September’s 209 Game Licenses: miHoYo’s Nodus Fall Approved and the ‘No-Gacha Characters’ Signal for the Anime-Gacha Track#

On September 30, the National Press and Publication Administration’s website published the latest batch of online game license approvals: 206 domestic online games and 3 imported online games were approved this month, 209 in total. It is the second month this year, after August, that a single batch has topped 200 titles. The most eye-catching name on the list is miHoYo’s Nodus Fall.

If this were just another routine approval, this piece wouldn’t need to exist. What’s worth discussing is something else: one week before the approval, the studio stated plainly in its “Ten Questions, Ten Answers” that this game’s characters will not be obtained through gacha — players unlock every character simply by playing. A top publisher that built its commercial empire on the gacha system voluntarily giving up the anime-gacha track’s most mature monetization model on a new title — that move may weigh more for the entire anime-gacha space than the number 209 itself.

This piece first maps the overall structure of September’s licenses, then looks at what makes the Nodus Fall approval notable, then unpacks the monetization logic behind “no-gacha characters”, and finally lands on a read of the anime-gacha track’s competitive landscape. Note: everything involving commercial speculation is analysis, flagged as such throughout and kept strictly separate from officially announced facts.

1. September’s Licenses at a Glance: 206 Domestic Plus 3 Imported, Over 200 Two Months Running#

First, the big picture. September’s baseline numbers:

Stretch the timeline across the first three quarters of the year and the supply-side rhythm comes into focus:

Beyond the raw counts, the efficiency side of approvals deserves attention too. Combining what several companies mentioned in their announcements, the license approval system currently shows three trends:

• The categorized approval system is maturing: domestic, imported, mini-program, and other games follow differentiated approval paths, giving different product types clearer filing channels.
• The “license pre-review” pilot is advancing: after pilots in Beijing, Shanghai, and elsewhere, the average approval cycle shrank from 60 days to 30 days, sharply reducing scheduling uncertainty for developers.
• Local-management pilots are expanding: in June this year, the National Press and Publication Administration approved Hunan Province for a domestic online game local-management pilot (per announcements from Century Huatong and Wentou Holdings).

For developers, those three things add up to one conclusion: license issuance keeps getting more routine and more predictable. Domestic game market revenue has kept growing this year, and overseas revenue from domestic games has stayed on a steep climb — supply-side confidence is being rebuilt by concrete approval data points, one batch at a time.

This batch also includes 15 games with information changes, two of which are worth noting: Lilith’s Call of Dragons was renamed to Dragons and Strife, and Leiting Interactive’s Fleet Commander changed operating units. Renames and operator switches are routine inside the license system, but when they land on the same publisher, they usually correspond to a shift in product strategy or release cadence.

2. Nodus Fall Clears Approval: the Heaviest Single Item in This Batch#

Product file#

First, Nodus Fall’s basics in a file table; all of it comes from public reporting and official statements:

Timeline: from reveal to approval in barely a month#

Connect the three milestones and the pace is remarkably fast:

• August 26, 2026: during the gamescom Opening Night Live stream, Nodus Fall was unveiled as a brand-new title with its first trailer. A work that abandons the anime style miHoYo is known for in favor of realistic fantasy art, it was one of the most-discussed announcements of the night.
• September 23, 2026: the official Weibo account posted the “Ten Questions, Ten Answers”, answering core questions on monetization, gameplay, and platforms in one pass — the line “characters will not be obtained through gacha” set off wide discussion in player communities.
• September 30, 2026: September’s license list was published, Nodus Fall appeared among the approved, and it became the most market-watched product of the batch.

From first reveal to license in barely a month — that speed is itself a signal: with the pre-review pilot accelerating cycles, approval timelines for heavyweight new titles from top publishers are being compressed.

Platform form: officially only PC at launch; treat dual-platform talk with caution#

One special caution here. One briefing claimed Nodus Fall passed review in a “mobile + client” dual-platform form, but a search of public reporting shows the batch list only broadly covers mobile, client, and web categories without itemizing Nodus Fall’s platform form — the dual-platform claim currently rests on that single briefing; defer to the regulator’s announcements and official disclosures. The only firm statement so far is the official one in the “Ten Questions, Ten Answers”: the game will definitely support PC at launch, with other platform information to follow through official channels.

Incidentally, the launch date has not been announced either; some media, extrapolating from miHoYo’s release cadence, speculate the game may not arrive until around 2028 — pure media speculation, not an official position.

