Hvorfor Nodusfall, et nytt ARPG fra eiere av Genshin Impact, kan være et bra spill

HoYoverse announced Nodusfall at Gamescom Opening Night Live on 25 August 2026, and the Genshin Impact studio is building it as a free-to-play four-player co-op monster hunt on PC.

There is no release date, no platform list beyond PC, and no gacha banner for characters. Three hands-on previews from Gamescom describe the same core: a dark fantasy world, a fixed squad of four roles, bosses carrying several health bars each, and fights that ask for coordination without punishing a sloppy first attempt. The open questions are about everything around those fights.

You play a Weaver in a world where the authority of the gods has broken down and order went with it. The monsters come from mythologies across the planet rather than one canon. The demo lineup showed the range: the Cleaver Fellstone opens as a slow warm-up act, the Qiongqi is a horned winged lion out of Chinese myth, and the Maldrake is a dragon. The art direction is darker and closer to post-apocalyptic than anything the studio has shipped (via IGN).

Every outlet reached for Elden Ring. Eurogamer said the grime and the dingier realism read as FromSoftware, and PC Gamer described the reveal trailer as Elden Ring's clothes on Monster Hunter. The look carries that weight. The systems do not. Players who picked up Elden Ring on Switch 2 will recognise the palette and little else once a fight starts.

Combat runs on light and heavy attacks, a stamina bar, and a gauge that basic hits fill and a stronger attack empties. Dodges are quick and the fights reward pressure instead of patience. One hands-on preview argued against the soulslike label on that basis: real combos rather than a handful of animations on repeat, and abilities you spend on rotation rather than save for emergencies.

The sources disagree on how many abilities a character gets. Beebom's August roundup counted five, four skills plus a divine ability. A September preview counted four unique abilities on cooldowns, plus a secondary move. IGN's 22 September hands-on counted three abilities and one ultimate. That account is the most recent of the three, and the builds shown between Gamescom and the later preview event may not have matched.

Four characters were playable, two melee and two ranged, with a healing option on each side. One preview squad ran a fire-sword duellist who banked charges for heavier burning attacks, an archer, a healer who doubled as a mage, and a greatsword tank who later turned into a giant. The archer in the other hand carried a mechanical arm, a bomb arrow that detonated on later hits, a backward-leaping dodge shot, and a spirit wolf that only bit at close range, which meant dashing in and dashing straight back out.

Bosses have one health bar per phase and a stagger meter split into three sections. Hits fill it, the boss opens up once it is full, and the bar drains again if the squad backs off. Downed players get picked up mid-fight, or respawn outside the arena and run back in. One group wiped on the Qiongqi, which took to the air where half their kit was useless and seeded the floor with red orbs that drained health until someone sprinted across the arena to clear them.

The two hands-on accounts differ on the Maldrake. One noticed human arms pushing out of the dragon's chest early, then watched a knight tear itself free of the torso midway through, killing the dragon on the way out. In the other, the Maldrake arrived with the knight already riding it, and the knight stabbed the dragon late to drain what was left of its life. Both versions end in the same place: a fast sword and polearm duellist replaces a slow dragon, and every pattern the squad spent ten minutes learning stops working.

Staggering a boss for the last time triggers a shared execution. One squad finished the Qiongqi with a ghostly giant bringing an axe down on its neck, and the game scored each player's contribution once the fight ended. Damage numbers per player, in a co-op game with fixed roles, tend to shape how squads behave more than any tutorial does.

Both squads rode horses to the arena instead of loading into it. One writer got distracted by the scenery, took a wrong turn, and had to double back to catch the group. I want to know what that ride turns into more than I want to know the name of the next boss, because a monster hunt with a dead world between the hunts is a menu with extra steps.

Monetization is the part HoYoverse has answered, and the answer runs against the studio's own habit. Characters are unlocked by playing rather than by pulling, according to PC Gamer.

"What we can share at this time is that characters are not obtained through random draws. We hope to allow players to unlock this core gameplay experience through continued play."

— HoYoverse

The Gamescom build let players change outfits, hairstyles and accessories on all four characters, which points at where the money will sit. Beyond that, HoYoverse has shared nothing about pricing or a storefront.

I play co-op with one other person far more often than with three strangers, and a party built around a tank, a healer, and two damage dealers is a harder sell at a kitchen table than a drop-in game with loose roles. Voice chat is built in, which helps a squad of four and does nothing for a duo. The game is PvE for now, and the team has said PvP is something it is looking at later.

Nodusfall sits inside a slate that has grown fast. The Honkai: Nexus Anima Evolution test ran its closed beta across Android, iOS and PC in July. HoYoverse's leaks pointed at four more projects in genres the studio has never touched: a lifestyle MMO, an Unreal Engine 5 MOBA, a fantasy sandbox co-op game, and a realistic military sci-fi shooter. The company also recovered $5.3 million in damages from IP enforcement across 2025, and it revealed Varsapura, a psychological thriller running on Unreal Engine 5, last November.

What is missing is the shape of the game outside the boss rush. Nobody has seen solo play, the progression loop, the weapon and skill unlocks the official site mentions, or how a session holds together once the demo rails come off. Nodusfall is confirmed for PC and nothing else, and HoYoverse has not given a release window, which puts any console version well past 2026. I think the combat is the part most likely to survive contact with the full release, and the part that decides whether Nodusfall is worth a hundred hours is the part nobody has played yet.

Read also: HoYoverse has six Genshin Impact promo codes live this September, plus three more revealed during the 7.1 livestream, with Primogems, Mora, Hero's Wit and enhancement ore among the rewards. Codes are redeemed on the HoYoverse site or in-game through the Paimon menu, and the account has to be at least level 10.