Petit Planet Opens 30,000 Test Slots, Rethinking Gacha Lists
HoYoverse's Petit Planet opened a 30,000-slot limited paid test on September 20 and targets a winter 2026 launch, betting on AI-driven NPC social design instead of a new character banner.
一、What was actually announced
The test: limited, paid and data-wiping
"Connection Test" runs from September 20 on PC (Windows only), iOS and Android. Sign-ups closed at midnight on September 14; qualifications started rolling out from 10 a.m. on September 19, capped at 30,000 slots on a first-come basis. Players who qualify can invite friends after completing set tasks, and those who miss out can trade for a slot by binding someone else's invitation code
The launch window and pre-registration rewards
At Gamescom's Opening Night Live on August 26, HoYoverse confirmed a winter 2026 launch. Pre-registering on the official site locks in the "Starlight Lamp" and "Little Star Sprout" cosmetic set
二、Why "best gacha games 2026" lists are getting awkward
This one has no banners
Petit Planet folds in the standard life-sim toolkit: hybrid planting that can randomly produce giant crops, interior decorating with hidden interaction easter eggs, free-form recipe cooking, and a "star cruiser" for gathering rare resources on other planets (36Kr). What it needs is fine-grained, abstract emotional feedback — precisely what HoYoverse's usual strengths, high-fidelity art and hard numeric rewards, do not deliver.
The genre is spreading out
By the traditional definition — character banners, version updates, story-driven collection — Petit Planet is not an anime-style gacha game at all. That is exactly why "best gacha games 2026" lists are losing focus: the publishers are walking out of the category. 36Kr's count of the life-sim lane includes Tencent's "Tiny Town," NetEase's "Star Painter" and Nintendo's "Tomodachi Life" successor.
三、Meanwhile, the top of the anime-style charts is brutally tight
June 2026 mobile revenue: Wuthering Waves on top
Sensor Tower's global anime-style mobile revenue ranking for June 2026, published July 1, put Wuthering Waves at roughly ¥270 million, Honkai: Star Rail at ¥235 million, Love and Deepspace at ¥222 million and Genshin Impact at ¥206 million. Arknights and Arknights: Endfield came in around ¥55.2 million and ¥60 million — about ¥115 million combined
A ¥64 million gap between No. 1 and No.
The distance between first and fourth place is roughly ¥64 million, which is a rounding error in a category this size. Squeezing more out of a banner cycle is getting harder, and that is the real reason a company would rather open a new lane than fight in the old one.
四、Which gacha games have the best story is not the question here
The first test failed at something social
In the first closed test, Petit Planet built public social spaces but players reported the same problem: meeting a stranger and having no idea what to do together. The space was decoration.
So the AI became a host, not a character
The second test's answer was to have AI NPCs gather strangers naturally. Host Ruifu's campfire zone holds up to five players at once and runs three light social games — idiom chain, story soup, story conference — without ever forcing anyone to join. When someone gets stuck, she tilts her head and offers an unexpected direction to restart the mood. A separate "meme acquisition" mode lets players type anything, and the NPC plays along: one tester claimed his rice had been eaten by ancient emperors and Ruifu asked for more of the legend
五、The risks: a paid test, AI costs, and the Animal Crossing shadow
Paying during a data-wiping test
Test purchases are open and will be refunded under set rules at launch. For a company whose reputation was built on gacha spending, the question players are asking is not whether the game is playable but how it will charge them in the first place.
AI boundaries and a crowded lane
The more freely NPCs talk, the harder cost control and content moderation become. The lane is also crowded: Tencent, NetEase and Nintendo are all in it, and no life sim escapes comparison to Animal Crossing. 36Kr's verdict on Petit Planet is that it is polished but still lacks one thing nobody else has.
六、My take: the AI is in the design layer
Generative AI drawing art or voicing NPCs is not news. What is hard is letting it take over a job that used to belong to people — social icebreaking. Ruifu's value is not that she seems more human; it is that she does the thing players least want to do themselves, which is speak first. Whether that holds at three million players instead of thirty thousand is the next question.
七、FAQ
When does Petit Planet launch?
The global launch window is winter 2026, covering PC, iOS and Android. The current Connection Test opened on September 20 and is limited, data-wiping and paid.
Can I still get a Petit Planet test slot?
Slots were capped at 30,000 and distributed first-come from 10 a.m. on September 19. Qualified players can invite friends after completing tasks; others can bind an invitation code to swap for a slot.
How is Petit Planet different from Animal Crossing?
36Kr's read is that it is polished but does not break out of HoYoverse's usual design logic; the genuine differentiator is AI-driven NPC interaction and stranger-to-stranger social systems.
八、Your call
Would you stay for an AI neighbour, or would you rather HoYoverse spent that effort on a new banner? Come discuss in the Gghubs comments.