This Week in Mobile Games

The Gamesman Cometh

Hello again, and welcome once more to the latest edition of the column! Gamescom, arguably the world's biggest gaming trade show (even before the ignominious demise of E3), has come and gone, bringing with it announcements and looks at the slate of upcoming titles. Jean-Karlo had some thoughts to share on the abject state of things symbolized by the show's splashy, yet somehow still bleak-feeling, Opening Night Live presentation, but there's still a fair amount to go over, both from Gamescom itself and over the last fortnight, for this is:

Chinese Multiplatform Titles Lead the Charge at Gamescom ONL

Perhaps the biggest story of Gamescom, beyond any individual game announcement, was the prominence of China-based game developers. If there was ever any doubt before that China has well and truly arrived to compete in the same spaces as the "traditional" triple-A game industry, that was certainly put to rest when the likes of HoYoVerse, NetEase and Tencent took up many of the splashiest announcement slots at the Opening Night Live presentation. And for this column, specifically, that's a notable wrinkle because while PC- and console-focused announcements are still the major focus of Gamescom and other "enthusiast"-targeted game events, China's been far more mindful of keeping mobile platforms in mind with even the biggest announcements.

For example, take HoYoVerse's presentation-leading tease for Nodusfall. The dark fantasy co-op action game brings to the world the Shanghai-based developer's vision of, well, something that looks a heck of a lot like, well, off-brand Elden Ring, to be perfectly honest. That's not necessarily a problem, mind you: Genshin Impact looked a heck of a lot like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but in the years hence has grown its own identity, making critics who still espouse that line look out-of-touch. But I digress: the Nodusfall teaser notably doesn't specify any platforms. While the game's mere presence at Gamescom almost guarantees that HoYoVerse is aiming at a PC and console release at least, it's hard to know miHoYo's history and not assume that the company is at least keeping mobile in mind. Virtually everything the company's released to date has had a mobile edition, even its short-lived non-game N0va Desktop live wallpaper app.

HoYoVerse also brought more new titles to the Gamescom slate, including Petit Planet, a seemingly Animal Crossing-esque life sim with a cutesy look and a final beta test open for sign-ups. That one explicitly includes mobile platforms in the equation, potentially appealing to would-be players looking to fill the void once occupied by the Switch-exclusive Animal Crossing: New Horizons (which is somewhat long in the tooth in 2026) or seeking a more "live" alternative to the once-mobile Animal Crossing Pocket Camp, which shut down in 2024 and was replaced by an offline single-purchase edition the same year.

Lastly, the show floor itself also offered attendees some time with a demo build of Honkai Nexus Anima, its take on a new, original title that seems to be looking to shave a slice out of the Pokémon franchise's massive audience. Honkai Nexus Anima notably uses the "Honkai" brand, placing it in indirect connection with the flagship multiverse represented by Honkai Impact 3rd, Honkai Star Rail, and (slightly more obliquely) Genshin Impact. Indeed, the promotions have heavily featured existing characters like Blade and Kiana Kaslana showing up toting their own Nexus Anima creatures to do battle alongside. Gameplay showcases from the recent closed beta tests also feature minigames, anima customization, and the all-important core combat, which takes the form of a hybrid auto-chess-style team battle game reminiscent of Teamfight Tactics and the like.

Nexus Anima wasn't the only new monster-collecting title to strut its stuff at Gamescom 2026. Pawprint Studios' Aniimo used the Gamescom stage to highlight its September 23rd release date for mobile (with consoles and PC getting to start earlier, on the 16th). Between new-ish games like Mongil Star Dive and the mobile port of Pocketpair's Palworld, that field of would-be Pokémon challengers is getting surprisingly crowded. That said, all of the contenders do have their own twists that set them apart from the reigning leader (not least through being more available outside the Nintendo ecosystem). Nexus Anima capitalizes on its strategic mien and connection to the Honkai-verse, while Aniimo and Palworld lean much more heavily on the large-scale open-world exploration aspect. Even within that niche, Palworld blends in survival and base-building elements while Aniimo promotes its creatures as extensions of the player character.

