Pre-release data. All data is from the closed beta and community sources. It is incomplete and will change before and after launch.

Anima Codex

Connections with other Honkai games

Nexus Anima is billed as the latest game in HoYoverse's Honkai franchise, and it borrows faces from the others. Here's what's genuinely linked, and what's just fan theory. The game isn't out yet, so treat everything as provisional, and note where things are confirmed vs rumoured.

The franchise so far

  • Honkai Gakuen / Guns GirlZ is the original. A 2D shooter where a cataclysm called the "Honkai" erupts and Valkyries fight back. It established the franchise's core idea: the Honkai force.
  • Honkai Impact 3rd is an action RPG on an alternate Earth menaced by the Honkai, a cyclical apocalypse that anoints god-like champions ("Herrschers"). Centres on Kiana Kaslana, against the schemes of Otto Apocalypse.
  • Honkai: Star Rail is a turn-based space RPG. The amnesiac Trailblazer rides the Astral Express, resolving disasters tied to "Stellarons", in a multiverse run by godlike "Aeons". HoYoverse says it's not a direct sequel to Honkai Impact 3rd, but a sibling in a shared multiverse.

Characters borrowed from other games

  • Kiana comes from Honkai Impact 3rd, where she's the central heroine. Confirmed playable here, reimagined as a world-hopping "Planestrider."
  • Blade comes from Honkai: Star Rail, a cursed berserker. Confirmed playable, reframed in this game's lore as the 22nd Novarch, "ruler of The Peak."
  • Otto shares a name with Otto Apocalypse (Honkai Impact 3rd's long-running villain), but here he's given a brand-new backstory (a young researcher). Whether he is that Otto is unconfirmed, so treat it as a reimagining, not a fact.
  • Kafka comes from Honkai: Star Rail. Lore-only so far: named as the missing "11th Sovereign" that Blade is searching for. A claim that she becomes playable later is a rumour, not confirmed.
  • Argenti comes from Honkai: Star Rail. Reported as a beta NPC cameo (a challenge battle), playable status unconfirmed.

What's actually shared

The one clean, same-meaning thread is the Honkai catastrophe itself. This game's Sundering is a Honkai-type cataclysm, exactly the franchise's signature idea.

Almost everything else runs on this game's own cosmology: the Nexus, Aspects, Anima, Sovereigns, Novarchs, and 81 Planes. A few words are "false friends":

  • Sovereign here means a ruler of paired Aspects, not the organizational title it has in Honkai Impact 3rd. Same word, different meaning.
  • Franchise terms like Herrscher, the Sea of Quanta, and Star Rail's Aeons / Imaginary Tree do not appear. The "81 Planes" are parallel universes in spirit, but under their own name.

Easter eggs & background cameos

HoYoverse routinely hides cross-game nods in the scenery (Genshin, Star Rail and Honkai Impact are full of them), and Nexus Anima is no exception. These are developer homages, not canon links: fun to spot, but they don't prove a shared universe. A running list (we'll add more as they're confirmed on screen):

  • The Astral Express. Star Rail's iconic train appears in the background of the "Until We Meet" teaser (~0:33 of the official video). Community-spotted, and visible in the footage.

Spotted another? They're easy to miss and the game isn't out yet, so this list grows as sightings are confirmed.

Is it the same universe?

Officially: unstated. HoYoverse has confirmed only that Nexus Anima is a new Honkai title that reuses characters, with its own self-contained story. It has not said the game shares a timeline with Honkai Impact 3rd or Star Rail.

The safest reading from current material: a standalone Honkai world that recasts familiar characters as new-world variants, the same "variant character" technique HoYoverse uses across its games. The popular idea that Nexus Anima ties all the games into one multiverse is fan theory, not a confirmed fact.

We'll revisit this after the July beta and at launch, since betas reshuffle rosters and lore.

Reveal timeline

How the game surfaced (community-documented dates, each traced to a primary source such as trademark filings, HoYoLAB posts and the official channel):

  • 14 Apr 2025: the official YouTube channel (@HonkaiNA) appears.
  • 21 Apr 2025: "Honkai: Nexus Anima" trademarks are filed in the EU and US.
  • 3 May 2025: an untitled teaser airs at the end of the Star Rail LIVE 2025 concert.
  • 28 Aug 2025: the channel's first short drops, teasing a reveal.
  • 29 Aug 2025: the Nexus Bond Test (first closed beta) is announced, with the title, website and character line-up.
  • 9 Jul 2026: the Evolution Test (second closed beta).

For the broader HoYoverse lore web of cross-game easter eggs, character origins and shared concepts, the fan-run HoYodex intergame index (hoyodex.miraheze.org) is a good rabbit hole. (Beware: unmarked spoilers for every HoYoverse game.)