I guess Honkai: Nexus Anima won’t be a straight Pokémon clone then

Well, if you were expecting a Genshin Impact or Zenless Zone Zero-looking Pokémon clone, you might have to look elsewhere. New leaks out of the upcoming Honkai: Nexus Anima point to another genre the game will be taking on: autochess.

The new leaks show off characters and a single screenshot of the game. There’s no other information as of yet, but from what I can gauge is that the auto chess bit will presumably take the place of the turn-based battling in Pokémon. Other screenshots show characters walking around cities and a big school or academy-like place.

One character has bread for a head. That’s about as much as I can give you from that. We also have no idea how the gacha elements will work, because surely you can’t start locking up units behind the gacha paywall, right?

The reaction has, of course, been mixed. In a thread on Reddit, one user quoted two differing opinions as soon as auto chess was brought up, claiming it to be the duality of man.

If you’ve been keeping up with the MiHoYo games, Nexus Anima shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Both Genshin Impact and Zenless Zone Zero have had middling auto chess affairs as special events, which I’m speculating might have been a backdoor way to test for Nexus Anima.

So what is autochess? Let me briefly break it down for you

Using a chess-like board, you plonk down various units across different rounds in an attempt to block damage coming your way. Everything on the board is automated, but you’ll be able to build into different strategies and upgrade pieces between rounds.

There’s been a handful of auto chess games, and eventually, that’s morphed into autobattlers. These have become strategy games, card games, and other genres, but they all stem from Dota 2. In 2019, a mod for Dota 2 called Dota Auto Chess was released and was quickly picked up by Valve to become Dota Underlords, a separate game. That was then followed by Teamfight Tactics and Auto Chess, with Teamfight Tactics pretty much being the top dog right now.

This is really just a way for me to tell you to check out The Bazaar

One that has captured my attention most recently is The Bazaar, but that’s an entirely different kettle of fish. It’s a card game with rogue-like elements that integrates with the wider multiplayer in the game. I’ve sunk nearly 30 hours into it just in the last week. I like seeing my machinations come together, as I chomp down on my cigar (biscuit) like a member of the A-Team.