Tower of Fantasy developers announce they’re gutting the gacha

No, I’m not making it up. Tower of Fantasy is genuinely a real name for a video game. It’s not the most popular gacha game on the planet, but it has clearly done well enough to reach “Version 5.1”. It’s also lasted far longer than some other live-servicey games recently.

Tower of Fantasy is a real mish-mash of everything that made Genshin Impact good, with ideas pulled straight from it and getting downright weird. I’ve not touched the game since its launch, where I found it to be too much of a mess to warrant my time, but now it has mech combat? Maybe I should go back in.

It’s also a gacha game, with all the trappings of the genre. That includes multiple unique characters you’ll be spending hundreds of dollars on at just the chance to acquire them.

However, the Chinese branch of the game is undergoing a massive shift. All the gacha elements are being stripped out, and from the surface, it looks like they’re just going to be making an MMO. This won’t replace the main game, but instead sit alongside it.

Tower of Fantasy introduces “Warped Servers” in China

In a bizarrely frank announcement for a video game in 2025, developers Hotta Studio break down its new shift. Or, as described by someone on Reddit:

“[Tower of Fantasy] has been in “f*ck it, we ball” phase for a while now.”

This is being dubbed the “Warped Server” and is set for an August release. It’ll be stripping out its weapon gacha and “matrix gacha systems”. These Matrices are items used to improve weaponry, something you’d find in loot from enemies in any other normal action roleplaying game. In the developer’s own words:

“No more endless battles with RNG or price tags.”

Alongside this, they’ll be making the following changes to weapons, which will now be free, to enhance this new direction:

“From day one, six powerful weapons (including popular loadouts and characters) will be freely distributed.
More weapons can be unlocked through daily logins, not purchases.
Even fashion items, premium cosmetics, and mounts will be made available through gameplay events.”

Hotta Studio even summarises it as:

“In short: No red nucleus. No pulling. No cost. Just play.”

Any older cosmetics also appear to be coming back to the game as items in shops that you’ll “collect shards” to craft them yourself.

Wait, there’s more to the Tower of Fantasy update: Player trading and seasonal content

Here’s the bit where I sound like a TV shopping voice over, because there is indeed more. Outside of the stripping of the money machine, Tower of Fantasy is really leaning into that new MMO theming. There’s going to be player trading, with a Trade House and Auction House, some of the most popular aspects of the genre.

Hotta doesn’t appear to be putting much of a limit on the trading either, saying that they’d like the game to become a “first real “side-hustle” anime MMO for young players.” Which is a little grim if you think about it for more than five seconds. The studio is even playing to “gold farmers”, hinting that even basic currency could be player-controlled. What is this, EVE Online?

Tower of Fantasy will also be taking inspiration from games like World of Warcraft, where they run on a seasonal basis. Any gear or levels will reset on a scheduled basis, which Hotta says allows players to jump in almost any time. Of course, seasonal models mean seasonal content, like “limited time skins, cosmetics, and exclusive ranking titles.”

It’ll also make it easier for newer players to catch up, boosting their level in group play and increasing any rewards if you complete quests as a group. Social aspects appear to be a major focus this time around, which leads into Hotta introducing guild bases, co-op activities (they point out dancing, which is very funny to me), and “real-time combat bonding”.

You won’t be canoodling or talking about how you feel about your parents, but pulling together to do “Team Ultimate Skills”, which is basically just a quick-time event.

The developers have seen a gap in the market

So, why are they shifting Tower of Fantasy to an MMO? Well, Hotta claims it’s because there’s a gap in the market for a “true anime-style MMO.” They’re not wrong, as most anime-themed games that come out these days are either fighting games, gacha, or for some reason, Dark Souls clones.

There was a game called Blue Protocol that got canned by Bandai Namco, and has been resurrected for mobile and PC as Blue Protocol: Star Resonance by Tencent, which appears to be keeping some of the MMO elements and scaling back its scope a little bit.

Tower of Fantasy has always been weird, so at least it’s getting even weirder with itself by strip mining the gacha out of it.