Manjuu's third closed beta for Azur Promilia, internally named the "Journey Trace Test," went live today, September 17, 2026, at 11:00 (UTC+8), with pre-download available since September 15 at 15:00 (UTC+8). It runs on PC (Windows), Android, and iOS, but only for players in China.
That regional restriction matters. This is not a global beta, not a soft launch, and not an early access window international players can join. It's a domestic test gated behind a paid entry, a full data wipe once the test ends, mandatory real-name verification, and an age restriction that shuts out minors entirely. Anyone hoping to try Azur Promilia from outside China will have to keep waiting.
What the Journey Trace Test actually tests
Manjuu built its reputation on Azur Lane, the anime-styled warship-collecting gacha that's run since 2017 and still pulls a loyal international audience years after its peak. Azur Promilia is the studio's attempt at a fully three-dimensional open-world RPG, a much bigger production than an Azur Lane spin-off.
Players recruit companion creatures called Kibo into their party through a mechanic named Starlink, then raise them alongside more standard RPG systems: weapon loadouts, skill trees, character leveling. Outside combat, they explore, craft, build bases, and farm resources across the open world, the same "cozy but substantial" formula that has kept players in Genshin Impact and Wuthering Waves for years.
Manjuu calls this round the final closed beta before Azur Promilia's official release. That means whatever ships in the Journey Trace Test build sits close to what day-one players will actually get.
The gacha system takes shape, and it looks unusually clean
Leaked build details from this test give the clearest look yet at how Azur Promilia intends to monetize. According to figures circulating from datamined builds, limited character banners carry a hard pity around 90 pulls, while banners for Lingzi (equippable spirit cards that grant stats and combat effects) sit closer to 80 pulls.
The more notable detail: several leaks point to Azur Promilia dropping the 50/50 mechanic that defines nearly every major gacha on the market right now. In games like Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, or Wuthering Waves, losing that coin flip means a hard-earned pity pull can still land on the wrong featured character, resetting the counter and forcing a second full cycle to actually get the unit a player wants. If Azur Promilia genuinely skips that mechanic and guarantees the featured unit on pity, it would land among the more player-friendly rate-up systems in the current gacha field, at least on paper. None of this is locked in. Beta balancing shifts often between closed tests and launch, and Manjuu hasn't made any of these numbers official.
Why this test matters beyond China's borders
Azur Promilia carries more expectation than most upcoming gacha titles. Azur Lane built Manjuu's international fanbase over eight years, and that fanbase has tracked every trailer and leak for Azur Promilia as the studio's answer to the open-world gacha RPGs currently dominating the genre: Genshin Impact, Wuthering Waves, Honkai: Star Rail, Zenless Zone Zero, and the more recently launched Arknights Endfield.
Regional app store listings have carried placeholder release windows pointing toward the end of 2026 for China, Japan, and South Korea, with cross-platform support planned across PC, PS5, Android, and iOS for the full release. A global rollout, and the publisher who would handle it outside Asia, remains unconfirmed. Nothing announced today changes that picture: the Journey Trace Test is a domestic technical and economic dress rehearsal, not a preview international players can access.
Two things to watch next: whether this build's systems, the no-50/50 gacha structure in particular, hold up against a live paying audience, and whether Manjuu follows this final CN test with a global beta announcement ahead of the game's eventual worldwide release. Players outside China are still waiting.
