HoYoverse just took gacha off the table for one of its own games. During a hands-on preview held September 23-24, the studio behind Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, and Zenless Zone Zero confirmed that Nodusfall, its dark-fantasy co-op action game revealed at Gamescom on August 25, will not lock characters behind banners, pulls, or pity systems. Every playable character unlocks through progression instead.
For a publisher whose entire business model runs on character gacha, this is a structural break from the system that built HoYoverse into one of the biggest names in mobile and live-service gaming.
No banners, no pity, no 50/50
HoYoverse's own framing was blunt: characters in Nodusfall are not obtained through random draws. Players unlock the full roster by playing the game, the same way a traditional action RPG hands out new party members through story progress and side content, rather than through a currency-fueled draw system with rate-ups and pity counters.
That doesn't make Nodusfall free of monetization. The game stays free-to-play, and HoYoverse has said cosmetic sales remain part of the plan, though the studio hasn't detailed exactly what will be sold or how. The confirmed part is narrower but significant: the character roster itself, the part of a HoYoverse game that drives the most spending, sits outside the gacha loop.
Journalists who played a 30-minute hands-on session at Gamescom described a four-player squad working through three separate boss fights, picking from pre-made characters built around distinct, MMO-style roles rather than a single self-insert protagonist. The comparisons landing most often: Monster Hunter for the scale and interactivity of the fights, Elden Ring for the tone and creature design, including a dragon-riding knight boss that players could climb and disrupt mid-fight.
A Weaver in a world without gods
Nodusfall's pitch line is "Wield Divinity, Sever the Dreadnodus." Players take the role of a Weaver, a figure entrusted with restoring order after divine authority collapses and corrupted creatures called Dreadnodi overrun the world. It's a heavier, more grounded tone than HoYoverse's existing catalog, closer to a co-op boss-rush ARPG than the anime-adjacent gacha RPGs the studio is known for.
Key details confirmed so far:
- Co-op for up to four players, with boss encounters designed to be climbed and interacted with directly rather than fought from a fixed distance
- Solo play is supported. HoYoverse has said co-op is not mandatory and most of the core content can be completed alone
- Social activities outside combat, including playing music together and visiting hot springs as a group
- PC is the only confirmed platform, with pre-registration open now at nodusfall.hoyoverse.com
- No release date, window, or public beta has been announced
The absence of a release timeline matters here. HoYoverse's own recent titles, including Zenless Zone Zero, ran multiple closed betas before launch, and rival gacha games like Wuthering Waves followed the same playbook. Nothing dated has surfaced for Nodusfall, and outlets tracking the game say it could still be years from release rather than months.
Why dropping character gacha is the real story
HoYoverse didn't build its business on cosmetics. Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, and Zenless Zone Zero all generate the bulk of their revenue from character banners, the same system Nodusfall is walking away from. Removing that layer from a HoYoverse game is a bigger swing than a new setting or a co-op focus, because it touches the part of the formula the company has never altered across three major franchises.
It also reframes what "free-to-play" can mean coming from this publisher. A cosmetic-only model, if that's what ships, puts less pressure on spending to stay competitive and removes the FOMO mechanics that character banners are built around. That framing depends on monetization details HoYoverse hasn't locked in yet.
Today's confirmation is narrow but real: no banners, no pity, no 50/50 for characters. The bigger picture, including a release window, additional platforms, and the full monetization plan, still depends on betas that haven't been scheduled. HoYoverse tested this pitch in a 30-minute hands-on room. The real test comes once a public beta puts it in front of players spending their own time and, eventually, their own money.
