Right now I'm listening to the calming lo-fi beats of supernatural open-world RPG, Neverness to Everness. From the devs at Hotta Studios—who's previous work includes sci-fi, open-world anime game Tower of Fantasy—Neverness to Everness is another free-to-play fantasy RPG with a focus on modern life in an urban world riddled with weird and wonderful anomalies.
The game is set in the city of Hethereau: a fantasy metropolis brimming with wonders and sights that would be strange for you or I to behold, but which have become normal for this city's inhabitants. We're talking stuff like unmanned, graffiti laden skateboards flitting about at night by themselves, causing havoc. You might even spot an otter with a TV for a head as you swing, spin and ride your way across the skyline.
Yeah, this is normal for Hethereau. Just go with it.
With all this strangeness going off in the background, you're expected to go about your daily life modding sports cars, racing through the rainy streets at night, or designing the interior of your very own city penthouse.
The people of Hethereau haven't just grown to co-exist with these strange anomalies, players too have their own supernatural infusions. You'll be granted something called Esper Abilities that let you move and shape the world. These powers are used as you team up with characters for some mystery solving, boss battling fun, as you build your life in Hethereau. And there are plenty of NPCs to become pals with across the world of Neverness to Everness, too.
You'll need a good enough internet connection to be online while you play, but what's really great is that the devs have allowed cross-progression. That means you can use the same account on any of platforms you have the game on, so you can keep your character and story progress.
Neverness to Everness combines cutesy anime aesthetics with realistic scenes that boast fantastic water physics and glorious ray traced lighting. Of course, there's also Nvidia DLSS support to get it all running smoothly as you bathe in the neon reflections of nighttime in Hethereau city. The game, built in UE5, uses something called Nanite Virtualized Geometry systems which was first demoed back in 2020. It's a smart way to get extremely high-poly assets in game without all the faffing around with all that retopology that my Game Art degree was wasted spent learning.
And as much as I'd love to sit here and describe the beauty of Neverness to Everness to you, a picture speaks a thousand words (why am I even here?). You can check out the stunning visuals below to see just what Hotta Studios has been able to achieve in Unreal Engine 5, and through their partnership with Nvidia.
There's no release date for Neverness to Everness as yet, but the game is already shaping up nicely. And if the Nevernes to Everness official site is anything to go by, the UI at the very least is likely to impress. Multi-platform pre-registration for Neverness to Everness is now open, so you can join the millions of would-be players getting news and updates about this strange, sprawling metropolis ready for when it finally hits game stores.
