HoYoverse is ditching the banner pulls that built its empire for Nodusfall, a co-op action RPG revealed at Gamescom 2026 where characters unlock through play instead of randomized draws. The pivot lands after a $20 million FTC settlement over Genshin Impact loot box practices and a reported 48% drop in combined mobile revenue from 2024 to 2025. miHoYo confirmed to PC Gamer that Nodusfall stays free-to-play with cosmetics as the main revenue path, swapping gacha for earned progression in a darker, Unreal Engine 5-powered Monster Hunter-style world.

The game casts players as Weavers hunting massive Dreadnodi creatures in a collapsed-mythology setting inspired by texts like the Classic of Mountains and Seas. Four-player squads tackle long boss fights with grappling, transformations, and buildcrafting that reward skill over spending. Unlike Genshin or Zenless Zone Zero's anime aesthetic, this one leans photorealistic and grounded, targeting PC and console players who historically reject character gacha as a barrier to core gameplay. Pre-registration opened immediately after the August 25 reveal, though no release date or full platform list exists yet.

The move reads as calculated survival: regulators in Europe and the US have tightened rules on paid random rewards, and HoYoverse's traditional audience showed fatigue. Whether optional outfits and skins can actually fund a live-service co-op title without the psychological hooks of pity systems remains the open bet. Community chatter on X splits between cautious optimism for the gameplay shift and skepticism that HoYoverse can resist monetizing something else down the line.

CEO Liu Wei called the project "very un-miHoYo," which tracks with ditching the studio's signature formula for something riskier and more expensive to make.