NTE: Neverness to Everness Review: A Sprawling City with a Rough Launch

NTE: Neverness to Everness is the clearest sign yet that Hotta Studio wants a second hit after Tower of Fantasy, and it swings for something different: not another floating-island fantasy, but a dense, rain-slicked urban open world called Hethereau, stuffed with side activities and built around a gacha economy. We spent our time with the global release across PC and mobile to see whether the ambition holds up once the marketing trailers stop playing.

The essentials: an urban sandbox, not a theme park

NTE launched in China on April 23, 2026, with the global rollout following on April 29 for PS5, Windows PC, Mac, iOS, and Android, all sharing progression through full cross-platform play. That alone is a statement of intent — this isn't a mobile-first game with a PC port bolted on, it's built to be played anywhere you happen to be.

The setting is Hethereau, a supernatural metropolis rather than the sprawling wilderness most open-world gacha games default to. Where a game like Genshin Impact leans on puzzle-laden exploration and vistas, NTE leans into sandbox systems: you can drive cars, race other players, fish, manage properties, and stack a genuinely wide menu of mini-games on top of the main combat and story loop. It's less "go climb that mountain" and more "here's a city, go find something to do in it" — and there's a lot to do.

The experience: combat that works, systems that overwhelm (in a good way)

Combat borrows the same real-time action framework Hotta Studio built its name on: elemental weapon-switching, dodge-and-counter timing, and boss encounters that reward reading attack patterns rather than just stacking damage. It's competent and occasionally flashy, but it doesn't feel like a generational leap over what the studio shipped in Tower of Fantasy — if you've played that game, NTE's combat will feel familiar rather than revelatory.

Where NTE actually distinguishes itself is in how much else is layered on top. The city genuinely rewards aimless wandering — there's always another vendor, another race, another odd character with a fishing rod who wants something from you. For players who burn out on gacha games because the open world is just padding between story beats, Hethereau's density is the strongest argument in the game's favor.

On the monetization side, NTE has been notably more generous at launch than several recent major releases in the genre. Free currency and character pulls come at a healthier clip than the genre's reputation would suggest, which matters a lot for a game asking players to invest dozens of hours before judging whether it's "worth it."

The limits: reception, polish, and a trust problem

Steam user reviews sit at roughly 83% positive across several thousand ratings, which is solid but noticeably behind the launch reception of genre heavyweights like Zenless Zone Zero, Wuthering Waves, or Arknights: Endfield. That gap tracks with what we saw in practice: performance hitches on lower-end hardware, UI moments that feel unfinished, and a general sense that the game needed a few more months in the oven.

More damaging than any of that is the confirmed use of generative AI in some of the game's content ahead of launch. Hotta Studio addressed the issue and removed the offending material, but the fact it shipped at all — in a genre where players already scrutinize asset quality closely — has left a mark on how much benefit of the doubt the studio gets going forward. It's not a gameplay-breaking issue, but it's a trust issue, and those don't resolve as quickly as a patch note.

Who it's for

If you want an open world you can genuinely get lost in — cars, fishing rods, side hustles and all — and you're coming in with reasonable expectations about combat depth, NTE delivers more content per hour than most of its competitors. If you're chasing best-in-class combat mechanics or a spotless launch, look elsewhere in the genre first, or wait for a content update or two to see how Hotta Studio responds to the early criticism.

Gacha veterans burned by stingy free-to-play economies will also appreciate that NTE isn't trying to squeeze players from day one — it's playable and generous enough to judge on its merits before spending a dime.

Verdict

NTE: Neverness to Everness is an ambitious, activity-packed open-world RPG that mostly delivers on the "sandbox city" pitch, even if its combat doesn't reinvent what Hotta Studio already built with Tower of Fantasy. A generous economy and a genuinely dense world carry it a long way, but rough launch polish and the generative-AI controversy hold it back from the top tier of its genre. It's a promising, uneven start rather than an immediate classic — worth playing, worth watching closely as it updates.

Rating: 7.2/10 — Promising and content-rich, but not yet polished enough to lead the pack.