Neverness to Everness Update Adds Akane Rin, Anime Collab

Neverness to Everness’s Version 1.4 update drops its second half on October 21, 2026, adding a new playable character, a school festival storyline, and a surprise anime song collaboration with The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. The timing isn’t random either — this update doubles as the game’s half-year anniversary celebration, so there’s a decent pile of free rewards attached too.

If you haven’t heard of Neverness to Everness (NTE for short), it’s Hotta Studio’s supernatural urban RPG set in the fictional city of Hethereau, published by Perfect World. It runs on PC, PlayStation 5, and mobile (Android and iOS), with full cross-play between all of them, which honestly is still rarer than it should be in this genre.

What’s actually new in Version 1.4 Part 2

The headline addition is Akane Rin, a new playable character who moonlights as a guitarist at a venue called Livehouse StarSign while hiding a past as an Anomaly Hunter. She ships with three outfits, including an anniversary-exclusive “House Special” look, and — in a nice bit of flavor — you can pull out her guitar and jam anywhere in the open world, not just during set-piece moments.

The new story content follows a band called The Whoots!!!! as they get ready for a school festival performance. That’s where the collab comes in: the band’s festival set includes a performance of “God knows…,” the iconic ending theme from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. It’s a small but very deliberate nod to anime fans, and it’s the kind of licensed-music tie-in that tends to get clipped and shared a lot once people see it in motion.

This follows Part 1 of the update, which launched September 30 and brought the Pukaland theme park, a bird-transforming character named Blackbird, and NTE’s second Porsche tie-in (the 911 Turbo and Taycan Turbo GT joined the lineup). So Hotta Studio has been shipping real content on a steady cadence this patch cycle, not just filler.

Why it matters

NTE launched with a lot of “is this the next big open-world gacha RPG” hype, and six months in, the real test is whether the content pipeline holds up. A licensed anime music collab alongside a meaningful new character and story arc is a decent signal that it is. For context, other long-running gacha RPGs like Honkai: Star Rail lean on this exact playbook — new playable unit plus story arc plus a cultural tie-in — to keep retention up between bigger content drops.

Crossover songs and character collabs are also becoming one of the more reliable ways mobile RPGs pull in players who wouldn’t otherwise try a gacha game, similar to how anime and manga collabs have worked for shooters like PUBG Mobile. It’s a cheap way to get a game in front of an audience that already has strong brand loyalty.

How to get the anniversary rewards

Once the second half of Version 1.4 goes live on October 21, players can claim 2 million Fons (the game’s premium-adjacent currency) and Akane Rin’s “House Special” outfit as part of the half-year anniversary push. There’s also a seven-day Circle Gifts login event handing out 20 Solid Dice for Limited Boards, plus a separate Version 1.4 gift tied to the anniversary campaign. On top of that, the Puka Membership Program unlocks once you hit City Tycoon Level 16, which nets two S-Class Standard Character Selection Boxes, an S-Class Standard Arc Selection Box, and three outfits.

None of this requires spending money — it’s all tied to logging in and playing during the anniversary window, which is the kind of reward structure that’s worth taking advantage of even if you’ve been playing casually. [LINK: best mobile RPGs to try in 2026]

FAQ

Is Neverness to Everness free to play?
Yes, NTE is free to download and play on mobile, PC, and PS5, with optional in-game purchases.

Do I need to have played since launch to get the anniversary rewards?
No. The 2 million Fons, the free outfit, and the login-event rewards are available to anyone playing once Version 1.4 Part 2 goes live on October 21 — you don’t need an existing save from launch.

What’s your take — are you jumping into this update, or sticking with your current mobile RPG? Let us know in the comments.

Source(s): Official Neverness to Everness press release via Gamespress, OtakuKart

AUTHOR TONAY
Honestly the Haruhi Suzumiya song pull surprised me more than another Porsche skin ever could, and I’d log in just to watch that scene play out.