The public test program for Rewinding Cadence ran in mainland China in three publicly visible phases between late March and early May 2026. A small Technical Test (技术性测试) opened on March 27, 2026, the broader recruitment window for the larger test pool ran from March 30 to April 14, 2026, and the actual First Playthrough Test (一周目测试) play window ran from April 28 to May 1, 2026. All three phases were PC (Windows) only and limited to a Chinese-region build. The umbrella label "Crimson Test" (首测) appears in some marketing and aggregator coverage as a roll-up name for the whole arc; the canonical Saroasis Studios naming for the test that the largest pool of players actually played is 一周目测试.
Test Phases
Phase | Window | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
Technical Test (技术性测试) | March 27 to March 29, 2026 | PC (Windows) | Closed pre-test. NDA in effect. Limited tester pool. Data-wipe at conclusion. |
Recruitment for 一周目测试 | March 30 to April 14, 2026 | Sign-up only | Open questionnaire on the studio-friendly mobile portal and the Chinese mobile-storefront page. Selection by lottery from the questionnaire pool. Notification by SMS after closure. |
First Playthrough Test (一周目测试) | April 28 to May 1, 2026 | PC (Windows) | Actual public play window. Pre-download opened April 24, 2026. Non-monetized closed test with character data wipe at the end. Roughly 10+ hours of main story exposed. |
What Was Playable
The 一周目测试 was the deepest content slice yet released. It exposed roughly 10+ hours of main story, multiple branching endings, the early-cycle time-loop structure, dice-gated dialogue rolls, several boss encounters, and eight selectable characters paired with spirit companions. The Technical Test was a smaller closed window scoped to engine and pipeline validation; public material from that build was tightly restricted by NDA. The recruitment window itself was not playable. The wiki does not catalog beta-only encounters, NPCs, or story beats that have not been confirmed in an official trailer or post-test publication. Pre-test coverage also put the total content volume of the test build at over twenty hours when side activities and optional content are counted alongside that main-story slice.
System Requirements
The 一周目测试 build published a Windows PC system-requirement table. Note that these are build-specific and are not the final-release minimum spec; they are a rough indicator of where the launch build might land, not authoritative guidance for hardware buying decisions.
Spec | Minimum | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
OS | Windows 10 / 11 (64-bit) | Windows 10 / 11 (64-bit) |
CPU | Intel Core i5 9th gen or AMD Ryzen 7 2700X equivalent | Intel Core i7 9th gen or AMD Ryzen 7 3800X equivalent |
GPU | NVIDIA RTX 2060 / AMD RX 5600 XT / Intel Arc A750 equivalent | NVIDIA RTX 3060 / AMD RX 5700 XT / Intel Arc A770 or higher |
RAM | Not specified for the test build | 16 GB |
Final-release minimum and recommended specs will be added to this article when the developer publishes them.
Sign-Up and Selection
For the 一周目测试, recruitment ran on the Chinese-region pages of the studio-friendly mobile portal. The studio collected questionnaire responses for the full recruitment window (March 30 to April 14), curated the participant pool by lottery, and notified accepted testers a few days before launch by SMS, with a download link and a non-disclosure agreement covering tester impressions. Pre-download opened on April 24, 2026, and the test went live on April 28 at 11:00 AM and closed at 12:00 PM on May 1, 2026. See pre-registration for the broader sign-up flow that selected the tester pool.
Future Tests
Additional closed and open beta phases are expected before the full release. A specific date for the next test, including any global beta or English-language test, has not been announced publicly. Watch the official channels listed in the Saroasis Studios article for confirmed announcements; the wiki will mirror those as they land.
What the Test Showed
The 一周目测试 was the first time the public had hours of contiguous gameplay outside of curated trailer footage. Confirmed-public details come primarily from the official trailer cut released alongside the test window, from the studio's own post-test recaps, and from the post-test reviews that observed the build in supervised showcases. Headline confirmations from the 一周目测试 build:
Real-time, character-switching combat with each playable character permanently bonded to one spirit companion. Trailers and the live test confirmed the duo-pair structure shown earlier, and the test added an explicit roster-switching layer so that the active character can change between paired units mid-fight.
A four-card skill loadout per character, with six distinct combat-role combinations achievable through card pairing. Specific named cards have not been published in a central source and are not catalogued here.
Dice-gated dialogue was active throughout, including visible roll modifiers and inline result reveal.
The forty-two-day cycle is the in-fiction calendar; the rewind contract becomes accessible after the opening sequence.
Open-world traversal includes a skateboard-based mobility system available from the start of the playable build, with a stamina-consuming boost mode for higher-speed travel.
The Star-Wanted System escalates visibly when the player picks fights with civilians, confirming the consequence layer.
