Project Mugen is an upcoming free-to-play action RPG from new developer Naked Rain (a subsidiary of Netease) with anime characters who can web-swing through a city like Spider-Man. Its first trailer is a mash-up of Grand Theft Auto and Genshin Impact, an urban anime game with several characters to play as.
Aesthetically, Project Mugen resembles Zenless Zone Zero—which we just saw more of at Gamescom last week. It seems to take place in a near-future sci-fi city that attracts supernatural invaders. Instead of simply running along sidewalks or driving cars, your characters can grapple toward buildings and wall-run on them like in Insomniac’s Spider-Man games.
The debut trailer lacks footage of Project Mugen’s combat, but a leak on Bilibili (re-uploaded by YouTube user MaxDGacha) makes it look almost indistinguishable from Genshin Impact or Tower of Fantasy. The third-person combat erupts on the roof of a building as the characters swing and shoot at a group of enemies. You swap between the characters to combo their attacks and work up to your big ultimate move.
It’s probably safe to assume you’ll have to gacha roll for new characters just like you do in MiHoYo’s games. Naked Rain hasn’t said whether you can play in co-op or at least borrow other players’ characters as is common in other gacha games. For now, it just looks like a Genshin Impact-style action RPG that chose GTA over Breath of the Wild as an influence for its open world structure.
A lot of these games live or die on their character designs and Project Mugen has one bunny girl so far, so there’s promise. The trailer has shots of other characters, including a dark-haired protagonist-looking man, as well as a girl with pink hair and a hat with cat ears—it’s all your usual anime character fare. I won’t be sold until I see a wolf man like Von Lycaon in ZZZ.
With no release date or beta announcement, all you can do is pre-register for updates about Project Mugen on its website. I’d expect some sort of beta to happen if that leaked combat video is an indication of people already having their hands on it though.
