Beast of Reincarnation

Overview

Beast of Reincarnation is a single-player action RPG developed by Game Freak and published by Fictions. The game releases on August 4, 2026 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam and the Microsoft Store. It launches day one on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with full Xbox Play Anywhere and Xbox Cloud Gaming support. The game is exclusively single-player with no multiplayer component. It has been rated Teen (T) by the ESRB for Violence and Blood.

Built on Unreal Engine 5, Beast of Reincarnation represents Game Freak's most ambitious project outside the Pokemon franchise and their first title developed for PlayStation and Xbox hardware. Directed by Kota Furushima with character designs by Pablo Uchida, the game blends real-time katana action with command-based companion mechanics in a post-apocalyptic Japan set in the year 4026. The game's demanding, technical combat has drawn comparisons to Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice's dodges and parries, Black Myth: Wukong's melee intensity, and NieR: Automata's stylish action.

At its core, the game tells the story of a lonely woman and her dog traveling through a devastated world. Players control Emma, an 18-year-old Sealer afflicted by a parasitic plant force called the Blight, alongside her companion Koo, a magical white dog who is technically a Malefact -- one of the very creatures Emma is tasked with hunting. Together, they journey from the eastern countryside toward the Capital, defeating massive boss creatures called Nushi along the way, with the ultimate goal of slaying the titular Beast of Reincarnation and ending the Blight's corruption.

Premise

The year is 4026. Civilization has been devastated by a parasitic phenomenon known as the Blight, which transforms living organisms into monsters called Malefacts and causes forests to erupt instantly across the landscape. Humanity clings to survival in scattered settlements called Colonies, while the corrupted wilderness outside grows ever more dangerous.

Emma, known as "Emma the Sealer," is an 18-year-old woman born afflicted by the Blight. The affliction fused her body with plant matter, granting her the ability to freely manipulate her vine-like hair as both a weapon and traversal tool. Her blight power originates specifically from her ponytail. However, the corruption left her void of both memory and emotion at the story's outset, making her an outcast feared and shunned by those around her. As a Sealer, she can cure the Blight in the overworld and absorb essences from defeated enemies to unlock new abilities -- sealing blight is both her purpose and her curse.

Her companion is Koo, a wolf-like creature whose vine-branch tail connects him to the Blight. During a fierce battle, Koo resurrects Emma, causing a shakuyaku (Chinese peony) to sprout from her hair -- marking the beginning of their bond. Directed by a mysterious holographic figure, they set out from the eastern countryside toward the Capital, defeating Nushi along the way. To ultimately defeat the Beast of Reincarnation, Emma and Koo must absorb the Nushi's immense power and acquire their respective skills.

The Beast of Reincarnation

The titular Beast of Reincarnation is the source of all Blight corruption in the world. Its appearance resembles an elk-like creature that accelerates the growth and decay of flora it touches -- plants bloom and wither in its wake, reflecting the cycle of reincarnation embedded in its name. The game's imagery draws heavily from Japanese Buddhist symbolism: red spider lilies (higanbana) appear prominently throughout the world, flowers that traditionally symbolize death, the afterlife, and reincarnation in Japanese culture.

Core Gameplay

The game's combat system is a hybrid of two distinct styles that reflects its two protagonists. Emma fights using sword-based actions in real time -- slashing, parrying, and deflecting enemy attacks with demanding, technical precision. Successful parries earn FP (Fuel Points), which are spent to activate Koo's Blooming Arts abilities through a command menu. When the command menu opens (Triangle button on PS5), time slows but does not fully stop, giving players strategic breathing room to plan their next move while maintaining tension.

Director Furushima described the design philosophy: "Rather than forcing players to rely solely on split-second reflexes in high-pressure situations, we wanted to create moments where you can pause, think carefully, and fight with a tactical mindset." He drew directly from his Pokemon battle planning experience, citing "the joyful dilemma of choice" as the core sensation he wanted players to feel when selecting Koo's abilities mid-combat.

