FuRyu's Anomalith draws on Backrooms-style liminal spaces, producer says

Anomalith is set in a twisted, retro vision of Japan. Players control 17-year-old Reona Minazuki, who enters deadly anomaly zones filled with grotesque creatures at the request of a shadowy government organization. The game combines real-time gun combat with a small inventory and limited ammunition, and each mission unfolds in a format that TechRadar described as similar to an extraction shooter. Between missions, players can use scavenged resources to upgrade their gear.

Minazuki can also use a set of mutant powers brought on by exposure to the supernatural environments. Kidokoro said the project is his first original game. He joined FuRyu’s anime division, which has helped produce titles such as Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, before moving to the company’s gaming business to direct licensed titles. He said working on games had always interested him and that his career has been “a little different from that of FuRyu’s other producers.”

Kidokoro said Anomalith is FuRyu’s first third-person shooter and that the genre was chosen because he and the director “love third-person shooters and guns.” He said the aim was not to deliberately challenge the team with a completely different genre but to make a game in a genre they personally love.

The weapon customization system lets players “swap out a fairly detailed range of parts,” including sights, grips and stocks, according to the producer. These changes affect each gun’s appearance and provide statistical bonuses. Players can also scavenge equipment called Artifacts that enhance character stats and change builds. Kidokoro said these include “loot-based, hack-and-slash-style elements” and that high-value Artifacts can make some skills “incredibly powerful.”

Because not every player enjoys tuning guns or character stats, the game also offers cosmetic options. Some were available in a recent free Steam demo. Kidokoro said the team realized many people do not get the same enjoyment from firing a carefully customized favorite gun and decided that character outfits and customization might make the game more fun for them. He said the response to the demo made him glad the outfit customization was added.

Kidokoro highlighted world design as one part of the experience he is most excited about. He said the development team put “a tremendous amount of effort” into designing the Otherworlds, where a ceiling may look ordinary until the player looks up and finds something unsettling. He described the concept as “anxiety and fear lurking within familiar scenery” and said it was inspired by popular ideas of “liminal spaces, including things like the Backrooms.” The Backrooms is a viral meme featuring endless wallpapered corridors that recently inspired a horror film adaptation. The team often uses the phrase “give it a liminal-space atmosphere” when discussing visual direction, he said.

Aside from the title theme, the soundtrack has no vocal tracks, Kidokoro said. He said fans “can definitely look forward to the soundtrack” and warned that “many of the tracks are quite dark and unsettling,” joking that he recommends listening during the daytime. TechRadar described Anomalith as a major departure for FuRyu, whose usual output is role-playing games, and as potentially one of the most interesting releases of 2026.