HoYoverse's Honkai: Nexus Anima hands-on shows auto-battling creature collecting at Gamescom 2026

In the demo, players explored a bright city filled with Anima, creatures that can be approached directly to start a battle, a more straightforward encounter method than the tall-grass approach in Pokemon. Combat takes place in a top-down arena and is automated, resembling the auto-chess format popularized by Teamfight Tactics. Players position their Anima on the grid and then watch the fight unfold, while also deploying up to three ability cards from allied characters to assist during battle.

The preview build gave players a large selection of high-level Anima, making battles too easy and preventing a clear sense of strategic depth. Anima are classified into abstract groups called Aspects, such as Love, Satiation, Pride, and Reality, and their designs include a boxing poached egg and a sentient wind chime, indicating an aim to stand apart from typical monster designs.

A notable mechanic involves defeating an Anima and then bonding with it to recruit it. This requires using resources to entice the creature, with only a limited number of attempts before it flees, possibly creating pressure to spend money on items that guarantee success. The game's gacha structure was not fully testable in the demo, but it remains a point of concern.

The demo also placed the player at the start of a qualifying event for a Nexus championship, which required collecting numbered badges from other competitors. The narrative includes a voiced second-person narration reminiscent of Baldur's Gate 3's narrator, and the backstory centers on a catastrophic event called The Sundering. HoYoverse seems to retain its anime aesthetic and humor, with a story that may take a backseat to the gameplay.