Global release
Honkai: Nexus Anima release date
No release date has been announced for Honkai: Nexus Anima. It is confirmed for PC and iOS and Android.
Platforms
Honkai: Nexus Anima ships simultaneously on 3 platforms: PC, iOS, Android. A single launch across PC, console and mobile means all three audiences arrive on day one.
Monetisation
Free-to-play with gacha, seen in the Evolution Test build
What we know so far
HoYoverse’s first creature collector
The studio behind Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail and Zenless Zone Zero moving into creature collection for the first time. Players travel a world of Anima, bond with them, name them and photograph them. Hands-on previews of the Evolution Test named creatures such as Cublade and Mimoo. Alongside them fight playable human characters called Eidoses, including Blade from Honkai: Star Rail.
The battles run themselves, the preparation does not
Fights resolve automatically. Gamereactor’s hands-on put the player’s remaining control precisely: the only live input is choosing when a companion’s special fires, once its gauge has filled. Everything else is decided beforehand, in the composition and the placement. Ranged Anima belong at the back, shielded ones at the front.
Two axes: Aspects and Traits
Every Anima carries one Aspect and one Trait. Aspects are the type system, with names drawn from paired concepts such as Light and Dark, Love and Hate, Beauty and Ugliness, plus War, Memory, Reality and Strength. Fielding several Anima of the same Aspect grants a team bonus. Traits are the combat archetype: Striker, Protector, Blaster, Mastermind and others.
Why the Anima exist at all
A Nexus is an unseen bond linking opposing concepts, love and hate, light and darkness, reality and illusion. The Honkai shattered it, and the broken fragments were reborn as creatures charged with elemental energy. That is the premise the whole collection loop rests on.
Beta test history
No release date has been announced. The clearest signal of how far along the game is remains its public testing schedule.
- 2025.09.17 Nexus Bond Test
Ran 17 to 23 September 2025 on PC and iOS only, with no Android version. Sign-ups had opened with the game’s reveal on 29 August and closed on 12 September. Selected players were emailed on 15 September, and all progress was wiped at the end.
- 2026.07.09 Evolution Test
Ran 9 to 27 July 2026 on PC, Android and iOS. A closed test that took no payments and wiped all progress at the end. It added characters, Anima, regions, story content and gameplay systems, and it is the build every published hands-on preview is based on.
Announcement timeline
Everything HoYoverse has officially announced about the launch, oldest first. Reports and leaks stay on the news page, labelled as such.
- 2025.08.29 Announced as HoYoverse’s first creature collector
Revealed with a teaser and an in-game footage video, alongside sign-ups for a first closed test. The premise was set out then and has not changed: a Nexus links opposing concepts, the Honkai shattered it, and the fragments became the Anima you collect.
- 2025.09.17 Nexus Bond Test, the first closed test, runs on PC and iOS
The first test ran from 17 to 23 September 2025, on PC and iOS only: there was no Android version. Sign-ups had opened with the reveal on 29 August and closed on 12 September, and selected players were emailed on 15 September. All progress was wiped at the end, as it would be again in the second test.
- 2026.07.09 Evolution Test goes live on PC, Android and iOS
A limited, non-paying closed beta, with places drawn by lottery from the applicants. It added characters, Anima, regions, story content and gameplay systems over the first test. This is the build that produced the published requirements and the first real gameplay impressions.
- 2026.07.27 Evolution Test ends, all progress wiped
The second closed test closed after eighteen days. Nothing carried over: no account, no roster, no rewards. HoYoverse has announced no third test since, and no release date. Every hands-on preview you can read today describes this build.
What we will publish at launch
The full database, item lists and a tier list built from live player data, published the same day the servers open, straight from the game files.
Sources
- Honkai: Nexus Anima (Wikipedia)
- How to sign up for the Honkai: Nexus Anima closed beta test (Forbes)
- Honkai Nexus Anima closed beta test results emailed out to winners (Game8)
- Honkai: Nexus Anima announces Nexus Bond closed beta test for iOS and PC (GamingonPhone)
- Honkai: Nexus Anima Evolution PC and mobile closed beta sign-ups start (Siliconera)
- Bonded by Anima, official site (HoYoverse)
- HoYoverse announces closed Evolution Test for Honkai: Nexus Anima on July 9 (Inven Global)
This page is updated whenever HoYoverse confirms new details. Nothing here is speculation.