Neverness to Everness release greenlit in China

Hotta Studio’s upcoming urban fantasy open-world RPG Neverness to Everness has been given the green light to be released in China by the country’s authorities. 

The publication license was officially approved on May 21, 2025, and will last for one year — so NTE could be released without any further need for authorization up until May 21, 2026.

Fans should not celebrate early, though. While getting the publication license is a good sign for the game and shows that the developers are confident in the product, it doesn’t guarantee that the title will be released in the license’s timeframe.

Previously, during the time the Chinese government was cracking down on games and used the slow approval of publication licenses as a weapon in this fight, fans could very much rely on the deadline to predict a game’s launch window — studios didn’t want to risk having to reapply and then being stuck in the bureaucratic swamp for ages.

Since Chinese authorities are much more relaxed nowadays and regularly approve hundreds of games for launch every month, missing the deadline is no longer a big deal and studios can get a refreshed application through with ease. That’s obviously fantastic for them and, ultimately, for consumers, since they don’t need to publish rushed products. But it makes it harder to predict games’ release dates.

South Korean developer Shift Up recently predicted NTE to launch in 2025 and the game has a global closed beta test coming up soon.

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