Dawei Says It's "Very Un-miHoYo": One PV Splits the Anime-Game World in Two
On the opening night of Gamescom on August 26, miHoYo went first and dropped the first gameplay trailer for its new game "NODUSFALL" (源初之结). It's miHoYo's first Unreal Engine 5 realistic-fantasy multiplayer co-op title; founder Dawei himself labeled it "very un-miHoYo," confirmed there's no gacha and it's cosmetics-only monetization, and the reveal video quickly passed 260,000 views on Bilibili.
At 2 a.m. on August 26, the opening night of Gamescom, miHoYo took the stage first. When the four characters "源初之结" lit up the big screen, the barrage said only one thing: is this really miHoYo?! There was no familiar anime art style on screen — instead, darkly realistic Shan Hai Jing beasts: Qiongqi, the nine-tailed fox, and the evil dragon of Norse myth. The comment section split on the spot: one side cried "my youth is over," the other cried "it's about time they pivoted." The new game, NODUSFALL in English, is miHoYo's first realistic-fantasy multiplayer co-op title built on Unreal Engine 5. Players become "Weavers," teaming up to battle mythic behemoths and seize divine power. Gamescom debuted the first gameplay trailer, with the official site going live for pre-registration at the same time, rated 16+. The catch: the studio announced neither a release date nor platforms — but the AAA console/PC scale in the trailer was already impossible to hide. What truly lit the discussion on fire was a post from founder Dawei. He tagged the product with several labels — miHoYo's first realistic fantasy, massive boss battles, a multiplayer co-op online game — and finally stressed that it was "very un-miHoYo," sighing that "making games is still hard." A boss coming out to say his own product doesn't look like his own company: that bit of self-deprecation shot the topic straight to trending. The reveal video on Bilibili quickly passed 260,000 views, and even the producer of Stellar Blade publicly admitted he "didn't expect it at all." The second ripple hit even harder — the business model. According to PC Gamer's on-site interviews, the game will be free-to-play and long-running, with no random gacha for characters; everything unlocks through progression, and monetization leans toward cosmetics. A company that became a legend on gacha announcing "no gacha" in its new title is even more explosive than the PV itself. miHoYo's gacha has propped up the entire anime-game track; now that it's voluntarily dismantling its own moat, players are cheering and doubting at once: can it really resist squeezing money out of us? The third ripple is the anxiety across the whole anime-game industry. The 2026 market is sharply split: Perfect World's "Ananta" passed 35 million pre-registrations before launch but was criticized as "opening high and falling flat" after open beta; Hypergryph's "Arknights: Endfield" gave the market a shot in the arm; Papergames' "Love and Deepspace" returned to the top 5 of the bestseller chart in August. Top studios are all hunting for a new story, and miHoYo just switched tracks entirely — teaching everyone a lesson: the ceiling of the anime-game genre may truly have been reached. August's license approvals just released a list of 215 games — 209 domestic and 6 imported — but Tencent and NetEase's headline titles were all absent. Supply is ramping up, but demand is getting pickier. Why miHoYo? The answer is hidden in its job postings. Last November, miHoYo posted 63 UE5 realistic-fantasy positions in one go, with keywords like open world, massive boss battles, co-op, and smart NPCs. Two years of pre-production, one year of project kickoff, and trademark approval this May — step by step to Gamescom. The technical foundation built up from Genshin Impact to the Honkai series is now being bet entirely on a product that "doesn't look like itself." On-site demo feedback says the combat echoes Elden Ring and Monster Hunter, but with more room for error and a faster pace — miHoYo isn't aiming to imitate, but to industrialize "Souls + Monster Hunter." The demo already features four playable characters with heavy customization of outfits, hairstyles, and accessories; Bilibili creators stayed up all night cutting together a dozen weapon-build videos, and a "cloud-playthrough" ecosystem already exists before release. The risks are just as visible: multiplayer co-op is the hardest mode to operate, with retention, updates, and server pressure all steep; a 16+ rating abandons the underage market outright; and "no gacha" monetization has never been validated. On top of that, the realistic-action track is crowded with rivals, with Tencent and NetEase both eyeing the same meat. More than 50 Chinese companies exhibited at Gamescom, whose 368,000 attendees set a record this year — it's not just miHoYo that's grinding; it's the whole of Chinese gaming. My stance: a company daring to say "very un-miHoYo" at its peak deserves respect. The pivot might crash, but lying back counting money on Genshin Impact would certainly be more boring. "Making games is still hard" — that sigh is probably the truest footnote of the industry in 2026. So here's the question: if NODUSFALL really has no gacha and only cosmetic monetization, would you pay for it? Do you believe miHoYo can pull off this pivot? Come talk about it in the [Gghubs](https://www.gghubs.com/en/) comments.