Aniimo — everything we know

Aniimo is developed by Pawprint Studio, a studio under FunPlus — one of the largest privately held companies in gaming — which the team calls a next-gen creature-catching open-world RPG and “the game of our dreams.” It was revealed at the Xbox Games Showcase in June 2025 as a passion project built around an open world with room to grow. The game’s publisher is Pawprint Interactive Entertainment Pte. Ltd., FunPlus’s Singapore label; it was published under the Kingsglory name until April 2026.

You play a Pathfinder exploring the vast continent of Idyll, a living open world the studio calls “alive with beauty” — where unique Aniimo appear according to environment, weather, natural phenomena and time of day, so which creatures show up, and how they behave, changes as you travel. Idyll is pitched as the perfect setting to capture, to Twine and to find answers, and immersive exploration is meant to carry it: you can glide, dive and burrow, so you can step foot almost anywhere and help the Aniimo reach their full potential.

Above it floats Astra, a metropolis in the sky that acts as the social hub where you meet other Pathfinders, shop and compete. Each Pathfinder owns a personal RV parked at a campsite in the open world, where you meet and interact with other players — camping and roadtrips with your friends, in the studio’s framing. Take the RV back to the Homeland and you can plant crops, build decorations and freely arrange your space, transforming the entire Homeland into what the studio bills as a “warm, fun” interactive immersive paradise.

Twining is the mechanic the whole game is built around. By forming a spiritual bond with a caught Aniimo, you essentially become it — seeing the world from a brand new perspective and playing with new abilities. Use an Aniimo’s skills to solve puzzles, win battles and overcome challenges: one might burrow through terrain to dodge attacks, another might use special vision to spot danger. Twining turns each creature into a traversal, puzzle-solving and combat tool rather than just a party member.

You capture Aniimo with Aniipods — set traps and time your catch perfectly, with the thrill and uncertainty of every moment part of the pitch. Anyone you meet on Idyll can become a companion, so you’re free to capture and collect to your heart’s content. Caught Aniimo grow in strength and skill, and most can evolve, making collecting and discovering Aniimo more exciting. You engage in real-time battles both against wild Aniimo and, through Twining, as your own — every real-time challenge full of unknowns and surprises. The studio has shown specific creatures to illustrate the systems, like Budclaw, a shy crab-like digger that goes dizzy if it hits a rock underground, and Nimbi, a cloud-shaped sheep that turns light enough to leap huge heights but behaves differently in thunderstorms.

Idyll is a fully open multiplayer world you can play solo or online. Its headline competitive mode is Egg Heist (also shown as Diamond Egg Heist), a real-time PvEvP scramble in the Lost Isles where up to six teams of three Pathfinders race to Twine with an egg, then must cooperate to escort it to safety — real-time searches and battles where every challenge is full of surprises. Alongside it are team boss challenges — Bubbask and Coraliz among them — and Aniimo trading, so Pathfinders can exchange creatures with each other.

Aniimo is slated to launch on 16 September 2026 as a free-to-play title across Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, PC (Steam, Epic Games Store and Xbox) and mobile (iOS and Android). It’s an Xbox Play Anywhere game with Xbox Cloud support. You can wishlist it now on Steam, the Xbox store, PlayStation and the Epic Games Store. It launched at the reveal as Xbox, PC and mobile; PlayStation 5 and the Epic Games Store were added later.

The Global Closed Beta has ended: it ran from 9 July to 25 July 2026 on PC (via Steam or the official launcher), iOS and Android — there was no console build in this round. Access was limited, selected by application at aniimo.com, and all progress was wiped when the servers closed. It follows the first PC closed beta from the 2025 reveal and the second beta announced at The Game Awards. The beta previewed the Island of Peace region, the Diamond Egg Heist mode, Aniimo trading and a batch of new creatures.