Footage and screenshots believed to come from a closed test of HoYoverse’s next major project have surfaced online. The open-world title appears to be called Nodusfall and is built on Unreal Engine 5, a notable technical shift for a company whose previous games have all used Unity.
The leaked material shows a dark fantasy setting with combat that emphasizes weapon weight and stamina management. Boss encounters look large in scale and have drawn early comparisons to Monster Hunter-style hunts, where positioning, timing, and resource management matter more than pure action-RPG combo strings. Multiple videos shared on social media capture players moving through outdoor environments and engaging groups of enemies as well as bigger single targets.
Trademarks for the name Nodusfall were filed earlier this year. Reports of HoYoverse working on a fantasy MMO date back to at least November 2025, when the project was still referred to by the internal codename Genesis. Those earlier rumors also mentioned ambitions around AI systems, including an "Artificial Intelligence Stimulated Ecosystem," All-Terrain Battle AI, and more reactive “Intellectual NPCs.” It is not yet clear how many of those ideas have survived into the current build.
HoYoverse, the global publishing brand of miHoYo, is best known for Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, and Zenless Zone Zero. All three are built in Unity and follow variations of the gacha live-service model. Nodusfall would represent the studio’s first major step into a traditional MMO structure and its first high-profile use of Unreal Engine 5. Whether the game will still incorporate gacha monetization, operate on a free-to-play basis, or take a different commercial approach remains unknown.
The combat direction visible in the leaks suggests a deliberate move away from the faster, more fluid action of Genshin Impact or Zenless Zone Zero. Heavier weapons, stamina constraints, and large boss arenas point toward slower, more deliberate encounters that reward preparation and teamwork. If the Monster Hunter comparisons hold, group coordination and learning attack patterns will likely sit at the center of the endgame.
Leaked test footage should always be treated with some caution. Builds used in closed tests can change significantly before any public reveal, and visual quality, UI, and systems are often incomplete. Still, the volume of clips and the consistency of the art direction and combat feel across different uploads give the material more weight than a single isolated screenshot.
HoYoverse has not issued a public statement on the leak. The company tends to keep unannounced projects tightly controlled until it is ready for a formal trailer or closed beta announcement. The appearance of playable footage suggests the game has reached a stage where internal or external testers are running substantial sessions, which usually happens only after core movement, combat, and world systems are at least partially functional.
For a studio that has built its reputation on highly polished single-player-adjacent live-service games, an MMO is a different challenge. Persistent worlds, large-scale multiplayer infrastructure, and long-term content pipelines require different expertise than the more session-based design of Genshin or Star Rail. The decision to move to Unreal Engine 5 may be partly motivated by the tools and networking features the engine provides for that kind of project.
The dark fantasy tone also stands apart from the brighter, anime-influenced aesthetic that defines most of HoYoverse’s current lineup. Early visuals lean toward muted colors, heavier armor, and more oppressive environments. If that direction survives, Nodusfall could attract players who have enjoyed the studio’s character work and production values but wanted a different mood and combat pace.
More footage and details are likely to appear as the leak spreads. Until HoYoverse chooses to address the project directly, the closed-test material offers the clearest look yet at what the company is building next. A Unreal Engine 5 open-world MMO with weighty combat and large-scale boss fights is a notable departure from the studio’s existing catalog. How fully that vision survives the remaining development cycle will determine whether Nodusfall becomes HoYoverse’s next major franchise or a shorter-lived experiment.
For now the leaked videos and screenshots are the only public evidence. They show a game that looks and plays differently from anything the studio has released so far, running on a new engine and aimed at a style of multiplayer action that HoYoverse has never attempted at this scale.
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