Hotta reveals NTE gacha details and Containment Test content

Hotta Studio’s upcoming urban open-world RPG, Neverness to Everness, will be opening its gates for its first global beta test soon and the developer has shared more details about what participants can expect from the playable build during a livestream on Sunday.

Aside from showing off further visual improvements made to NTE’s world and characters, the company provided some details on the gacha system in the game. In NTE, the gacha system will take the form of a gameboard, on which players can move around by rolling a die. All the tiles users can land on contain rewards, some being of a higher tier. This gives players some control over the type of rewards they get, as they can head in the direction of their desires.

If players hit the S-Rank character reward on a time-limited banner, they are guaranteed to receive the featured character — there will be no 50/50s, as the gacha community calls it. Furthermore, a pity system will be in place to ensure that users get S-Rank characters after investing a certain amount of pulls without hitting the necessary tiles.

The developers confirmed that weapons – called Arcs – will be present on the board as filler material, but all high-tier Arcs will be unlockable through gameplay or purchasable in a shop (with its currency being obtainable from gameplay). There won’t be separate weapon banners with their own pull tickets, which would strain players’ currency reserves.

On the surface, this appears to be a very player-friendly gacha system — but as always, the devil could be hiding in the details and we’ll have to wait for the beta to see how it functions. While the number of pulls required to obtain any desired characters appears to be low in this system, we currently don’t have the critical information of how much effort it will take to obtain the necessary currency for pulls via gameplay and how much currency will be available from simply playing the game.

The upcoming test will make five areas of Hethereau accessible with the commercial New Herland District and the touristy Miguel District joining Unheard Shores, Bridge Crossings, and Illusion Town, which had already been available during the game’s Technical Test. 

The title’s weather system has been expanded, now including snowfall. Snow will pile up over time as it falls, influencing the handling of vehicles. Combat, too, has seen expansion: NTE is now featuring a parry system to ease team rotations and has counterattacks that follow up on critical dodges, bringing its combat closer to Zenless Zone Zero and Wuthering Waves than to Genshin Impact.

Similar to GTA, players can now requisition vehicles from NPCs and fall afoul of the law, which triggers police chases. An online racing mode, restaurant minigame, shop decoration system, unique anomaly furniture system for player housing, and control optimizations round out the systemic improvements and additions.

Hotta certainly appears to be bringing the goods for the Containment Test, realizing how crucial it is to make the best possible impression in the coming weeks.

More news on DBLTAP: