Zenless Zone Zero. Honkai: Star Rail. Genshin Impact. You probably know HoYoverse for its signature anime-inspired aesthetic and mobile-friendly games. But the international gacha powerhouse is expanding its purview in the coming year with a slew of games that don’t neatly fit into its existing oeuvre. One of those is the monster-slaying action game Nodusfall, revealed during the 2026 Gamescom Opening Night Live showcase.
Nodusfall stood out as one of the more unexpected reveals of the show. Gone was the typical HoYo aesthetic, instead favoring a photorealistic graphics style, anchored by a visual language more reminiscent of FromSoftware’s dour, gothic vibe than anything the company has produced before. Nodusfall was described across the internet, including by this website, as a sort of “Elden Ring meets Monster Hunter” type mashup.
At a glance, sure. But after playing Nodusfall at a hands-on preview during Gamescom, I’m not totally sold on those descriptions. The Monster Hunter stuff? Yes, absolutely. But the Elden Ring comparisons seem to purely exist on a superficial level, at least according to the hour of hands-on time I spent with it.
Nodusfall hands-on gameplay is like FF16
Nodusfall is a cooperative action game for up to four players. My demo paired me with three other journalists, and we chose from Suixi, an archer; Grahmer, a dude with a giant broadsword; Qiong, another archer; and Gamescom1, your typical sword warrior class, whom I opted to play as. (I learned too late that you can rename your character.) You can also customize which abilities you bring into the field. Instead of going with a purely attack-based loadout, I opted to equip one area-of-effect healing spell. None of us chose a dedicated healer, and it was clear none of us knew what we were doing. The healing spell couldn’t hurt, I figured.
Your base in Nodusfall is a tent village situated on a wooden network of platforms on the side of a steep mountain, tucked partially into some caves. There, you can upgrade gear, interact with merchants, and get quests — which appeared to be of the “go track and hunt this giant monster” variety — from a quest board. It’s all very Monster Hunter-y, minus the cat people.
Combat is much like many other third-person action games: basic attacks, special attacks, dodges, and a unique twist on the parry that so many of you sickos have grown to love these days. But rather than pressing the right button at the right time, you charge up a heavy attack then, right when you’re about to get hit, release the button to “clash” with (i.e., parry) your attacker. You can additionally hold down the right bumper to access four equipped abilities, each tied to its own cooldown. Enacting these moves feels smooth and natural, though the hits don’t land with a ton of weight. The special attacks certainly have more flair. One character wields a flaming sword. Another turns into a flying demon and hurls giant orbs of miasma.
Our first mission, “Purge Evil Spirits,” tasked us with… purging evil spirits. After embarking from camp into the overworld, our party hopped on mounts — fantastical equine creatures who (sorry, Elden Ring fans) apparently can’t double-jump. The first evil spirit we came across was Quongqi, a 30-foot-tall gryphon with three health bars and tornado-summoning powers. As the close-combat sword wielder, I took the brunt of its focus (and quietly thanked myself for remembering to slot the healing spell into my loadout).
As we whittled its health down to about the halfway point, Quongqi ran away. We hopped back on our not-quite-horse mounts and chased after it, eventually bringing it down in the center of a dramatic subterranean lake. When playing co-op, weaken an enemy enough, and you can team up for powerful team attacks called “joint executions.” These moves are flashy as hell: In one, our party summoned a spectral giant who smashed his 30-foot battleaxe into the gryphon’s neck.
The final boss fight of the mission was against a similarly 30-foot-tall dragon named Maldrake. Also, Maldrake had a rider: the suitably named Maldrake Knight, an enormous dude who can summon a 30-foot-tall sword of light. (30 feet seems to be the standard unit of measurement in Nodusfall.) This played out much the same as the fight against Quongqi: three health bars, lots of spectacle. At one point, Maldrake Knight kicked me into the sky, then used his enormous weaponry to pile-drive me into the ground. To quote one of my party members: “That was awesome.”
Elden Ring’s boss fights obviously have flair, but are meticulous, demanding, patient affairs. Playing Nodusfall, I couldn’t help but feel like I was playing a cooperative mod for Final Fantasy 16, the divisive series entry that impressed even its biggest haters with those speculator boss fights. Summoning the giant axe-wielding spirit seemed like calling forth an Eikon from Square’s action-RPG. Maybe it’s because I was playing the most Clive Rosfield-like character in the roster, but even the basic attacks felt more like Clive’s reckless sword-swinging than like the Tarnished’s methodical expertise.
This makes sense for Nodusfall, what with its heavy emphasis on playing with other people. If combat in Nodusfall were as technical as it was in a FromSoftware game, it’s not hard to imagine how high-skilled players could get frustrated playing alongside beginners.
Nodusfall is a free-to-play game with a PvP component in the works, but it’s unclear exactly how microtransactions — which have been present in every HoYoverse game to date — will manifest here. In a press release, HoYoverse said that characters will not be obtained through randomized rolls and that additional purchases will be cosmetic in nature, but noted that it’s still fine-tuning exactly how microtransactions will appear in the game.
Nodusfall does not have a release date. HoYoverse said it will “definitely” be released on Windows PC but did not confirm other platforms.
HoYoverse provided Polygon’s flight and hotel for purposes of attending this preview. Read more about Polygon’s travel and ethics policy here.