Dev looks at every hit open-world game from the past 10 years and decides to do all of them at once, creating anime GTA where you’re Spider-Man and also it’s Yakuza with a bunny girl

Project Mugen, now rebranded as Ananta, was introduced as an anime variation of Grand Theft Auto when it was unveiled in 2023. After viewing its fresh and prolonged gameplay trailer, I believe labeling it as anime GTA isn’t truly doing it justice. This appears as if every significant open-world game from the last decade was mixed in a blender, spread onto a sheet tray, dehydrated in an oven, and subsequently donned as a leathery mask.

In seven exhilarating minutes filled with pop music, street skirmishes, gunfights, vehicular destruction, and social media parodies, Ananta strips away layer after layer to expose various open-world games that have been seamlessly integrated into it like intertwined DNA. The publisher, NetEase, describes it as an open-world RPG, which might be technically correct, but only in the manner that an entire pot roast with two slices of bread on either side is technically categorized as a sandwich.

GTA remains likely the most significant reference point. Our protagonist – one among multiple characters who supposedly will not be allocated by a long-expected gacha system, as stated by Famitsu, which mentions microtransactions for customization items solely – sneaks through air ducts, observes targets, and speeds through a metropolis on sports vehicles and motorcycles.

At one juncture, he retrieves his phone to have the game switch over to other operatives – the clearest GTA similarity outside the clothing store – which consist of a bunny girl named Taffy and a dragon girl called Richie. The dragon girl apprehends a woman on the street, and in another scene tags along some apparent miscreants through a park beside another officer. One perspective transition carries us to a helicopter sniper’s post as she eliminates the agents threatening our main character.

In a series of interconnected scenes, our lead, a captain “from the ACD task force,” swings through the urban environment on black tentacles that draw little attention, as if possessing Spider-Man or Venom abilities is entirely normal. In combat, he strikes foes Yakuza style with a blend of fists and objects, delivering tennis racket justice. Occasionally, he retrieves an RPG, a machine gun, a grenade, or a flamethrower.

There’s a first-person driving segment, an extended web-swinging sequence equipped with similar diving and zipline animations as observed in Marvel’s Spider-Man, and then a gigantic robotic creature emerges, suddenly we find ourselves steering a firetruck from a third-person viewpoint. It is an exhilarating trailer, and I feel as though I’ve acquired a wealth of knowledge about the gameplay while still being uncertain how it will feel to interact with this game or if all these elements genuinely mesh, akin to attempting to drink from a firehose.

In October 2023,

we conversed with the developers of Ananta to inquire how on earth this game operates, since expansive, promising, yet ambiguous aspects have been a recurring motif in its trailers. We received some valuable responses at the time, but presently I would like to pose a few additional inquiries.

Here’s one: why is this average-looking fellow merely Spider-Man? And why would I select anyone who isn’t Spider-Man when he is available? Because they’re a dragon girl? I mean, perhaps?

Here’s one query I can respond to: Ananta is arriving on PC, PS5, and mobile. Pre-registration is available here.

GTA 5’s Trevor actor feels “nothing within” for GTA 6 and advises players to go “read Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment,” while Franklin’s actor exclaims “f*** that book”.

Austin has been a gaming journalist for 12 years, having contributed to outlets like PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and others while completing his journalism degree. He’s been part of GamesRadar+ since 2019. They have yet to understand that his role is a guise for his extensive Destiny column, and he’s maintained the illusion with plenty of news and the occasional feature, all while indulging in as many roguelikes as possible.