NetEase's Ananta Gets January 15 Release Date in Memes-Packed Gamescom Trailer
NetEase has pinned a January 15 release date on Ananta, its upcoming open-world anime action-adventure, with a new gameplay trailer shown at Gamescom Opening Night Live in August 2026 GameSpot.
The roughly three-minute trailer offered the fullest look yet at the game's two open areas — Nova City and Lingyun City — and the ways players will move through them: flying car, motorbike, and skateboard. Players take the role of a single influencer whose mission is to save the world by "going viral," a premise that folds internet culture directly into the game's core loop.
That internet-culture angle extends to the trailer itself, which leaned hard on recognisable memes. A Gatsby lifting-glass reference, a Dragon Ball Z "Yamcha death" gag, and the main hero being dubbed the "yeetmaster" all appeared across the footage GameSpot. The tone signals a game that treats online joke currency as part of its identity, not just a marketing flourish.
Beyond the protagonist, Ananta will feature over 100 characters, each with their own questline, and some can be recruited as allies, according to the same trailer. The breadth of that cast points to a structure closer to a role-playing game's web of side stories than a linear action title.
The January 15 date had already surfaced before the show. A report on Vice, also published August 25, noted that the release date had leaked ahead of Gamescom, pointing to the same January 15, 2027 launch Vice. The trailer's on-screen date confirms what the leak suggested.
NetEase had teed up the Gamescom appearance the week prior, announcing on its official Facebook account that Ananta would appear at Opening Night Live and noting that the game's announcement trailer had recently been released Facebook.
For a general audience, the pitch is straightforward: an anime-styled open world you explore on a skateboard or in a flying car, a protagonist whose power is literally going viral, and a January 15 launch — now official, no longer just a leak.
