Honkai: Nexus Anima

Overview

Honkai: Nexus Anima (abbreviated HNA) is a creature-collection adventure strategy game developed by miHoYo and published globally by Cognosphere under the HoYoverse brand. It is the fifth game in the Honkai series, following Honkai Impact 3rd and Honkai: Star Rail. The game combines creature collecting with Auto-Chess Combat on hex grids, set within an open world spanning the continent of Lusciell and a multiverse of dimensional spaces.

Players take on the role of an aspiring Animaster starting in the coastal town of Iia. The goal is to collect and train creatures called Anima beings composed of scattered Aspect energy, and field them on grid-based battlefields. The game is built primarily around solo play, story, and exploration, but it is not PVE-only: the current build adds Friend Battles, in which two players on the same server put their teams against each other directly. HoYoverse has positioned it as a casual, companion-style experience with a warm art direction that contrasts with their action-heavy titles.

The Protagonist

Within the first half hour of gameplay, the player learns an unsettling piece of information: their character is the World-Ender the entity responsible for the Sundering that destroyed the Old World. The protagonist is an amnesiac who was trapped in an illusory world for over 214 years by the 4th Sovereign, Kumyo Kyo. They wake up in Iia with no memory and take up the life of an Animaster, gradually discovering that some of the powerful figures they meet already know who they really are. Players can customize their character's appearance and allocate attribute points that affect dialogue options.

Setting

The world is organized into 81 Planes, each governed by a Novarch who controls a single philosophical or scientific principle called an Aspect. This structure emerged after the Sundering (also called "the Honkai") fractured the universe's energy network (the Nexus) into countless pieces. Those fragments became the Anima that players collect. The physical setting is the continent of Lusciell, which exists within the Plane of Reality.

Before the Sundering, the Old World was ruled by 39 Sovereigns who each controlled paired, opposing Aspects, like Light and Dark, or Love and Hate. The catastrophe split those pairs apart, fragmented the world into 81 Planes, and scattered the Nexus energy into Anima. The player gradually uncovers the reasons behind the Sundering while traveling across Planes and challenging regional Arena Masters.

Gameplay

The core gameplay loop has two main pillars. First, Auto-Chess Combat: players deploy up to nine Anima on a hex-grid battlefield, positioning them strategically before the fight plays out automatically. Pre-built decks replace random rolling. You bring the team you've trained, not random shop offerings. Heat Coins earned during battle fund mid-fight upgrades, and Aspect and Trait synergies (including 6 assistance slots for bench Anima) drive team composition.

Second, open-world exploration: players traverse environments on foot, glide through the air on flying Anima, and interact with wild creatures. A day-night cycle affects the world, and benches let players skip time. Leader characters called Kardia provide off-field support in battle through unique Exclusive Principles. Between fights, Mini-Games like Anima racing, balloon shooting, and demolition offer lighter activities.

Characters

The game features both original characters and crossovers from the broader Honkai universe. Kiana from Honkai Impact 3rd appears as a Planestrider dealing with collapsed Aspects. Blade from Honkai: Star Rail is the 22nd Novarch of Strength, ruling over a Plane called The Peak and searching for the missing 11th Sovereign, Kafka. Parayaya, a former Sovereign turned Novarch of Hate, hunts the World-Ender for revenge. Armand, the Novarch of Dark, seeks a cure for his Sunbane Curse.

Original characters include Nanafey (the game's poster character from Iia), Hua (an aspiring Animaster), and Arena leaders like Maple Manybell and Cassio Rollex. The Phoenixbreaker Novarchs (Blade, Parayaya, and Amorphiron) form a faction dedicated to hunting the World-Ender, unaware that their target is the player character.

Development

Honkai: Nexus Anima was first teased in May 2025 during the Honkai: Star Rail LIVE Concert. The full reveal came on August 29, 2025. The first closed beta, the Nexus Bond Test ran from September 17-23, 2025 on PC and iOS. The game's producer is David Jiang, who also produced Honkai: Star Rail.

No official release date has been announced, though the post-beta DevTalk indicated the game is "more than a year away" from launch. The game runs on Unity and is confirmed for PC (Steam and Epic Games Store), iOS, and Android.

Beta Testing

The game has run a series of closed betas ahead of launch. The first, the Nexus Bond Test, ran from September 17 to 23, 2025 on PC and iOS with no content-sharing restrictions. The second, the Aspect Exploration Project (also called the Plane Exploration Project), was a smaller invite-only test recruited in April 2026 under a non-disclosure agreement, and added Android support. The third, the Evolution Test, opened recruitment on June 22, 2026 and ran from July 9 to July 27, 2026 on PC, iOS, and Android. The Evolution Test lifts the sharing restrictions and showcases the Anima Evolution system, Chromatic Anima, and refined Nexus Battles. Each test wipes all progress. A post-test recap previewed faster character movement, a refined opening story, deeper combat synergies, and smoother Anima bonding for future builds, and the game makes its public debut at gamescom in Cologne from August 26 to 30, 2026 with a hands-on demo.

Roster figures have grown across the test cycle. The August 2025 reveal showed 32 Anima and a small cast of Animasters; by mid-2026 the official site listed 13 playable Animasters and 82 Anima. These counts continue to change between builds, so they reflect the current test rather than the final game.

Quick Facts