By NTE is the no-cost anime-inspired GTA featuring tumultuous driving, grand battles, and vertical wall-running.
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Ever since Persona transformed the RPG into a delightful voyeuristic Japanese tourism simulator, I’ve had a craving for games enabling me to immerse myself in lives across the globe. Whether wandering the streets of Osaka in Yakuza or trudging through the dung-strewn fields of Kingdom Come: Deliverance’s medieval Bohemia, there’s something gratifying about picking up a controller and being immersed in another person’s existence.
However, since Persona provides a frustratingly linear Tokyo to navigate, I’ve found myself longing to lose myself in a genuinely expansive virtual city. Fortunately, it appears my oddly specific wishes have been fulfilled. Welcome to the sleek and thrilling new anime open-world RPG from Hotta Studio, NTE.
Hot-ta Go
Created by the developers of the 2021 sensation, Tower of Fantasy, NTE is a completely open-world anime brawler crafted using Unreal Engine 5. Placing players in the near-future city of Hethereau, anime-inspired characters are at liberty to roam the futuristic urban landscape as they desire. Resembling a mixture of Shanghai, Seoul, and Tokyo, Hethereau is entirely explorable in its immense grandeur – and it finally fulfills that free-form slice of life craving.
The aesthetics of Hetherau are truly breathtaking. With crisp character models animated expressively, Lumen lighting technology makes street lamps and puzzles shimmer with outstanding reflections. Notably, exploring this cityscape feels vibrantly kinetic. From sprinting through bustling plazas to enjoying coffee at a tranquil café or battling anomalies in dimly lit alleys, there’s an impressively extensive map eager to be explored. As you jump into a vehicle and collide with oncoming traffic, converse with overly enthusiastic citizens, and then venture into a portal to face off against some foes, it’s hard not to feel like you’re engaging in a Shonen Jump version of GTA.
Real-time weather keeps your time in Hethereau feeling lively – regardless of the forecast. Each time you start NTE, you never know what type of day lies ahead, with your daily escapades shifting from sun-drenched strolls across congested urban streets to speeding across town with snow-dusted windscreen wipers. It’s all surprisingly well conceptualized and immersive, with snow even impacting NPC behavior. Pedestrians leave snowy imprints as they navigate their days, and heavy snowfall genuinely brings traffic to a realistic standstill.
Anomaly of a Fall
Nevertheless, it’s not all a delightful experience here – there is an existential peril confronting humanity, after all. With individuals worldwide suddenly transformed by thick goo descending from above, a hyper vortex has corrupted and driven once-normal citizens insane, and it’s incumbent upon the authorities to attempt to contain this dreadful anomaly before it spreads. As a member of the Anomaly Control’s Containment Unit, it falls to you to help ensure the safety of the populace.
Much like the games that inspired it, there’s an indistinct boundary between everyday city life and the intense confrontations with anomalies. In NTE, the sprawling city of Hethereau sparkles with a surreal quality, effortlessly melding daily urban existence with reality-bending science fiction. Divided into two primary sections, the city’s Frontworld is a carefully structured, seamless open-world cyberpunk city where players can explore and advance the narrative, while the Backworld – as you might expect – is filled with local urban distortions caused by those troublesome supernatural anomalies.
The sunlit avenues of the Frontworld provide a pleasant contrast to the shadowy, horror-influenced confrontations that characterize the anomalies. One such segment found me wandering through a hauntingly deserted school. With its gleaming hallways vacant of life, and a throbbing crimson seeping out of the windows, these eerie areas create an intriguing atmosphere – a welcome alternative to being abruptly plunged into combat.
Regarding combat, NTE features distinct mechanics based on your character, including character-specific Critical Dodge Counterattacks and Parry Attacks, which introduce fresh dimensions of strategy and flair to enemy encounters.
Grand Theft Anime
In a Michael-Scott approved move, urban exploration includes a parkour element, enabling players to navigate the vast urban landscape by sprinting, leaping, and climbing throughout the crowded city streets. If that sounds excessively tiring, you can instead choose to simply board the subway, conversing with locals for new leads on anomaly spots, or to participate in some enjoyably quirky side quests. If parkour isn’t to your liking, you can always take to the skies, leaping onto a zipline to glide across the neon skyline and uncover hidden areas of the city.
Naturally, it wouldn’t be GTA-esque without some grand theft auto. Similar to Rockstar’s flagship franchise, vehicles in Hethereau can be commandeered under Anomaly Control’s Containment Unit (more on them later) authority through Requisition gameplay, allowing you to securely take over any vehicle if it will assist you in safeguarding the city. If, however, you overstep your bounds and…
Assault fellow citizens, and you will incite a Wanted level, with the Security Office issuing a warrant for your capture and pursuing you relentlessly. Persisting in unlawful activities will elevate your wanted level, with escalating repercussions contingent upon the gravity of your transgression. The more you endeavor to flee or the more reckless havoc you wreak, the higher the aforementioned wanted level. GTA VI, you’ve got some competition.
And if that didn’t provide enough law-breaking excitement for you, you can also collaborate with friends to engage in street racing contests, facing off against crews from diverse districts in adrenaline-fueled multiplayer races. If you’re keen on testing your driving capabilities, Hetherau’s streets are filled with swift and intense drivers, all eager to unleash their speed and assist you in trying out an array of torque-testing new vehicles. Just exercise caution in adverse weather conditions: the snow may be immersive and realistic – with snowflakes dancing in the breeze and the accumulation increasing in real-time – but rain or snow can lead to slick roads and a heightened likelihood of you dramatically veering off course.
In NTE, you become an anomaly seeker, with the game’s primary missions centering around tracking down these peculiarities. Narrative moments are accentuated with beautifully crafted cutscenes, fully embracing their anime inspirations, as cunning plot twists and turns unfold with delightful cinematic flair.
Beta Than Paradise
Whether you’re gliding through the streets in your sleek new vehicle or scaling the sides of structures, NTE impresses with its varied and feature-rich gameplay. I was genuinely astonished by the vastness of the open world, with developer Hotta Studio assuring that players will have the autonomy to shape their own fate – though it remains too early to ascertain how these decisions will ultimately unfold.
If the year-long anticipation for GTA VI has left you feeling low, and modern gacha games aren’t captivating your interest, you can always journey to Hethereau when NTE launches on PC, mobile, and PlayStation 5. The NTE beta for PC is currently available until July 16th, and you can secure your spot here.