Anime battle royale Fate Trigger: The Novita will come to PC, console, and mobile for free

It has nothing to do with Type-Moon’s Fate, though

Saroasis / Tencent

Fortnite may have lots of anime characters thanks to its extensive collaborations with various brands, but of course it’s not completely committed to the aesthetic – Fate Trigger: The Novita, which is coming to PC, consoles, and mobile devices, is entirely anime-styled and even has the jiggle physics many gamers love.

Developed by Saroasis, a subsidiary of Tencent, on Unreal Engine 5, Fate Trigger: The Novita has a team of more than 600 developers behind it, many of which have genre experience from working on mobile shooters like COD Mobile, PUBG Mobile, and Apex Mobile. Playable from a third-person view (though we did spy a first-person toggle in one of the menus), Fate Trigger: The Novita is set in a sci-fi world beset by a disaster that broke the very lands people are living on, giving you a map featuring massive floating islands.

The battlefield has a size of six by six kilometers and its floating islands deliver lots of verticality, which is supported by a gliding system – you can bring out a windglider by tapping one button, similar to titles like Genshin Impact – and a vehicle system.

Fate Trigger: The Novita is a her-based battle royale game. / Saroasis / Tencent

Up to 100 players, divided into squads of four, can battle it out at any one time with matches targeted to take around 30 minutes. The game features respawn mechanics that allow users to bring back fallen comrades at every ten minute mark.

Fate Trigger: The Novita aims to mix tactical combat with the flashy animations you know and love from many anime games. Those come into play when the unique characters, which are divided into classes that fill different roles, cast their active abilities – there is a scout who can throw sensor grenades to detect enemies, a defensive character who can create some cover and an entire fortress out of her pocket, and an offensive character who can create a wall of fire as well as summon a fiery rain over an entire area.

Many of the characters enhance their own and their squad’s movement. One can create water on her path, quickly sliding along to be more mobile in battle and even diving into it when hit, becoming invisible for a while. Another can summon a mighty gust of wind, carrying herself and her team high into their air to redeploy to a different part of the map.

Combined with the vehicles you can summon and find as well as teleportation gates strewn throughout the map, Fate Trigger: The Novita offers plenty of ways to stay mobile.

Characters can crouch and go prone to use cover or ambush enemies. / Saroasis / Tencent

Fate Trigger: The Novita will be completely free-to-play with monetization focusing on cosmetics – the developers emphasized that no gameplay-relevant content is behind a paywall. Users can open their wallets for a battle pass as well as various skins to change the looks of their weapons and characters. We saw dynamic weapon skins and completely alternate outfits, for example.

Weapons can be fully customized with different sights, stocks, and so on, but more fundamental transformations happen during a match itself. Players can find stations at which they can equip gun chips into their weapon, completely changing the way they work. One example we saw was a sniper rifle, which then got equipped with a laser chip and fired long, deadly beams of light. A different gun was geared up with a freeze chip, now firing icy bullets that slowed down enemies.

While the developers want to launch with a focus on battle royale, they added that modes like classic Team Deathmatch were definitely on the table as well. The core battle royale mode will be kept fresh with seasonal mechanics.

A closed PC Alpha for Fate Trigger: The Novita is planned for September 2024, after which the developers will gradually expand testing opportunities ahead of launch, which is likely taking place in 2025. You can already check out the game on Steam.