Neverness to Everness players find their answer to Genshin Impact's Paimon: a yappy lil' guy called Taygedo who they want to beat to death with hammers

In short order after the recent global launch, Neverness to Everness players have all but set iron sights on their very own annoying companion character: Taygedo, the perfect counterpart to Paimon from Genshin Impact, the open-world gacha action RPG that started the genre's modern boom.

Paimon's reputation has improved among Genshin Impact players thanks to a recast English voice actor and a shift in writing direction that's made her less disruptive and repetitive, but for years players complained about the fairy-like sidekick souring quests, cutscenes, and even exploration. Many Neverness to Everness players have fired similar complaints at Taygedo, a tiny, TV-headed mascot who regularly hijacks cutscenes and quests.

"I pretty much just start skipping any missions that revolve around him [including] main story," writes one Reddit user.

"Loving the rest of the game but hate having to listen to this guy.. Why does he have to be part of all the main quests too," insists another.

From day one, players have begged for an option to mute the character without impacting other audio, which is about as damning as companion reviews get. A quick scrub of social media reveals white-hot posts from players in multiple regions – suggesting this is not just an English problem – complaining about Taygedo's presence in NTE, particularly his voice work, which essentially loops the word "Taygedo" like a Pokemon in a shouting match, with subtitles convey the actual content. An early dating-esque mission with Taygedo has become especially infamous for this.

This actually reminds me of another game from Genshin maker HoYoverse, Zenless Zone Zero, which features a lot of tiny, robotic, "Bangboo" characters who speak in subtitled gibberish. Fortunately for ZZZ players, Bangboo are a pretty minor part of most of the story.

Video games have a long and storied history of saddling players with unavoidable and annoying companions or mascots, but this modern wave of gacha games seems particularly enamored with them. It feels like brevity is always the secret to success. These little guys can be fine, even endearing, in short bursts, but in long stretches often become cloying, and the last thing these games need is another reason for gacha players to tune out text and storytelling.

For in-game rewards, here are all the Neverness to Everness codes released so far.

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