?

No global beta has been held or announced, and the developers say that is deliberate. Asked by GAME Watch why Ananta was heading to release without one, Tian Yu answered that closed tests had been run in the past, but that “if we conduct too many beta tests, we risk consuming that sense of surprise”, comparing it with the days before the internet, when nobody had seen a game before playing it. For future plans, players should “wait for the official announcements”.

The only test we can trace to NetEase is the offline technical test in Hangzhou on 3 and 4 January 2025. Fan sites list a closed beta in China in January 2026; we have not found an official notice for it, and the Japanese text says only that confidential tests (“機密テスト”) took place. GameCross does not push back on the answer. Our view: a story-first game guarding its plot is a fair reason, but it also means the first time most people test Ananta’s performance and its shop will be launch day. Check our PC and phone requirements before then, and pre-register if you want the launch rewards.

Why is Ananta free, and why launch on Steam on day one?

Ananta is free because reach is the plan: reason one of the three is “as many players as possible”. The same interview confirms a “global simultaneous release across all platforms” on 15 January 2027, PC, PS5 and mobile together, and the PC version comes through both Steam and NetEase’s own launcher, as our release date page lists.

GameCross finds the Steam part the bigger surprise (7:14). He expected NetEase to do what many free-to-play publishers do, keep the PC version on its own client at launch to avoid Steam’s 30% cut and move to Steam later. A day-one Steam release, he argues, buys visibility: the store’s front page, plus people who know the game only vaguely trying it because it costs nothing. He guesses Ananta could peak above 400,000 to 500,000 concurrent Steam players at launch. That is his prediction, with no data behind it yet; treat it as one.

The mobile version came up too. Asked whether phones can match the high PC requirements, Tian said there is “certainly a difference in specifications” and that the team is optimising the mobile version for an experience “comparable to the PC version”. That is a goal, not a benchmark.

Is Ananta a HoYoverse game? No: Naked Rain and NetEase

Ananta is not made by HoYoverse. It is developed by Naked Rain, a NetEase studio based in Hangzhou, and published by NetEase Games. HoYoverse is a separate company, the maker of Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail and Zenless Zone Zero. The mix-up is understandable: Ananta shares their anime art style, Zenless Zone Zero is also set in a modern city, and all of them are free-to-play on PC, console and mobile. The business model is where they split.

Game	Made by	How you get characters
Ananta	Naked Rain, published by NetEase Games	Free, through the story
Genshin Impact	HoYoverse	Random wishes on limited banners
Zenless Zone Zero	HoYoverse	Random pulls on limited banners

Our Project Mugen page covers the game’s history under its working title. The lake scenery above belongs to the traditional districts of Lingyun City, which Arekkz Gaming walk through in our gameplay previews article.

GameCross’s verdict: goodwill as the business model

GameCross calls himself “a little bit of a pessimist” at 0:16, so his conclusion carries weight: no gacha plus Steam on day one builds goodwill, and goodwill is how he thinks Ananta gets paid. His doubt is content. A free game that sells cosmetics needs a steady stream of new things, and from 6:25 he wonders how much will be there at launch and how carefully updates will be paced, without the game feeling like it is trying “to just take and take more money from you”.

One point where we read things differently. GameCross calls Ananta a single-player game, which is how it plays at heart, but the developers have said multiplayer is part of the plan, and the Gamescom 2026 build had a shared sandbox, as the Gamescom previews report. If co-op arrives, cosmetics become something other players see, which tends to make them sell better. That would fit the model without breaking the promise.