I Still Can't Believe This Insanely Ambitious PS5 Open World Is Real

I’ve touched the ultra-ambitious anime open world game Ananta a couple of times now, and I still can’t quite believe it’s real.

But it’s launching on 15th January, just weeks after the equally impressive GTA 6, setting up an exciting end to the PS5 generation for urban sandboxes.

My demo, which ran for around 45 minutes, focused on a story mission in the newly announced city of Chongxiao.

Producer Rain tells me this location is inspired by the dev’s home city of Hangzhou, which is located just inside the eastern side of China.

The team wanted to include two different cities to reflect their lived experiences, and familiar locations within Hangzhou are reflected in the game, like a version of the real-life Xi Lake where it spends weekends eating and relaxing.

Nova City, the more urban metropolis of the two, is based on Shanghai, and Rain tells me that it’s supposed to represent a “foreign” location for the protagonist. You’re meant to feel a bit like a tourist.

Despite all this, my demo focused on a new character called Yinlong, who’s being hunted by a faction of men in animal masks. My goal was to find a character called JinPing and not get detected in the process.

To be honest, this auto-fail stealth sequence did feel a bit dated, as one wrong move sends you back to the nearest checkpoint, with no way to fight your way out of trouble.

I also didn’t get much context for what was actually going on. I asked Rain if he’d elaborate, but he told me he wants me to “experience it for” myself come launch.

Thankfully, the demo really escalates once the stealth sequence is over, as Yinlong stumbles into some kind of mythical underground metropolis, harbouring some Cthulhu-style secrets.

This is obviously a dramatic shift in tone from the Nova City demo I played in Tokyo last year, which focused more on straight-up city-based setpieces. But given the excesses of this project overall, I’m not surprised to learn it’s hinting at a story that goes far beyond urban life.

The second half of my demo centred on raw open world exploration within Chongxiao itself, specifically in a village market named Longxi.

Here I was able to ride bicycles around the rice fields and engage with minigames like hoopla, balloon shooting, and even jianzi (a type of keepie uppie challenge played with a shuttlecock, which I’ve seen locals engage with in various parks around Asia).

While my demo took place entirely on a PC with a DualSense connected, I was surprised to find many of the unique features of the PS5 controller represented.

For example, the adaptive triggers build resistance when you toss the ring in hoopla; meanwhile, a tea brewing minigame required me to use the DualSense’s gyros to roast the leaves.

I asked Rain if the plan was to support PS5 Pro, and he said “of course”. He elaborated that progress will be synchronised between all versions of the game, so you’ll be able to play across PC, mobile, and console without obstruction.

I pointed out that in my previous interviews, the team had been a bit coy about its monetisation plans.

Rain reiterated to me that the plan is to sell cosmetics only, and these won’t have any attached gameplay modifiers or stats, so it won’t be pay to win.

I asked whether you’ll be able to buy costumes outright, like in Fortnite, or if there would still be a gacha attached to these, but the conversation went in circles without a clear answer.

However, given the obvious development budget of the title – likely in the hundreds of millions of dollars – I asked whether cosmetics would be enough to recoup costs.

“When players have a deep interaction with the characters in the game, we think they will be quite happy to pay for something,” Rain points out. “And that will support our long-time operation.”

It seems like a risk to me, but with NetEase bankrolling the entire operation, I imagine it’ll find a solution.

Where Winds Meet is another wildly ambitious open world game from the Chinese juggernaut, and that seems to be finding plenty of success through primarily cosmetic sales as well.

While Ananta is a different type of game, I was eager to ask Rain what he thought of the GTA 6 Extended Look, seeing as my interview took place the morning after the Netflix release.

He acknowledged the Rockstar title is going to be massive, but argued there’s still plenty of space left in the market for another urban open world.

“I don’t think you have to make a choice,” he says. “Sometimes you will want a more chill fantasy game, and that’s what Ananta is for.”

Will you be checking out Ananta when it launches for free from 15th January? How do you think this title is going to measure up against other anime open worlds, like NTE? Let me know below.