HoYoverse’s next live-service entry, Honkai: Nexus Anima, has drawn positive impressions from hands-on beta play – blending auto-battler tactics with creature catching in a way that largely works – but the game is planned for release on Android, iOS, and PC, with no PS5 port announced, as reported by CGMagazine and Push Square.
Here’s the context: Nexus Anima sits inside HoYoverse’s expanding Honkai universe and brings the studio’s auto-battler experimentation into a full standalone game. The company has incorporated auto-battler elements across limited-time modes in Honkai: Star Rail, Genshin Impact, and Zenless Zone Zero, and Nexus Anima builds an entire game around the genre. The closed beta – referred to as the Nexus Bond Test – ran on PC and mobile and gave players enough content to evaluate both the combat system and the creature-collection loop.
Honestly, the more interesting story here isn’t whether the auto-battler is fun – by most accounts it is – but what HoYoverse’s platform silence means for console players. The absence of even a placeholder PS5 mention for Nexus Anima is notable. Push Square noted that, given the popularity of HoYoverse’s various other titles on console – including Honkai: Star Rail, which has seen strong success on Sony’s platform – a PlayStation release would not be surprising, but nothing has been confirmed. That said, Push Square also flagged that Nexus Anima feels more deliberately mobile-oriented than Star Rail or Zenless Zone Zero did at comparable stages, leaving the question of a console port genuinely open.
On the gameplay itself: the auto-battler structure asks players to build a team of Anima – the game’s creature roster – and deploy them across a field, where they fight automatically while the player manages team composition, type synergies, and positioning. Frontline units absorb damage; backline creatures buff or heal. Players can also activate special abilities mid-battle, so there is genuine input during fights rather than pure spectating.
The creature designs are largely strong, with standouts including a boxing-gloved egg and a unicorn whose appeal CGMagazine’s Matt Sowinski found undeniable. The beta build only included evolutions for a handful of Anima – one example, Cublade, requires hitting level 20, defeating three Nexus Battle experts, and winning three battles using five strength aspects – which is an encouraging design direction, though whether the full roster will have comparable evolution paths remains an open question.
The gacha structure draws more scrutiny. Players pull for both Anima and Eidoses – the human companions, or trainers, who attach to specific creatures and add extra abilities to a squad. Each Eidos can slot only one of three abilities per battle and grants a bonus when paired with its linked Anima. Push Square’s preview drew a direct comparison to weapon banners in Genshin Impact: the best endgame teams are likely to be gated behind specific pulls rather than determined by how well you’ve hunted and raised creatures in the wild.
That tension sits at the core of the game’s identity problem. Nexus Anima is clearly trying to replicate the attachment players feel toward their party in creature-catcher games, but the beta paces collection so aggressively – handing over large numbers of Anima quickly – that the reviewer’s squad ended up optimised around star ratings rather than personal preference. The creatures with lower pull rates get left behind, which undercuts the genre’s central emotional hook. More time with the full release may soften this friction, but it’s a structural concern that tuning alone may not resolve.
The narrative is a genuine surprise. The opening hours dump terminology and proper nouns at a pace that both previews found disorienting – a person with toast for a head figures prominently in the early minutes, which is either a good sign or a warning depending on your tolerance for HoYoverse’s lore density. Once the game settles into its haunted-school arc, it introduces time travel as a core mechanic: players can push forward to a bad outcome or farm enough points to unlock alternate paths and branching story possibilities. For a genre-blending gacha, that’s a more ambitious narrative structure than the format usually attempts.
Presentation is not a concern. Both previews aligned on this: Honkai: Nexus Anima is visually dense and maximalist in a way that fits the creature-catcher genre. Character models are detailed, cutscenes are loud and kinetic, and the world design packs in enough colour and activity that exploration feels genuinely rewarding. Push Square’s reviewer tested the title on an iPad Mini and found it played well in both long sessions and short bursts, which suggests the mobile-first design philosophy is intentional rather than a constraint.
What remains unclear is whether PS5 is in the roadmap at all. The game is confirmed for release on Android, iOS, and PC at a later date, with no console version announced. Push Square noted that the auto-battler format is present on PS5 in other titles and that the DualSense could accommodate Nexus Anima‘s control scheme without significant redesign – but also flagged that the game feels more deliberately mobile-oriented than Star Rail or Zenless Zone Zero did at comparable stages. HoYoverse is sophisticated enough about revenue streams to have weighed whether a PS5 port earns its development cost, and the studio has not yet signalled its intentions either way.
What to watch: The Nexus Bond Test was designed to collect player feedback, and HoYoverse will be weighing that input as it moves toward a release date. The gacha tuning and Anima evolution breadth are the two design questions that will define whether the full release delivers on what the beta suggests is a genuinely distinct entry in HoYoverse’s portfolio.
Are you tracking Honkai: Nexus Anima ahead of its release, and does the absence of a PS5 version factor into whether you plan to play it? Let us know below.
