Of Time And The Cities

When the promo videos for Neverness To Everness started popping up a year, two years ago, it looked like nothing I'd seen before. I couldn't entirely figure out what the game even was. I just knew it was cool and I wanted it.

Then it arrived and it was as amazing as I'd hoped it would, juste not exactly what I'd imagined. It felt a lot more relaxed, laid-back and less intense and it had the most remarkably detailed representation of an actual city I'd ever encountered in any video game.

Hethereau isn't just a few detailed areas amid some spectacular buildings for a backdrop. It's a completely convincing urban environment with districts and suburbs and parks and commercial residential districts and a full transport infrastructure that actually works. In many ways, in numerous locations, it reminds me quite specifically of actual cities I've visited and stayed in. 

I thought that would make it the benchmark for game cities for a good while to come, always excepting GTA6, as all video game discussions must, just now. If NTE made bank then, sure, I'd expect to see clones and copies cropping up all over but even at the highly accelerated production rates of the game mills in China and South Korea, it takes a while to build a city like Hethereau, let alone to fit a game around one. I certainly wasn't expecting to be writing about another this summer or even this year.

And then Nimgimli left a link in a comment on the last post here, pointing to a video on YouTube for a game called Moon Gaze, a name entirely new to me, either in that English version or under the original Mandarin title, Wang Yue.

I watched it immediately, of course. And here it is, so now you can, too.

It's an "Exploration" promo so it mostly shows movement around the city. There's not much in the way of gameplay per se. Or narrative. Or anything.

Looking for some context, I also watched a "Character and Scene" video and "Gameplay" trailer. The former doesn't give much away and the latter is both untranslated and also made before they completely redid the graphics, which they appear to have done to such an extent that it barely looks like the same game any more. That's why I'm only linking them, not embedding them. They may be misleading.

The new graphics do look extremely impressive. They're closer to photorealism than to the rather flat, cartoony look of the previous version or even the more polished, anime-inflected style of NTE.  

Tianyue City looks astonishingly convincing and immersive, visually at least. I certainly wouldn't say no to a few hours exploring it, when the game releases, which presumably won't be at least until next year. There's no date set and the game is still in closed testing, in China only.

Beyond that, I can't say I'm all that interested, let alone excited, by anything the developer, who goes by the unwieldy name of Guangzhou Shiyue Network Technology, has shown so far. Icy Veins seems more impressed, suggesting it might be "the most unusual gacha rpg" so far although how they figure that out beats me. Their bullet-point list of features is mostly a reiteration of what's already in NTE, except for the creature collecting, something I personally could do without, having had more than enough of it in other games by now.

There's also mention of "construction and building systems", which I admit does sound intriguing. It's apparently along the lines of what you can do in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, although that doesn't help me any, since I've never played. Still, building options are always welcome.

The problem is, regardless of the features, I don't get any sense of the vibrancy or zest that infuses everything that comes out of Hotta as they promote NTE. Everything they show just oozes individuality. 

For example, just take a look at this recent short, featuring Lacrimosa. It's a small work of art, hugely enjoyable even if you have no interest in playing the game.

The Moon Gaze material seems bland and generic by comparison, other than the character movement of course, which is breathtakingly well-done in places. I'd love to have a go on those roller skates. It doesn't help, of course, that the only narrative content on show hasn't been translated but I get no sense there's anything happening I'd be likely to care about, anyway. 

And if Moon Gaze doesn't come up to snuff against Neverness To Everness, imagine how it does when you put it up against this:

That's Ananta, another urban open-world RPG, developed by NetEase and Naked Rain. You may have heard of it. I didn't think I had but as usual I was wrong.

If you're getting a slight sense of deja vu, it'll probably be because I wrote about Ananta last September, in a post that included that same, seven-minute video along with another, even longer. 

If you don't remember, I forgive you. I didn't, either.

I make no apologies for embedding it again, partly because if nothing else the soundtrack is great but mostly because I've just had to re-write four paragraphs when I finally realised Ananta was not, after all, a brand new game to me that I'd just discovered. Not only had I posted about it eight months ago but at the time I had to remind myself it wasn't new to me then, either. 

That was the second time I'd written about it. This is the third. It's like Groundhog Day around here sometimes and I'm not Bill Murray. Tipa talks about having trouble remembering people. I can't even remember what I've posted, even when I've done it three times! Some of us need to be reminded about stuff as often as possible. I count this repetition as a public service.

More than just good taste in tuneage, Ananta would appear to have strong characters with distinct personalities capable of engaging in snappy repartee while carrying some kind of interesting plot. Not to mention an intriguing backstory. And then there's that stunning megalopolis to explore. You wait decades for a proper city and then three turn up at once!

Except not quite at once, I guess. NTE made it out the gate first and Ananta was supposed to be following close behind, with a projected release date of Summer 2026 but now that doesn't look like it's happening. If it was coming out in a a month or three, I'm pretty sure they'd be telling us all about it but there's been radio silence from the developer since I last wrote about the game. I pre-registered on the official website back then but I've heard not a single word since.

As this report by Gamesphere suggests, that release date may have slipped into next year. If so, it's a shame but at least it means not having to make a hard choice between Ananta and NTE just yet. Yes, obviously I could play both. At once, even, in theory. But I'm having a hard enough time right now, keeping up with just the one urban open world rpg. Two might be more fun than I could handle.

Also, in a more practical sense, a 2027 release date will give me time to upgrade my hardware to something capable of playing even the most demanding titles with ease. Not the best timing, perhaps, given the way the entire gaming hardware industry seems to be disappearing into the all-devouring maw of the AI leviathan but assuming there's still something left to buy later this year, I should be coming into a little money about then, so it could still be good timing for me.

If not, it shouldn't matter too much. Looking at all these games, you would think you'd have to have state of the art equipment to run any of them but no, apparently not. Leaving aside my recent technical issues, which I now think may have been initiated by running NTE from an external SDD via USB, it seems even a mediocre rig can cope. 

How that's even possible, when you look at the graphics and the gameplay, beats me. But then, I don't need to understand it. I just need to enjoy it.

And I plan to.