Gameplay framework: Weavers, dead knots, and Divinity skills#

Per the settings given in the official “Ten Questions, Ten Answers”, Nodus Fall’s world and combat framework look roughly like this:

• World: players enter a world where divine authority has fallen and order has collapsed, as “Weavers”. An ancient creator essence shaped the Weavers yet granted no revelation; the world’s gods and living beings, corroded by the “Calamity”, turned into scourges and formed “dead knots” — the Weaver’s mission is to cut the dead knots and restore order.
• Combat system: beyond basic attacks and skills, there are freely combinable “Divinity skills” in three classes — attack, defense, and support; that freedom of combination is the core of combat builds.
• Difficulty curve: officially described as serving both newcomers and high-ceiling players, catering to both ends of the audience.
• Multiplayer design: built for multiplayer co-op but never forcing it; solo players can experience the vast majority of core content. Team role division in multiplayer and the co-op “Divinity Seizure” are called the game’s biggest fun by the developer. Party size caps and detailed rules are still being polished.

Separately, a single-source outlet (17173’s hands-on report) mentioned a “clash” mechanic and recorded foreign media’s hands-on impressions; that detail lacks multi-source corroboration, so treat it as provisional pending official disclosure.

Information boundary at a glance: what’s confirmed and what isn’t#

Information flow around Nodus Fall is noisy — official statements, media relays, and briefing rumors mixed together. Here is the status of each key item in one table for reference:

That table is also the premise for every analysis that follows: speculate boldly, but label which layer of information each step stands on.

Where it sits in miHoYo’s product line#

Placing Nodus Fall inside miHoYo’s lineup points to a clear widening of style and genre. miHoYo’s existing live pillars — Genshin Impact and Zenless Zone Zero — are both classic anime-style gacha live-service games, the former built on open-world exploration, the latter on urban fantasy action.

Nodus Fall departs from the established path on at least three dimensions:

• Art style: from anime cel-shading to realistic fantasy — the developer itself stressed the stylistic pivot at the reveal.
• Genre: from largely single-player open-world or urban action to a multiplayer co-op action game, emphasizing co-op “Divinity Seizure”.
• Tech base: built on Unreal Engine 5, distinguishing it technically from the existing lineup.

When a publisher dives into a new category with a different art style, gameplay, and tech stack while its core franchises are at their peak, there are usually only two explanations: either it is preparing a new growth curve for the next market phase, or it judges the competitive density of its existing categories has reached the point where a differentiated exit is needed early. Combined with the “no-gacha characters” angle below, the second explanation deserves more weight.

3. ‘No-Gacha Characters’: an Unconventional Monetization Experiment#

What’s officially confirmed, and what isn’t#

First, the fact boundaries — the information layers here must be kept separate:

• Officially confirmed (September 23 “Ten Questions, Ten Answers”): characters will not come from gacha; continued play unlocks all characters. More monetization details are still being carefully planned.
• Media-reported (17173 single-source relay): the game will be free to play, character banners are fully removed, only cosmetic monetization is planned, and foreign media including PC Gamer received official confirmation during a hands-on event. Note: this is a media relay — no complete official monetization plan has been published.

In other words, “no-gacha characters” is directly certifiable official information, while “cosmetics-only monetization” is currently media-reported only; the final monetization plan awaits official publication.

Why gacha became the anime-gacha track’s default monetization#

Analysis and speculation begin here; not official information.

To understand how unconventional “no-gacha characters” is, look at where the gacha system sits in this track. miHoYo’s flagship lines — Genshin Impact, Zenless Zone Zero, and Honkai: Star Rail — all run a “character + weapon” gacha model: new characters arrive in limited-time banners, and players spend gacha currency to obtain characters and their materials. The system’s commercial efficiency is proven after years: it turns character acquisition from a one-time purchase into continuous probabilistic spending, and gives version cadence, event operations, and revenue curves a stable lever.

For the anime-gacha track as a whole, the gacha system is effectively infrastructure — business models, content schedules, player expectations, and community rhythms are all built around it. Nodus Fall announcing that characters will not enter banners removes the most load-bearing pillar of that infrastructure.

Feasibility of three replacement paths#

If characters can’t be gacha’d, how does a multiplayer co-op action game make money? Projecting along the industry’s common monetization paths, roughly three routes exist:

(The “free to play” and “cosmetics” premises in this table themselves come from media reporting, not official announcements; the table is pure speculation and does not represent Nodus Fall’s actual business plan.)

Weighing the official line that “continued play unlocks all characters”, the third path looks the most compatible — it preserves a long-horizon revenue rhythm while returning character acquisition to play itself. Of course, this is projection from public information; the official “still being carefully planned” stance means the final plan could easily be a hybrid.

Effects on player trust and long-horizon operations#

One more structural effect: trust. The gacha system’s most criticized problem in recent years is the payment uncertainty of probabilistic spending — players cannot know in advance whether they’ll get the target character, and that uncertainty is the shared focal point of regulatory attention and player sentiment. Regulatory scrutiny of loot-box-style randomized draws keeps tightening worldwide, and media analysis generally holds that a no-gacha model fits regulatory requirements more easily (that analysis is 17173’s framing).