You'll notice that I've framed this discussion of new mobile monster-collectors as one of Chinese upstarts (excepting Palworld) taking on the Japanese-originated Pokémon franchise, but that framing would only be partially correct. From the perspective of these younger China-based developers - who, it must be emphasized, are developing as much to compete in their own domestic markets as for the global audience - there is another king to topple, one that is arguably an OG Pokémon "rip-off". That game, Roco Kingdom, might not be too familiar to anglophone players, but it dates back to 2010, an original Tencent-created IP pretty much designed as a "We have Pokémon at home" for Chinese gamers with limited access to Nintendo game consoles. Today, the game boasts many millions of active players within China alone. Now it's getting a global release, with a closed beta "Quack Quack Test" scheduled for October 27. The promotions and trailers mainly push the game's console and PC release, but a mobile edition (essentially the core version in China) is quite likely to come out in close order.

While HoYoVerse had top billing at the Opening Night Live presentation, other Chinese developers strutted their stuff, as well. Among the ones with a mobile presence was Joker Studio, the NetEase-owned studio that develops the free-to-play competitive survival horror game Identity V. At ONL the studio showed off more from Sea of Remnants, a new nautical-themed open-world co-op game that looked a bit like Sea of Thieves with the look and supernatural feel of Identity V. The game even has ship-based combat that evokes some fond memories of the ship battles from Assassin's Creed: Black Flag. The game's unique character design aesthetic, which evokes handmade dolls or marionettes, also sets it apart from Chinese-developed titles that more frequently drew from anime or stylized hyperrealism for their approaches.

And speaking of anime hyperrealism, a second "Anime Grand Theft Auto game" has hit the towers. Following on the heels of the recent launch of Neverness to Everness is Ananta, which got an official release date of January 15, 2027, on consoles, PC, and mobile. Developed by NetEase's Naked Rain studio, Ananta was technically the first "Anime GTA" game to be announced, since it debuted at Gamescom 2023 under its working title, Project Mugen, with Neverness to Everness' unveiling nearly a year later. 

However, Hotta Studio and Perfect World were quicker on the draw, and despite knowing that it's not really possible given how long game development can take, the timing currently makes Ananta look like the copycat game. Keep in mind, I don't mean that as a compliment to Neverness to Everness. In fact, both games come across as aggressively generic, and even nearly identical when their concepts are broken down into bullet points:

• Based in a large urban city (or cities) where mystical, supernatural forces cross over with modern urban life
• Featuring vehicle-based gameplay and other, more novel forms of traversal, including flying vehicles and Spider-Man-style grappling
• A significant focus on variable fashion and city living, with the protagonist making their daily bread doing odd jobs and handling paranormal threats
• Heavily anime-inspired character designs and lots of contemporary music

For what it's worth, Neverness to Everness is already out and has impressed some players with some varied expansions and gimmicks in recent updates, but also antagonized just as many with multiple slip-ups involving LLM-generated assets, from lazily prompted low-quality video clips to artwork featuring the watermark from a free image generation model (even pro-AI users criticized the studio for leaving in signs that they're cheaping out on asset creation). With that game now being out and in large part a known quantity, Ananta might have a chance to come in like a savior for the "anime GTA" concept. It also could help that Naked Rain has promised to eschew monetization for introducing new characters, potentially appealing to players tired of paying attention to "who's on the banner."

If the major throughline of Gamescom 2026's most notable title reveals revolved around Chinese developers taking a place in the spotlight, a slightly darker undercurrent also involved just how samey so many games looked, Chinese and otherwise (even putting aside accusations of rampant generative AI use). Jean-Karlo put it better when remarking on Phantom Blade Zero's reveal at the earlier PlayStation State of Play broadcast, but while there's no doubting that many of the major Chinese titles shown off (for mobile and more) at the start of Gamescom looked impressively put-together and immaculately polished, they also seem to be recreating the sort of creativity crisis that formed around western triple-A development in previous hardware cycles, and continues to some extent through the current collapse.

Everything's got that Unreal Engine 5 sheen, and many games, at least on a surface level, seem to draw from the same well of inspirations, one that seems to alternate between stylized hyperreal fantasy China and anime in turn. There's definitely diversity to be found in the details (see the earlier write-up on all the new Pokémon-esques), but as part of a storm of trailers and announcements, the games don't stand out. 

Even a personal highlight of the show for me, Silver Palace, was subsumed by the feeling I'd seen all this before, despite it looking unique compared to many of its peers, past and present. It was honestly hard to focus on how cool the characters looked and the period style of the environments and creepy monsters when things were arranged around yet more character action combat and traversing through a large open world. I'm hoping it'll set itself apart in tone, but it's enough to get one nostalgic about the "old days," when free-to-play games all used cutesy chibi characters and had turn-based strategic layers.

