Whenever a gaming event like Gamescom rolls around, I wait with bated breath for an action role-playing game with stylish combat, fashionable characters, and a litany of anime action sequences to make my head explode in excitement. And Gamescom, like Prometheus descending Mount Olympus, delivered just such a game unto me, with a trailer for a new upcoming open-world RPG that left me thrilled. The only problem is that I can’t tell that game apart from a conceptually similar urban RPG from Genshin Impact developer Hoyoverse to save my life.
The virtually identical video games in question are NetEase Games and Naked Rain’s recently announced free-to-play open-world RPG, Project Mugen, and Hoyoverse’s Zenless Zone Zero. While Project Mugen’s open-world setting sets it apart from ZZZ as evidenced by its characters swinging through cityscapes like Spider-Man and cruising (and Akira sliding) along streets like characters in Grand Theft Auto, I couldn’t help wondering if the trailer I’d just watched wasn’t me misclicking on a video for ZZZ. In my defense, the games are awfully similar.
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Project Mugen is a free-to-play urban open-world RPG where you play as an Esper charged with investigating supernatural occurrences “that threaten the balance of this unique urban paradise,” mugen-debut-trailer-details-and-screenshots",{"metric25":1}]]” href=”https://www.gematsu.com/2023/08/project-mugen-debut-trailer-details-and-screenshots”according to Gematsu. Players must weed out the spooky specters in team-based combat with characters that fulfill nearly every anime archetype you could think of. You’ve got Dila, the sleepy-eyed mysterious woman, Bansy, the bubbly extrovert, and Mechanika, the tech expert.
In contrast (?) to Project Mugen, ZZZ has you play as a Proxy, a battle-hardened guide that assists industrialists on expeditions to acquire resources