Hoyoverse have recently released a trailer and gameplay footage for their next game, Nexus Anima. The game was initially teased on May 4th, 2025 during the Honkai Star Rail Live Concert. (Similarly, HSR was announced at the Honkai Impact 3rd Live Concert back in 2021)
With an official trailer and gameplay footage released, it’s only a matter of time before Nexus Anima announces the official release date.
As a gaming company, Hoyoverse has seen tremendous growth since their release of Genshin Impact back in 2020, which has since grown to be a global phenomenon. Since then, major releases such as Honkai Star Rail and Zenless Zone Zero have been released in 2023 and 2024 respectively.
By taking a look at Hoyo’s past releases, we can try to estimate key dates for Nexus Anima as well.
Nexus Anima Release Date
While Nexus Anima has no official release date, we can try to extrapolate based on past releases:
Honkai Star Rail
Initial Announcement: October 5, 2021
Trailer: October 7, 2021
First Beta: October 27, 2021 to November 1, 2021
Release Date: April 26, 2023
Zenless Zone Zero
Initial Announcement: May 13, 2022
Trailer: May 13, 2022
First Beta: August 5, 2022 to August 8, 2022
Release Date: July 4th, 2024
Nexus Anima
Initial Announcement: May 4th, 2025
Trailer: August 28th, 2025
First Beta: September 2025
Release Date: TBD
With this information, we can see that HSR and ZZZ took about 1.5-2 years to release after their initial announcement. Just like the other games, an initial beta/test will occur very soon. You can sign up for the “Nexus Bond Test” or the game’s initial beta test, on the Official Website.
With this information, we can expect Nexus Anima to take at least 1.5 years from now to release. This could mean February 2027 or even later. There is a small chance that the game releases earlier than this, maybe Q4 2026, but only time will tell.
From the trailers and official descriptions, Nexus Anima is a “brand-new creature-collector adventure strategy game and the latest installment in the Honkai series.” With these creatures, players can participate in minigames, social activities, and a strategic autobattler game mode.
The auto battler mimics many features from other autobattlers, but it notably has a couple of differences as well. Firstly, in the bottom left, we can see two characters. This could mean that, like other games, you can also use different characters in gameplay.
Secondly, unlike other autobattlers where you have a bench and shop, this appears to look more like a selection screen at the bottom.
This could mean that your “team” is something predetermined outside of PvP. It could also simply be early footage that doesn’t truly present what the gameplay will be like.
The First PvP Hoyoverse Game
With the teaser of this autobattler game mode, this marks the first Hoyoverse game to have a main focus on a PvP game mode. Genshin Impact, Honkai Star Rail, and Zenless Zone Zero are all primarily PvE games.
While games like Genshin and ZZZ will have PvP events or minigames, Nexus Anima looks to have one of its major focuses be the auto battler.
It will be interesting to see how Hoyoverse decides to balance their monetization model with a competitive game mode.
This wraps up most of what we know about Nexus Anima. As previously mentioned, you can sign up for the Beta Test on their website until September 12th.
For other information and news, you can follow their socials on Youtube, X, Facebook, Hoyolab.
