Formerly titled Project Mugen, Naked Rain’s newest game, Ananta, has received its first gameplay trailer, which reveals something fans have been eager to find out since its initial reveal in August 2023. In an interview with IGN early in the game’s development, Ash Qi, Lead Producer of Ananta (Project Mugen at the time), described that the primary inspiration for the game was Activision’s Prototype games, specifically its main character’s ability and its similarities to the Venom Symbiote from Marvel’s Spider-Man. With the release of Ananta’s gameplay trailer just two days ago, however, we now know that the team at Naked Rain has brought in far more than just the Prototype series in terms of inspiration.
Even before gameplay similarities, in terms of art direction, Ananta shares a striking resemblance to miHoYo’s Zenless Zone Zero with its quirky, over-the-top cartoony, bouncy, and vibrant visual style, and hyper-excentric cast of characters. Despite the heavily anime art style, Ananta is an open-world game set in a big city, and as such, the resemblance that comes to mind immediately from shots of Nova City is Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto. In the trailer, we see a small tab rise from the bottom left corner of the screen, showing a cast of unlocked and locked characters. As the player goes on to select one of them, the camera flies up, giving us a bird’s-eye view of Nova City. This sequence pays homage to the in-game character selection window and loading screen present in Grand Theft Auto 5. As the scene continues and we follow the new character that was selected, the player gains control while they are in the middle of driving, which is another homage, as this same phenomenon occurs in GTA 5’s story mode, further strengthening the connection Naked Rain wants the viewer to make between the Grand Theft Auto series and Ananta.
Ananta’s beat-em-up style of combat displayed throughout the gameplay trailer shows striking similarities to that of Insomniac’s Spider-Man games. In the trailer, we see the player character grab hold of a distant enemy and rush toward them with a stretchy, venom symbiote-like arm. Though Qi specifically highlighted the Prototype games as the inspiration for this venom-like tendril arm that the main character has, this action looks nearly identical to when black suit Spider-Man web-zips toward an enemy in Insomniac’s Spider-Man 2. This connection is then reinforced by an extended sequence at the end of the trailer where we see our main character talking on the phone while swinging by his stretchy alien appendage, akin to moments in the Insomniac Spider-Man games where you are in the middle of web-swinging while Peter or Miles casually holds a conversation with somebody on the phone.
In Ananta, “the name of the game is bolstering your team, not your own reputation.” You’ll play several roles throughout your time in Nova City, experiencing them through the shoes of multiple different characters. Police officers tasked with bringing justice to the city’s daily crime, hackers with the power to bathe the city in darkness at the press of a button, and even an underground slap boxing champion are recruitable and playable in this open world adventure. Naked Rain is notably taking inspiration from Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs series here, with the concept of anyone being playable, as the statement, ‘even a random elderly lady on the street could be a hacker,’ was prevalent due to Watch Dogs: Legion’s inclusion of this very same feature.
The team at Naked Rain’s use of so many obvious homages and inspirations to other famous preexisting series’ in Ananta‘s gameplay debut has not been to their detriment so far. Ananta has managed to forge its own identity thanks to the colorful cast of characters and serious-looking protagonist that we see interact throughout the trailer within snippits of gameplay and pre-rendered cutscene footage. The developers have managed to separate the game from its inspirations, which works to express exactly where the game’s roots lie and sets fan expectations and excitement simultaneously.