New Player Guide & Everything You Need to Know About Neverness to Everness!

Welcome to our New Player guide for Neverness to Everness, an free-to-play action role-playing game developed and published by Hotta Studio. On this page, we will introduce the game's world, systems, and how to play, as well as a variety of features that await you in Hethereau.

Neverness to Everness is a supernatural urban open-world RPG, set in a city called Hethereau. Supernatural anomalies and ordinary people coexist in this sprawling city-scape, filled with people going about their everyday lives. From shops, car-races, bank heists, or just sitting down to play some Mahjong, the game offers a wide variety of slice-of-life experiences and activities, while blending it with an overarching supernatural story.

Having joined "the Bureau", you will be chasing down anomalies that range from cutesy little animals, to surreal almost horror-like ones, evoking a very SCP-esque feeling. With a party of up to four colorful characters, you will be fighting and suppressing many of these anomalies in fast-paced action combat. From frequent skill and ultimate uses, to dodges, parries, elemental synergies, and character switches, the combat feels dynamic yet familiar for those who have played similar titles before.

The game puts a heavy emphasis on its non-combat features as well, with an expansive City Tycoon mode where you can buy shops, cars, and even your own apartments or mansions that you can furnish and invite fellow characters to.

Acquiring characters is done through a gacha system, which improves on many of the pain points players expressed with other gacha games, from guaranteed limited character pulls (no 50:50!), to a separate pull currency for weapons. There are also many skins for almost all of the characters, that can be acquired through a variety of different ways, offering new things for anybody, not just those who spend on the game.

Here's a quick overview of what awaits you in Hethereau:

Neverness to Everness Features

• Free-to-play supernatural urban open-world RPG.
• Action combat with a 4-character party.
• Investigate anomalies in a story that seamlessly blends together whimsical elements with some light horror.
• Gacha-pull System with no 50:50.
• Freely selectable and swappable character-dupe bonuses.
• Over a dozen slice-of-life activities, from Mahjong to managing your coffee shop.
• Multiplayer activities with friends. Race them in your car, or go on a bank heist together!

Without giving too much away, the story of NTE centers on you as the protagonist, called 'Zero'. Without revealing too much of the character's past, you are thrown into a chaotic situation that sees you join "The Bureau", an organization specializing in investigating and containing Anomalies. Many of your fellow co-workers make use of Anomalies, or even are an Anomaly themselves!

You will quickly realize that Anomalies and ordinary people in Hethereau live together in relative peace. As expected, there are some hiccups with this from time to time when anomalies go haywire or start causing trouble, and you will often be tasked with investigating these occurrences alongside a colorful troupe of characters, from CSU-members in training, to experienced veterans of the Bureau.

There are many playable and hundreds of non-playable characters in the game, filling the city of Hethereau with life. On launch, there will be around 14 to 16 playable characters, with many more already teased in a 'Welcome' video.

While there are some free characters that you unlock through the story, most of them will be accessible through a gacha-pull system where you spend currency acquired through in-game activities, events, or your wallet, to pull for characters. Limited characters are guaranteed after a certain number of pulls, so there is no 50:50 system in this game!

Many characters, including the protagonist, have a variety of different Skins and Costumes available to them. While some of these are only available through the Gacha, many of them can be acquired by meeting certain requirements within the game, or buying them with the city's ingame currency: Fons.

NTE has many Skins available on launch already!

The combat system will be familiar to many players of other titles such as Genshin Impact, Wuthering Waves, or Zenless Zone Zero. In Neverness to Everness you will be fielding four characters when fighting enemies, equipped with weapons called Arcs and equipment called Consoles.

Consoles and Modules are this game's equipment system

Each character belongs to a certain element, called Esper in NTE. Characters with a different Esper background synergize through the so called Esper Cycle. Charging up a characters Esper Meter lets you chain different Esper abilities from one character to the other, generating unique and powerful reactions that can turn the tide of battle.

Esper Cycles grant powerful buffs, and each characters can alter them further

Beyond this unique Esper Cycle system, each character has a regular Basic Attack, a Skill, and an Ultimate. Compared to many other games, these are available fairly frequently, and between parrying and dodging enemies, rotating characters to use their skills and ultimates, dealing with enemy mechanics, and preparing a full Esper Cycle, combat feels dynamic and fast-paced.

Early into your journey in Hethereau you will unlock the City Tycoon system. Once unlocked, many of the slice-of-life activities that the game is built around await you, including a garage where you can store all your cars and bikes, a property manager for the apartments and houses you've bought, a coffee shop management sim, locations for racing NPCs or players with your car, and much more.

Some of these systems are quite extensive, i.e. you will be able to fully furnish your homes, and even invite some of the characters you bonded with into your home to live with you. Of course you'll need to build your trust with them first, and some of the higher-end furniture doesn't come cheap!

Almost all of these activities rewards Fons, which is the city game-currency that you use to buy furniture, cars and bikes, ingredients for your coffee store and restaurant, and many more. There are about a dozen different hobbies you can engage with, from driving deliveries, to running a mock-heist in the city's bank!

Rob a bank, or deliver some flowers, the choice is yours

Many of the activities in the city require you to spend Stamina, which comes in two flavors:

• City Stamina is exclusive for non-character progression systems, allowing you to engage with all of the above features and mini-games. This resets once a week, and once you've run out, many of the activities no longer reward Fons. You can still continue playing all of the games though, you just won't be able to gain rewards from them.
• Character Pixels is the Stamina used to acquire equipment and other rewards that further character progression. This is your regular Stamina system that recharges over time, that you can refresh with premium currency.

Hethereau is a big city, and there are a myriad of things to explore. Beautiful vistas, side-quests, stores, and dangerous anomalies could hide behind every corner!

Hethereau has multiple districts to discover, each with their own shops and unique aesthetic

You will be able to move around the city freely, climbing buildings, driving cars or bikes, or just running around on foot. Some characters even have special mobility options, i.e. Nanally can run up buildings while her Skill is active - although this may cause some serious Motion Sickness!

Nanally's special skill lets you run up walls in any angle

While there are plenty of quick-travel points available once you've unlocked them, you may find yourself simply driving around and stumble upon an Anomaly. You can also chase these down on purpose through the Anomaly Commission system, which wil give you a general idea on the location and type of Anomaly you will have to contend with. Some of these anomalies are non-violent puzzles, others are special boss fights that grant unique Arcs as a reward.

There are even a few anomalies where your investigation will trigger a special gameplay environment! For example, the Bound to Nightmares Anomaly will have you visit the city's Hospital, where a patient is dealing with weird Nightmares. You will be pulled into their dreams, which end up being a 20 to 30-minute long sequence reminiscent of 'Resident Evil', filled with puzzles, monsters you cannot simply kill in combat, and even multiple endings to this side-story!

The "Bound to Nightmares" anomaly investigation can get quite spooky

These anomaly commissions vary wildly in length, difficulty, and style, allowing the developers a much wider scope in what topics, themes, or narratives they would like to explore. This ends up creating a very lively world, and investigating and hunting down Anomalies will be something you will be spending quite a bit of time on as part of the Bureau.

Dozens of anomaly commissions await you in Hethereau

We can't wait to see you all in Hethereau when the game officially launches for Global players on April 29th. See you soon!