HoYoverse Unveils Varsapura As Its Next Psychological Thriller

HoYoverse has introduced Varsapura, a project that takes the studio away from the fantasy spaces associated with Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail and toward something closer to a psychological thriller. The announcement arrived with a 31-minute gameplay showcase that lays out its tone, structure, and the strange internal logic of its world. The footage opens with a job application delivered with a warning about “slight discomfort,” and the rest of the demo follows that line.

The presentation focuses on SEAL, a government-styled agency whose name expands to Shadow Emergency Alliance. Its headquarters resembles an administrative building held together by a shifting set of rules, with corridors and rooms altered by “disruption events” linked to an affliction known as mindrot. Most of the demo takes place inside this facility, with the player-character moving between filing desks, interview rooms, and unstable hallways before the story expands into a driving sequence and a field operation against shadow-based creatures.

The character’s appearance shifts during the footage in a way that moves from a uniformed officer to a Harley Quinn-like outfit. HoYoverse addressed this change in the game’s own materials.

“Upon entering Varsapura, the protagonist’s appearance shifts to match each viewer’s preferences,” HoYoverse wrote. “The origin of this parapsychological effect remains unknown.” — HoYoverse

The studio’s move to Unreal Engine 5 marks a technical shift as well. Genshin Impact was built on Unity, and Honkai: Star Rail uses a proprietary hybrid approach. Varsapura adopts more grounded textures and lighting, bringing its environments closer to a tense, surveillance-heavy thriller than the bright palette of the company’s earlier games. Character models lean toward realism, echoing the style of Nova Desktop’s Lumi figure rather than the cel-shaded look tied to HoYoverse’s signature releases.

The shadow creatures shown later in the demo continue the pivot. They arrive in shifting groups, dissolving into black streaks when struck, and the player uses a mix of melee attacks and improvised tools while navigating sparse terrain. The driving segment that precedes this battle is longer than expected and supports the impression that HoYoverse is testing a structure with more varied pacing than its open-world or turn-based catalog.

Varsapura sits alongside two other announced but unreleased HoYoverse projects: Honkai Nexus Anima, a creature-collecting game, and Petit Planet, a life simulator. None of the three have release dates. The length and detail of the Varsapura demo signal that the project is well underway, though the video ends with a full slate of hiring posts, suggesting that the studio used the reveal as much for recruitment as for publicity.

“Hoyo literally said, ‘go get a job’ by a game,” one viewer joked on Instagram. — Instagram User