From a long-horizon operations view, “play to unlock all characters” effectively reverses how the publisher and players’ interests bind together:

• Under a gacha system, revenue comes from players’ probabilistic spending; content cadence is tightly coupled to revenue targets, and player churn converts directly into revenue pressure.
• Under a play-to-unlock system, characters are a function of playtime; if revenue shifts to cosmetics or service payments, willingness to pay must be sustained by content quality rather than banner strength.

That actually raises the bar for content capacity — a cosmetics model stakes the entire commercial lifeline on art output and players’ aesthetic attachment. For miHoYo to do this is, in a sense, a statement of confidence in its own art-production industrial capacity.

A side-by-side of the two systems’ key differences#

Comparing the gacha system and the play-to-unlock system on key dimensions makes the contrast vivid (pure speculative comparison; not a published Nodus Fall plan):

As you can see, neither system is absolutely superior — it’s a trade-off among revenue structure, content capacity, and player trust. miHoYo’s direction of trade-off is itself the most notable industry information in this approval event.

4. The Rest of the Batch at a Glance: Legacy Publishers and New Tracks#

Beyond Nodus Fall, this batch includes a set of publisher titles worth noting, with a fairly representative spread of genres:

A few structural signals fall out of this list:

• IP adaptations remain the mainline route: Archosaur’s Lord of the Mysteries: The Fool is adapted from the webnovel of the same name, while Kingnet’s Dragon Nest: Awakening and Dianhun’s I Am MT: War of Glory both continue classic IPs. Old IP plus new gameplay remains the default posture for taking a license.
• Multi-product lines at one publisher: 4399 took two products in this batch, and Kingnet both cleared a product and touched the imported-game quota — publishers with multi-line R&D capacity spread single-product risk better under normalized licensing.
• Imported licenses keep the small-and-frequent rhythm: this batch’s 3 imported games continue the recent “few at a time, many times a year” cadence for imported licenses.

5. What It Means for the Anime-Gacha Track: After the Leader Breaks Pattern#

Finally, the industry level. Everything below is analysis and projection, offered for discussion.

Signal one: the top publisher is deliberately distancing itself from the mainstream monetization path. miHoYo chose the highest-visibility new title to abandon character gacha; whatever the final monetization plan looks like, the decision itself has already reset players’ default expectation that “anime-gacha games must gacha”. Once “characters don’t have to be gacha” becomes common knowledge in player communities, every other product on this track faces passively higher costs in communicating its own monetization.

Signal two: pricing room for small and mid-sized anime-gacha projects may get squeezed. Once the top publisher sets new player expectations with stronger art capacity and a more transparent payment model, smaller teams face a dilemma: match the low-payment-threshold model and revenue can’t cover R&D costs; keep the traditional gacha model and absorb a direct trust comparison against the new flagship. That squeeze will show up simultaneously in the user-acquisition market and in community discourse.

Signal three: with supply loosening and gameplay differentiating, the competitive axis is shifting from “ability to get licensed” to “model design”. Licenses topping 200 a month two months running, the first three quarters up about 23% year over year, approval cycles cut from 60 days to 30 — once a license is no longer the scarce capability, differentiated business-model design becomes the new competitive axis. Nodus Fall is already marketing “no gacha” as a core selling point, which suggests the publisher itself sees it.

Signal four: multiplayer co-op is miHoYo’s next test field. From Genshin Impact’s open world to Zenless Zone Zero’s urban action, miHoYo’s product line keeps widening its categories, and Nodus Fall’s multiplayer co-op direction barely overlaps anything it already runs. If “play to unlock characters” works in a multiplayer category, the lessons could flow back into the monetization design of the publisher’s later products.

Of course, all of this rests on one premise: officially, only “no-gacha characters” is confirmed, and the complete monetization plan is still in planning. The final answer on model design needs more official detail before it can be graded — but the gear train of expectations for this track started turning on September 23, the day of that “Ten Questions, Ten Answers”.

Closing Thoughts#

After years of covering mobile games, I’ve seen plenty of “monetization innovation” devolve into reskinned charging, so my first reaction to “no-gacha characters” was caution. What’s different this time is who is saying it: miHoYo — a company that climbed to the top of the industry on the gacha system — is voluntarily abandoning its most familiar path on a new realistic-fantasy category.

For players, that is at minimum a change worth watching: if the top publisher proves that a live-service game can thrive without character gacha, everyone hoping for more transparent payment models benefits. Whether this route ends up an industry turning point or a one-off, let time and future official disclosures answer.

— Wubian, NTGame Editorial