Saroasis Studios, a subsidiary of Tencent, has unveiled Fate Trigger: The Novita, a free-to-play, anime-style tactical shooter built on Unreal Engine 5. While known for its advanced capabilities, Unreal Engine 5 has instead garnered a negative reputation for poor optimization and frequent texture popping, which may raise concerns about performance in this particular game.
Fate Trigger: The Novita is currently in development for PC, with releases planned on both Steam and the Epic Games Store. The game is also set to launch on major home consoles, including Microsoft’s Xbox Series X & S and Sony’s PlayStation 5.
In addition to these platforms, the game will be available on mobile devices for both iOS and Android. A full release is expected in 2025, but a closed alpha test will run from September 25th to the 30th, 2024.
Players interested in participating can apply through its Steam page, Discord server, or by completing a survey.
There has been increasing demand for video games that break away from the dominant trends influenced by DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) initiatives, with some players expressing a desire for games featuring more traditional, attractive female characters.
A recent example is The First Descendant, a free-to-play game from South Korean publisher NEXON. Although the game is compared to Warframe and Destiny, I found it to be simplistic and lacking in both polish and content, which is somewhat understandable given that it competes with long-established live-service games.
However, The First Descendant managed to make a splash during its release primarily due to its inclusion of attractive female characters and (monetized) revealing outfits, an element that resonated with today’s audiences.
Fate Trigger: The Novita seeks to tap into this same appeal, offering anime-style character designs with a focus on visually appealing female characters. Blending this aesthetic with the popular battle royale genre, the game draws inspiration from titles like Fortnite and Call of Duty, though it aims to stand out by catering to niche audiences.
Featuring anime “babes” and enhanced visual elements like jiggle physics, Fate Trigger: The Novita differentiates itself from its progressive and ugly mainstream stablemates, which have increasingly toned down such features due to ESG-related constraints in modern game design.
Fate Trigger: The Novita is backed by a development team of over 600, many of whom bring extensive experience from working on successful mobile shooters like Call of Duty Mobile, PUBG Mobile, and Apex Legends Mobile. These titles, all outsourced Chinese-made versions of popular battle royale games, have been financially successful, and the developers aim to leverage this expertise in Fate Trigger: The Novita.
The game combines traditional battle royale mechanics with unique hero abilities, allowing up to 100 players to battle on a large, vertical floating island. Supported by a gliding system, players can traverse the environment while engaging in tactical gameplay. Each hero possesses distinct abilities, some can create pixel-based fortresses for defense, while others manipulate elemental powers like water or mist to gain a strategic edge over opponents.
Set in a world once a thriving city, now a floating battlefield, players take part in the secret “Novita Project,” led by a mysterious organization called “The Eye of Arkai.” Players are tasked with leveraging both tactical shooting skills and special abilities to outlast their opponents in dynamic team-based gameplay.
The game features a variety of strategic elements, such as weapon enhancement tables to boost damage or special skills, gliders, and teleportation gates to navigate the battlefield effectively. This blend of mechanics emphasizes strategy, coordination, and mastery of both firearms and abilities​ combined with flashy animations unanimous with anime-style games.
Fate Trigger: The Novita will follow a free-to-play model, with monetization focused solely on cosmetic items. As is typical for games in this genre, the developers have emphasized that no gameplay-affecting content will be locked behind a paywall.
Players will have the option to purchase a battle pass and cosmetic items such as dynamic weapon skins and alternate character outfits which will be aggressively marketed with FOMO.
Users can open their wallets for a battle pass as well as various skins to change the looks of their weapons and characters with dynamic weapon skins and alternate character outfits. From my point of view, visually speaking the game looks rather simplistic and outdated, but considering how it’s designed not just for PCs but mobile devices with the ability for cross-platform multiplayer I can forgive it for appearing bland.
Fate Trigger: The Novita feels like a blend of Fortnite and Call of Duty: Warzone, entering a market already saturated with battle royale-style games. However, unlike its competitors, this game unapologetically caters to male gamers with its cute, visually appealing character designs, enhanced by exaggerated animations like bouncing breasts and buttocks.
Thanks to its availability on multiple platforms with cross-play support, the game is poised to achieve moderate success upon release.
From a visual standpoint, the game may appear somewhat simplistic and outdated. However, considering its cross-platform design allowing play on both PCs and mobile devices this compromise in visual fidelity is understandable to ensure consistency across all platforms.
While it remains uncertain how well the game will perform in Western regions, it’s likely to find a significant audience in the Eastern hemisphere. Many players there might appreciate a competitive game reminiscent of Fortnite, without the more child-orientated, commercialized approach seen in other titles.
Instead, Fate Trigger embraces a more adult aesthetic, appealing to gamers seeking something different from the usual battle royale formula.
If you’re particularly interested you should stay up to date with Fate Trigger: The Novita by following them on Twitter and likely rummaging through video uploads of the closed alpha gameplay over the next few weeks.
