New player guide

Start here if Honkai: Nexus Anima is new to you. This page walks through what the game is, what your first session looks like, and where the depth is, with links to the detailed pages when you want more. One caveat up front: the game isn't out yet. Everything here comes from the 2025 closed beta and community sources, and some of it will change once the Evolution Test starts on 9 July 2026.

What kind of game this is

An open-world creature collector with auto-battle fights. You explore, you bond with creatures called Anima, and when a fight starts you place up to nine of them on a hex board and watch them fight on their own. A gacha sits on top, mostly for repeat copies that fuel evolution. Everything shown so far is PvE: story fights, open-world captures and bosses, with no PvP confirmed.

Because the fights run themselves, winning comes down to which Anima you bring and how their synergies stack, not reflexes. That idea runs through the rest of this guide.

Your first session

You create your own protagonist, male or female. (The beta's character creator says you carry the Aspect of Change, the in-world reason you can shape your own look.) The story opens in Iia, a seaside border town in the Reality Plane, and the opening chapters are the tutorial. Follow them: they hand you starter Anima and introduce the systems one at a time.

The other thing to do early is bond your first wild Anima. You don't pull creatures from a banner. You find them in the open world, beat them in a fight, then bond with them. The game calls this a Bond Encounter. A handful of bonded Anima is enough to start filling a board.

For a fuller walkthrough of the opening, read Your first hour. For the setting and who everyone is, see Story & world.

How battles work

Before a fight you deploy up to nine Anima on a hex board (4 rows by 7). Then the battle plays out on its own: you don't steer each unit. Anima attack automatically and cast their skill once its energy fills.

Positioning is your main lever. Front rows take the hits and back rows deal the damage, so put your tanks (the Protector and Striker roles) up front and ranged damage dealers like Blasters behind them. The mechanics page lists every role.

You're not completely hands-off, though. Your characters have abilities you trigger yourself, and your active leader can be moved around during the fight. At set rounds you also pick one of three match-long augments (the community calls these Nexus Hextech), which is your tool for rescuing a run that isn't coming together.

Synergies, the short version

Every Anima has one Aspect (its element, like Light or Satiation) and one Trait (its combat role, like Protector). Field enough distinct Anima sharing an Aspect or a Trait and a team buff switches on at set counts called breakpoints. Duplicate copies of the same creature don't raise the count. A board that fully activates one or two synergies usually beats one that spreads thin across many. Every Aspect and Trait with its breakpoints is on the mechanics page, and Aspects and Traits, explained covers the idea at walking pace.

Your characters

You bring three Animasters (the human characters) into every battle. One is the active leader, called the Kardia. The Kardia grants the team its Exclusive Principle, that character's signature team-wide effect, while the other two contribute Offer Relics, gear that gets equipped onto your Anima. So the characters support the creatures, and the Anima do the fighting. The exact Principle and Relic effects per character aren't published yet; the roster itself is on the characters page.

Growing your roster

Most of your collection comes from the open world, not from pulls. In the 2025 beta it worked like this:

• Anima of 3★ and below were caught free through Bond Encounters.
• 4★ Anima were obtainable free a limited number of times, through rewards, tougher encounters and events.
• 5★ Anima mostly came from account-level milestones: a store unlocked as you levelled and sold them for a premium currency called Aspect Gems (800 for a 5★). One also came free from a very hard encounter.

Extra copies of 5★s came from the gacha, and copies are what fuel evolution, where an Anima changes form as duplicates and its bond deepen. That's where the spending pressure sits. How all of this works at launch isn't confirmed (the beta shipped with no live gacha), so the safe play is to hold your premium currency until the real system is shown. There's more detail in How you actually get Anima, every creature is in the Anima database, and the known lines are on the evolutions page.

Gear, the short version

Two kinds of gear go on your team besides the leader's Principle. Relics are single pieces equipped to an Anima for stats and an effect, with no set bonuses to chase. Nexus Strands fire an effect when the battle starts, like a shield or an opener. The numbers will shift before launch, but the shape of both systems is already clear. The gear post walks through them.

The beta on 9 July

The Evolution Test is the second closed beta, starting 9 July 2026 on PC, iOS and Android. Access is free, drawn by lottery from sign-ups made in the 22 June to 3 July 2026 recruitment window. Expect a wipe afterward; it's a test, not a soft launch. If you get in, the useful prep is light: learn the Aspect and Trait breakpoints on the mechanics page, sketch a first board, and keep expectations loose, since HoYoverse rebalances a lot between beta and launch.

Site tools that help

The Comp Builder lets you build a nine-Anima board and shows which synergies are live at which tier, which is the fastest way to learn what's worth stacking. My Anidex tracks which Anima you own, and other tools on the site read from it. The rest, like the comp tier list and the 5★ milestone planner, are previewed on the tools page and switch on once the beta provides real numbers.