A persistent progression layer referred to in test materials as the Time Tree (时之树) grants one-click level growth as later nodes unlock, and does not require duplicate character pulls to grow a unit's effective power.
A 2D animated opening sequence and a story beat described by post-test reviewers as a significant plot reversal that surfaces shortly after the prologue.
Test-Build Footprint and Performance Indicators
The 一周目测试 was PC-only. The trailer cut released alongside the test window stayed visually consistent with the earlier 8-minute and 12-minute gameplay videos. What the test made visible in addition to those earlier trailers:
Observable | Detail |
|---|---|
Visual style | Hand-drawn 2D-leaning visuals, with painterly backgrounds and soft-line character art. Confirmed consistent with the announcement trailer. |
Frame rate target | Trailer footage was smooth at high refresh, consistent with a PC build targeting 60+ fps on mainstream hardware in the published sysreq band. |
UI density | Dialogue UI shows clear roll modifiers and inline result reveal; combat HUD is minimal, leaning on the duo character animations. |
Mobile readiness | The cross-platform showcase confirmed mobile builds are in development; the 一周目测试 itself did not include a mobile client. |
What Was Not in the Test
Several systems known to be in development were not part of the 一周目测试, or were present in a stub form. This article does not catalog beta-only encounters or beta-only stat numbers, but for general orientation:
The full forty-two-day arc end-state was scoped, not the full live-game roadmap.
The full named-companion roster (beyond Chu) was not playable in the test cut visible to the public.
The complete monetization shape (gacha rates, pity, currency model) was not exposed; any premium currency present in the test was beta-only and should not be treated as the live-service economy.
Global-language UI was not present; the test shipped with Simplified Chinese text and voice.
After the Test
The studio's post-test communication focused on aggregating tester feedback rather than committing to specific patch deltas. Public material has signaled that additional beta phases will run before the global launch but has not committed to dates. Post-test reviewer reception of the 一周目测试 build leaned positive: the story and character work received the strongest praise, while open-world exploration was noted as relatively underdeveloped compared to the narrative side. Developers signaled that some build-only values (notably the skateboard mobility speed in traversal) may be rebalanced before the next public test. This article will be updated when the next beta window is announced.
NDA Boundaries and What This Article Does Not Catalog
A non-disclosure agreement covered tester impressions during each phase, including the 一周目测试. Tester video, screen captures, and detailed in-game numbers from inside the build are not publicly publishable, and only what surfaced in the official trailer cut and post-test studio communication can be treated as confirmed. As a result, this article does not catalog beta-only encounter rosters, NPC name lists, story beats beyond the prologue, exact dice-roll thresholds, exact combat skill cooldowns, sequence caps, party caps, or any monetization values seen in the test build. Each of those categories will be added once the studio publishes them in a public source. Treat any third-party tier list, datamine, or "leaked stats" page that claims authoritative test-build numbers as unverified until the developer publishes the same value officially.
Lessons for the Next Public Test
For players hoping to participate in the next public test, three lessons from the 一周目测试 sign-up and play windows are worth carrying forward. They are operational rather than strategic: they affect whether you get into the test at all, not how to clear a specific encounter.
Register early in the recruitment window, not on the last day. The 一周目测试 questionnaire opened on March 30 and closed on April 14. Selection was not first-come-first-served, but registrations filed in the first 72 hours of the window had a longer review tail and surfaced more frequently in the SMS notification batch. The official channel for the questionnaire is the Chinese-region studio mobile portal; third-party listings that claim to register you on the studio's behalf are not the official channel.
Treat the pre-download window seriously. Pre-download opened on April 24, four days before the test. Testers who left the download to the morning of April 28 reported launch-day bandwidth contention. The build was roughly the size of a contemporary AAA PC game and required a clean storage allocation. Plan for several tens of gigabytes free, even though the studio has not published an exact figure.
Read the NDA carefully before posting screenshots or video. The 一周目测试 NDA explicitly disallowed all public screen capture and video. Subsequent test phases may relax this rule, or may not; verify against the specific NDA attached to the next test invitation, not against the 一周目测试 precedent.
How the Test Fits the Wider Roadmap
The 一周目测试 is the second of three publicly observable test arcs in the pre-launch roadmap. A small Technical Test (技术性测试) preceded it; the studio has signaled additional larger tests before the global launch but has not dated them. See dev-roadmap for the full roadmap context, and cn-vs-global for how the CN-track test cadence is expected to relate to the global rollout. The wiki tracks each phase against the same set of confirmation criteria: a test phase is only listed as confirmed once Saroasis Studios has publicly named it, dated it, and described its build scope.
Related
See pre-registration for the sign-up flow that selected the tester pool, dev-roadmap for the broader release-window context, cn-vs-global for how the CN-track beta cadence relates to the eventual global rollout, and trailers and media for the trailer cut released alongside the test.