Girls' Frontline 2 Adds Girls' Frontline 1 As a New Mode, Kind Of

Speaking of cute chibis and turn-based strategy, Girls' Frontline 2: Exilium introduced just that in the form of a new playable mode. Called Frontier Conquest, the new mode adds a large-scale meta-strategy layer for players in a "Platoon" (a kind of in-game player guild) to enjoy together. While the core gameplay of Girls' Frontline 2 is that of an XCOM-style grid-based tactical game involving squads of up to 5 characters, Frontier Conquest is cast in the mold of the original Girls' Frontline, involving multiple squads moving around the map to control territory nodes and engaging in individual battles.

The mode is extremely reminiscent of the first game, down to its heavy use of GFL1-style chibi artwork for your playable roster in most fights. Frontier Conquest also introduces "armed echelons," backup units of generic squadmates operating heavy support weapons (much like the heavy weapon teams of the original game). 

Despite the seeming gameplay mismatch, the addition is quite on-brand for Girls' Frontline 2, which absolutely wallows in (and profits from) players' ongoing attachment to GFL1. Most of GFL2's existing characters are quite literally veteran T-dolls from the original games' roster, now ten years older and down disastrously for their beloved Commander. Even GFL2's core story is at least in part a continuation of GFL1's, which ended some months ago (though the game is still live and playable). 

In some notable ways, Girls' Frontline 2 is unique in that it really does feel like a true sequel to its forebear, despite being extremely different on a gameplay and structural level. 

CounterSide is Dead, Long Live CounterSide:A

On August 26th, the servers for StudioBSide's gacha title CounterSide went dark worldwide, marking the end of the game, which originally debuted back in 2020, with the game's closure announced back in June. The game is, for all intents and purposes, dead, and most folks - yours truly included - assumed that despite StudioBSide's promise to return to CounterSide in the future, things would take some time to arrange, especially since the company is currently operating an existing gacha game, StarSavior (a game that many CounterSide fans resent for allegedly draining away development resources that might've been used to keep CounterSide afloat) 

It turns out that it didn't even take a week, as September 2 saw StudioBSide tease something called CounterSide:A via its official Twitter account. The art features three core characters in the CounterSide story: Hilde, Yoo Mina, and the hands-in-pockets stance of Joo Shiyoon. The "A" in the title apparently stands for "AnteExilian," but actual details about the project are scarce. At the moment, no one but StudioBSide knows if the project is an entirely new game, a reworking of the old game into a single-player title (that seems to be all the rage these days), or a relaunched live-service title (this seems the most remote possibility, considering that the game has effectively failed twice in its free-to-play gacha form).

As I've mentioned before, I've got a bit of a soft spot for CounterSide, so I'm glad to see that it isn't fully abandoned. With luck, whatever form it takes in the future will play better to its worlds' strengths.

Let's close out the Week with a few more tidbits of news:

• Nexon's Project RX now has a proper official name: Fareidolia. Apparently based on the word "Pareidolia," which is the tendency for people to perceive patterns in random objects (such as seeing faces in random arrangements of shapes or on rocks, and so on), the game boasts some pedigree in the form of Blue Archive staffers, but is framed as a fairly different game, where players live "alongside girls with unique abilities." The one teaser trailer online seems to feature first-person POV interaction sequences with fully rendered anime-style characters. The game will make an appearance at the 2026 Tokyo Game Show next week, alongside MMORPG Mabinogi Mobile.
  
  
• The Chinese edition of Arknights (the original one, not Endfield) has kicked off a new crossover event with Persona 3 Reload, adding its protagonist, Yukari Takeba, Aigis, and Koromaru as playable Arknights characters. The event should hit the global edition of the game in months.
  
  
• Technically, "Company did not make an announcement" isn't really news on its own, but given that I mentioned it at the end of the last column, the point is worth addressing: Global release dates for Timi's Honor of Kings: World and Riot's Valorant Mobile weren't announced at this year's Gamescom, despite in-depth promotion on the show floor. The companies were mum on why overseas players will have to keep waiting, but speculation from fans suggests that the games just aren't ready and would likely suffer backlash if released worldwide. Players of the Chinese edition of Valorant Mobile figure that Tencent is waiting for updates to bring it closer to parity with the PC version of the game (possibly in pursuit of cross-platform play), while Honor of Kings: World players in China have noted that the game seems to be struggling with negative sentiment there, which could be spurring Timi to slow-roll the global release and focus on ironing out issues (or perhaps finish up the still-in-development console versions).

And that'll be it from me! TGS is next week, and could have even more in store, given the prominence of mobile gaming over there. Stay safe!