The game offers multiple combat approaches: players can fight exclusively from long range using the bow and crossbow, use stealth to perform assassinations and reduce enemy numbers before engaging groups, or have Koo lead in to strike first. Emma's plant abilities create advantageous three-dimensional positioning, allowing her to grapple to elevated vantage points, launch aerial attacks, and manipulate the battlefield vertically.

Emma wields a lightweight katana as her primary weapon, supplemented by a bow with elemental arrows and a crossbow with elemental bolts. She can equip Spirit Stones to customize her build, and both she and Koo have three distinct skill trees focused on close-range combat, long-range combat, and stealth.

World Structure

Beast of Reincarnation is not an open-world game. Director Furushima clarified: "The game is not an open world. You go through different stages as you go through the game, but the road that you're on -- while it might be essentially one road -- it's quite wide."

The world is structured as a series of wide, explorable stages organized as "district levels." The journey mirrors the real-life trek from the Kanto region to Kyoto, traveling from east to west through post-apocalyptic Japan. Each area features dynamic environments that transform as part of the world's natural cycle -- plains and wastelands gradually transform into forests, and in some areas the transformation is abrupt, giving rise to unseen Malefacts. Blighted Forests function as dungeon areas that players explore, fighting through corrupted terrain and lesser enemies to reach the Nushi boss at their center.

Themes

The game explores what it means to be human through the bond between a lonely girl and her dog. Furushima described the emotional tone as "a mix of warmth, trust, and loneliness." The relationship between civilization and nature draws explicit inspiration from Princess Mononoke, while the game also draws from Okami, The Legend of Zelda, and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice in its exploration of Buddhist and Shinto themes. Red spider lilies (higanbana) feature prominently throughout the game's visual design -- flowers that in Japanese Buddhist culture symbolize death and reincarnation, bridging the worlds of the living and the dead.

Every character in the game carries heavy secrets. Both Emma and Koo harbor truths hidden from each other, and every ally they encounter along their journey also holds great secrets that intertwine with the story. The Golem faction introduces questions about technological transcendence -- a branch of humanity that transferred their minds into mechanical bodies millennia ago, creating an unsettling parallel to Emma's own struggle with her Blight-fused identity.

Difficulty and Accessibility

The game offers three difficulty modes: Story Mode with forgiving parry timing, Normal Mode as the standard experience, and Hard Mode for players seeking Soulslike-level precision. Furushima explicitly pushed back against labeling the game a Soulslike: "We're trying to make it so that even people who aren't good at action games can enjoy it."

Visual Style

Beast of Reincarnation uses a photorealistic visual style built on Unreal Engine 5. Director Furushima stated that this approach "came naturally" during development. Rather than targeting a specific market or trend, he first imagined the feelings and atmosphere he wanted players to experience, then concluded: "This cruel world can only be depicted in a realistic style." The environments feature blooming lotus flowers, dense Blighted forests, crumbling ruins of modern civilization overtaken by plant life, and traditional Japanese architecture contrasted with futuristic cyberpunk elements.

Development

Beast of Reincarnation was born from Game Freak's Gear Project initiative, an internal program that encourages developers to pitch original game ideas. Director Furushima began developing the concept alone in 2020, spending his first year on world-building and scenario prototyping. The game was publicly announced in May 2023 under the working title "Project Bloom" through Take-Two's Private Division label.

Following the dissolution of Private Division's original staff structure, the game's publishing rights transferred to Fictions, a new company formed by former Annapurna Interactive employees. The game's final title was revealed at the Xbox Games Showcase in June 2025, followed by an in-depth showcase at the Xbox Developer Direct in January 2026 and a release date confirmation at PlayStation's State of Play in February 2026.

For a complete timeline, see the Development History article.

Platform and Service Details

Significance

• First Game Freak title released on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S

• First AAA-scale title from Game Freak's Gear Project initiative

• No Nintendo Switch version announced -- a historic break from Game Freak's platform tradition for non-Pokemon titles

• Game Freak's first project built on Unreal Engine 5

• Day one availability on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with Xbox Play Anywhere and Xbox Cloud Gaming support

• Combat system that blends fast-paced katana action with command-based companion mechanics -- drawing from director Furushima's Pokemon battle design experience