Timeline

The game was first revealed as Project Mugen, opening global pre-registration.

The game was officially renamed to ANANTA and obtained a domestic license.

Held an offline test, revealed a gameplay trailer, and won the Future Division award at the Japan Game Awards 2025.

In the Aug 25, 2026 gamescom press release and the Chinese/English press cluster that followed, officials fixed ANANTA's monetization as free-to-play, no character banner, cosmetics-only spending, and skins that never change combat stats. On Sept 2, 2026 a TapTap newsflash added that no skins or cosmetics will be pre-sold before launch. The community's 'Wanxiang ticket' currency, monthly/battle pass and rollable-cosmetics claims rest on single forum leak posts with no official source and remain to be confirmed.

Tokyo Game Show 2026 drew 257,642 admissions over Sep 17–20; Typhoon No. 25 'Dujuan' led the organizer to cancel the Sep 21 final day. NetEase / Naked Rain were not on this year's exhibitor list — consistent with Chinese majors collectively pulling back from the consumer hall — so ANANTA had no public playtest booth at TGS2026.

On August 16, 2026 the community rumor 'ANANTA has crossed NetEase's kill line' trended on Bilibili; on August 18 the official announcement of a Gamescom Opening Night Live slot, confirmed by Geoff Keighley, collapsed the 'cancelled' claim.

In a Sept 14, 2026 interview with Japanese outlet AUTOMATON (relayed by Gamersky and others), developers pledged at least 100 hours of content per city, a minimum 7-year post-launch service plan and a content roadmap extending toward 2034, while reaffirming that every playable character unlocks free through the main story.

At Gamescom 2026 Opening Night Live, the game announced its global launch for January 15, 2027, and debuted the second city, Chongxiao.

Per coverage on Sept 15, 2026, NetEase confirmed ANANTA will not run a large open beta — only closed internal testing before launch, making pre-registration the sole way in for regular players.

The 44th Golden Joystick Awards press release of September 25, 2026 opened public voting and named ANANTA among the 20 nominees in the Most Wanted Game category. Voting closes October 23, 2026 (4pm PT / midnight BST) and the ceremony is held November 11, 2026 in central London. game8.co (Sept 28) and Tencent News (Sept 27) reported the same list in English and Chinese. As of this node, neither NetEase nor Naked Rain has commented; community 'nomination giveaways' were checked and are run by platform editors and community accounts, not officially.

Nova City was established as a large modern coastal metropolis with a complete urban layout.

A supernatural energy called Chaos pervades the city, fueling ongoing security crises.

The Anti-Chaos Directorate (A.C.D.) was formed but reorganized, transferring duties to the N.C.C.A.