Neverness to Everness, one of the latest in a growing line of open-world gacha action RPGs largely catalyzed by the success of Genshin Impact, makes a few big changes to the standards and rules that have become the new norm for this space. It's killing the dreaded limited character banner "50/50" coin flip, for starters, and likewise taking the very idea of a weapon banner to a farm upstate.
In its most recent developer livestream, Neverness to Everness developer Hotta Studio of Perfect World Games outlined some of the additions and improvements made since the game's previous technical test. A more open "Containment Test" beta launches on July 3, ending on July 16, with sign-ups available now.
Lighting and rendering have been polished to make environments and characters look more natural, Hotta demonstrated in side-by-side comparisons. This comes into play in newly added chunks of the city as well as the expanded, life sim-esque shop management mode. Hotta has also taken another pass at animations and camera work in the combat system, while also adding new "critical dodge" and "parry attack" functions for perfect timing.
Driving around the open world has similarly been tuned up. You can steal cars, enter street races, and maybe rack up stars in a Wanted system by committing various other crimes. It seems you can't actually run people over, though; instead, NPCs just phase through your vehicle and you get flagged for reckless driving. The anime GTA 6 reputation isn't entirely unearned – not to be confused with Ananta or Silver Palace – but Neverness to Everness is decidedly more PG about crime.
It's promising stuff, but the next beta test hands-on will tell us if it actually works, so instead, I want to focus on the nitty-gritty gacha details discussed near the end of the livestream. This is always the sticking point with these games – they are, at best, good despite the gacha baggage – and Neverness to Everness looks like a significant departure from the post-Genshin practices codified by the likes of Honkai: Star Rail, Zenless Zone Zero, and the non-HoYo Wuthering Waves.
Neverness to Everness's "character acquisition" system is called "Scarborough Fair," Hotta Games explained. (I await the parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme). It's basically a Mario Party-like virtual board where you roll a standard, six-sided die to advance, collecting loot as you go. You're still using 160 thingamajigs per pull, which is also Genshin-standard, but there are plenty of differences elsewhere.
There are Standard (permanent) and Limited (short-time) boards, and "when you land on character spaces," you get the corresponding character. Treasure chest spaces also have a chance of awarding characters, seemingly along with miscellaneous materials.
"The overall probability to obtain an S Class character in a single roll is 1.88%," Hotta confirmed on the reveal stream. This accounts for the boost in probability from the game's 'soft pity' at 70 pulls, at which point many more S Class character spaces will appear on the board. You're guaranteed to get an S Class within 90 pulls. Genshin Impact has a consolidated 5-Star probability, including the eventual guarantee, of 1.6% for comparison.
Here's the kicker. "Any S Class character obtained from limited banners will always be the featured limited character, meaning you will never lose another '50/50,'" Hotta announced. This eliminates the dreaded Standard-character jump scare which would otherwise force you to pull another 5-star, S Class, or whatever max-rarity MacGuffin your game is shilling in order to get the character you actually wanted.
In another big change, Neverness to Everness will only distribute a few trace A Class Arcs, or weapons, via this gacha board. "S Class and most A Class arcs will be obtained directly through various game modes or purchased with special currency," Hotta said. "This currency is also abundantly produced through gameplay, so everyone can easily get it. Our goal is to ensure that players won't be frustrated by not having suitable Arcs for their characters."
Wuthering Waves, for example, is notorious for offering drastically weaker alternatives to signature 5-star weapons. HoYo games, from Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail to Zenless Zone Zero, regularly offer upwards of 20-30% buffs via their own signature weapons. Zenless Zone Zero's newly released update 2.0, for instance, is selling a massive upgrade for starring character Yixuan via her signature weapon – in the realm of 35% better than free options, according to theorycrafter Jstern25.
This can make characters feel incomplete without their weapon, putting more pulls on the scales of gacha FOMO, which is very much by design. A lot of gacha games do this, but post-Genshin, the practice and the numbers attached to it have become even more normalized.
So, Neverness to Everness' system sounds great. It guarantees limited characters, and Hotta insists that S Class weapons can be obtained through normal gameplay. That said, a lot of things sound great at one point, like Hotta Games' power creep-riddled Tower of Fantasy, but this is still a gacha game at the end of the day, and there are still plenty of ways for this to go wrong.
A few big questions remain around the Neverness to Everness gacha system. How many pulls can you earn for free in each update? How powerful are characters at base level, with no duplicate copies pulled? How aggressively will new characters obviate old characters, encouraging players to pull more regularly? How else will the game be monetized, perhaps through character or vehicle skins, time-saving microtransactions, or direct purchases?
See, folks, it's questions like these that are the best argument for treating these games as free little treats. Clear the story, explore the world, and then get the heck out before all the insidious systems get their claws in you.
