It is hard to even count how many online showcases I have stayed up all night watching. Because of that, I have developed a bit of a peculiar knack: guessing the game after watching just the opening seconds of a trailer. I can usually tell roughly which company or franchise a new title belongs to—especially when the lineup details have already taken shape ahead of time, which raises the hit rate even higher.

I managed to guess many of the games featured in this year's Gamescom Opening Night Live showcase that way, but there was one title I couldn't figure out until the video ended completely. That was HoYoverse's 'Nodusfall'. Even though the company logo appeared early on in the trailer, the presentation made it difficult to get a clear grasp of the game as a whole from the video alone, as its style was distinctly different from HoYoverse's previous titles.

During Gamescom, I got the chance to play Nodusfall firsthand. You could tell how much preparation went into it, to the point where they set up a dedicated demo venue complete with elaborate sets near Koelnmesse.

Of course, there is still very little photo or video material that can be shared, and the demo itself only allowed us to test co-op gameplay rather than a complete section of the game. Even so, I was able to experience HoYoverse's expansion firsthand.

To summarize the core of Nodusfall before diving in: no matter what you imagined, it plays differently than what you would expect.

In the revealed trailer, the vast and solemn presentation reminiscent of Elden Ring leads one to expect a Soulslike game, while gameplay footage showing players hunting down a giant dragon alongside its introduction as a co-op game suggests a monster-hunting title like Monster Hunter.

Yet, unlike what its cinematic style or short gameplay footage suggested, the game pushes the pace much higher, giving a much stronger impression of co-op action focused on active combat. Establishing this up front feels necessary to define Nodusfall accurately.

Even through the simple tutorial at the beginning, you can immediately tell that this game has a different texture.

Upon selecting one of the four characters available in this demo version, along with their respective sub-class, you learn basic controls alongside actions tailored to that character. Leaving detailed button mapping aside, the game's controls fall squarely into typical third-person action.

On an Xbox controller, the X button performs a light attack and the Y button performs a heavy attack, with a combination of the two serving as the foundation for combat, augmented by skills and button-charging actions. Holding a button down creates combo chains like charged heavy-charged heavy-charged heavy. While there is no direct block option instead of dodging, you can time a counter-like attack by landing a charged attack right as the enemy strikes. You can also weave combos through a smooth mix of light and heavy attacks.

Additionally, skills can be performed by combining the RB button with A, B, X, or Y. Combining RB with the attack buttons executes basic skills with relatively short cooldowns, while combining with A triggers an Ultimate skill, and combining with B activates a skill named Divine.

From this attack and skill setup, you can see the overall direction of the game's combat. To sum up Nodusfall's combat system before getting into the demo details, combat is built around working with other players to continuously chip away at enemy health primarily using basic attacks.

It is neither a spellcaster-type game where you overpower enemies by constantly spamming powerful skills, nor a game where you carefully weigh every heavy exchange. Deep combat exchanges excel in single-player experiences. Conversely, while skill effects are quite powerful, spamming them would lessen combat interaction with other players in a co-op setting.

Therefore, skill cooldowns are relatively long, and the design favors relentless damage output using basic attacks and charged actions. Since attacks capable of dealing massive burst damage are scarce, agility becomes essential—moving agilely to avoid heavy enemy attacks while maintaining basic attack pressure.

The sense of weight in combat has also been scaled back to support this flow. This does not simply mean a lack of impact on hits; rather, individual attacks exert less stopping power on enemies, making constant movement and continuous attacking necessary.

The actual demo experience followed a simple format where a party of players accepted a contract to hunt a specific monster. Story elements living within the world or hints about lore shown in the trailer were not present in this demo.

The four players, dropped into a new region to carry out their mission, mount up and head toward the monster. A path guidance trail appears on the ground by default, so you don't have to worry about getting lost. Furthermore, the mount is not just a horse but a Divine creature designed like a wild beast that appears instantly whenever summoned, showing that the game discourages sluggish movement.

The monster encountered was a flying creature with the body of a white tiger and wings attached. It is an enemy featured in the trailer; upon first encounter, it swoops down from the sky to attack and delivers relatively straightforward melee attacks on the ground.

However, its health bar does not deplete easily, and with multiple health bars to burn through, taking it down takes a considerable amount of time. In fact, it fled before we could finish it, forcing us to pursue the monster and engage in battle once more to slay it.

Here, you learn a combat style different from the initial tutorial. This stems from character differences: while the tutorial forced players to use a single melee-oriented character, the actual demo allowed us to freely select our player character. The character I chose was a ranged fighter wielding a bow.

For the ranged character, performing basic attacks gradually fills an arrow gauge. You then consume the accumulated gauge to deliver charged attacks. When fully filled, the gauge allowed roughly four consecutive charged attacks. The attack combos incorporating charged attacks also differed from the tutorial character. Rather than rapidly chaining heavy charged attacks, it felt more like pulling the bowstring back firmly before loosing a shot.

On top of that, the basic skill cooldown was around 20 seconds, which is not short, and its damage output was not dramatically higher than a charged attack. Stamina is consumed by basic attacks, but executing most actions was fairly manageable, with heavy attacks being the main move you couldn't spam recklessly.

Once the monster's health drops to a certain point, an execution prompt appears; completing it deals massive burst damage. A single player executes this finisher, during which the camera shifts to cinematic framing for the sequence. Meanwhile, other players watch this unfold from the standard third-person perspective without any camera shift.

Ultimate skills, which have cooldowns exceeding two minutes, vary depending on sub-class choices made after selecting a character. In this demo, I chose a transformation Ultimate: while wings sprouted during the transformation duration, standard attacks became as powerful as skill attacks. Building up gauge with light attacks allowed heavy attacks to be unleashed, pouring out multiple hits in a burst of high damage. Attacking without pause during the transformation created enough time to execute roughly two heavy attacks.

Since the transformation Ultimate enhances basic attacks, there is no risk of missing a skill shot, ensuring reliable damage output. In contrast, the Divine skill transformed the character into the wild beast mount; attacks in this form, such as short paw swipes and jumping tail strikes, had challenging range requirements, making it difficult to use effectively right away. This skill also had an Ultimate-tier cooldown, preventing frequent usage.

Of course, being a demo build, health recovery items were given quite generously, and dodge efficiency alongside damage reduction was high enough that deaths were rare. Defeating smaller monsters yielded crafting materials for recovery items along the way. However, a single heavy blow could easily kill a player, making it necessary to keep a close eye on ground danger indicators. Upon death, players could choose to respawn at a nearby revive point after a set time or wait for a teammate to revive them.

The second boss encountered was a giant dragon ridden by a knight, requiring us to battle both at once—and this was when a party member died for the first time. Below a certain health threshold, the knight dismounted from the dragon and launched simultaneous attacks from multiple directions, making health management quite difficult.

Nodusfall will be serviced as a free-to-play title like other HoYoverse games, centered on co-op play. Rather than what the initial trailer suggested, the game appears aimed at gameplay with a weight tailored to those service and player-composition characteristics, while still offering opportunities to show off skill through co-op teamwork.

In fact, our four-player party and another party next to us cleared the contract in about 20 minutes, celebrating an S rank, whereas the last party that cleared with a C rank took over 30 minutes. Naturally, that party also cheered with joy upon completing it.

Although I couldn't see much more during the relatively brief demo, the design of the town acting as a hub, as well as the realistic art style chosen over HoYoverse's traditional anime aesthetic, felt well-suited for depicting a much more serious world. Further details will no doubt be revealed through upcoming in-depth tests and the official launch.