ANANTA story and world explained: Chaos, the ACD, Lingjing and two cities

ANANTA follows a luckless new captain of the ACD, a task force that deals with Chaos, the supernatural trouble in the game’s cities (fact in the registry). The ACD goes under right after the Captain’s first day, so the Captain has to go viral, rebuild the team and, according to Game Informer, find a missing father (fact in the registry).

What is Chaos in ANANTA?

Chaos is NetEase’s name for the anomalies the ACD handles. The December 2024 press release says Nova City has plunged into Chaos, from spooky paranormal phenomena to toilets racing through traffic. The trailers show a train snaking through the sky in the 2024 teaser (0:08), toilets on mechanical legs running down a highway in the announce trailer (0:48) and a giant winged creature over a jammed street in the 2025 gameplay trailer (2:42). The official description of the 2025 gameplay video calls one of them a Maniac Chaos: dealing with it during a traffic jam makes the Captain an internet sensation.

The idea predates the name ANANTA. In the Project Mugen reveal trailer from Gamescom 2023, a warning reports that M-Cineres Chaos has been detected (0:59), and a character links a missing persons case to Chaos, explaining that people’s fantasies become real (0:29). Current NetEase materials don’t repeat that explanation, and the 2023 setup is outdated in the registry; the full road is in the history of ANANTA.

The ACD and why it falls apart

The ACD, or Anti-Chaos Directorate, is the task force the Captain leads. In 2024 NetEase described the player as an elite agent of the A.C.D.; in 2026 the Captain recruits agents to rebuild it, and Game Informer calls it a crumbling peacekeeping agency.

In the 2025 gameplay trailer the Captain and Taffy find the place closed and nobody has paid them (0:01), and a news ticker reads “Nova citizens ask, ‘Who is the ACD?’” (1:23). In the 2026 Launch Date Trailer the Captain gets advice: go viral first, and the old staff will come back once you are big enough (0:36).

Taffy is the ACD’s other agent, and Richie from the NCCA works with the team. The Captain’s official bio mentions gangs of rock ’n’ roll fanatics on the ACD’s tail; in the 2025 gameplay video the Captain fights the Black Metal Crew, whose boss wants to hold a rock show in Nova City (0:20).

The Captain’s goals

NetEase names two: rebuild the A.C.D. and grow a following, under the tagline “Go Viral. Save the World.” Game Informer, summing up NetEase’s August 2026 materials, adds a third: find the Captain’s missing father. The press release and the official site don’t mention the father, but in the Launch Date Trailer the Captain, clinging to a plane wing, counts a father not yet tracked down among unfinished business (0:08).

The Captain comes from Chongxiao, and the story starts with the move to Nova City. A female Captain will be available at launch alongside the male one (fact in the registry).

The NCCA and Lykaia Reign

The NCCA is Nova City’s police, and Richie serves in it. The official site doesn’t spell out the abbreviation, but the subtitles of the 2025 gameplay video do: after a car chase, the fox-eared driver introduces herself as Lykaia Reign, Director of the Nova City Crime Agency (9:43; fact in the registry). Earlier she asks whether the Captain has ever thought about joining the NCCA (7:27).

Her surname matches Reign Group, Nova City’s largest conglomerate, but NetEase hasn’t linked the two or said whether she is playable. Her scenes are on the Lykaia Reign page; other characters without a confirmed status are in new and upcoming ANANTA characters.

Lingjing and atypical talents

Chongxiao has its own authority, the Lingjing Supervisory Agency, whose historic building stands in Mingpu District. The official site calls it Chongxiao’s Lingjing and Chaos supervisory agency: it surveys Lingjing, responds to Chaos affairs, runs atypical talent examinations and works as an employment agency (fact in the registry). Its in-world portal takes reports of Chaos anomalies and Lingjing; one describes a station exit that leads to a street the commuter has never seen.

What a Lingjing is, NetEase hasn’t explained. The official site says a legendary one is hidden inside Bachong Pagoda, and in the Launch Date Trailer a woman tells the Captain that only those who pass the trials may see it (2:02). Our assessment: the Chinese name 灵境 reads roughly as spirit realm, and the reports describe places where space stops behaving normally.

Fame and Scope

Fame drives the story. NetEase’s 2026 press release casts the player as an influencer in a city governed by algorithms and online culture, where every mission and crisis builds a reputation (fame and influence). Lykaia already knows the Captain from videos online (4:05).

Scope is a section of the official site styled as an in-world app with the slogan “Turn Your Visions into Vibes”. In the Launch Date Trailer, the chat of a martial arts livestream opens with Scope’s platform rules (2:24). Our assessment: Scope is the in-game social and streaming network.

Two cities and the companies that run them

The story unfolds between Nova City, where the Captain arrives, and Lingyun, a city in Chongxiao, the Captain’s home (fact in the registry). In the Launch Date Trailer the Captain wakes up in a boat on Weilan Lake and realizes this is home (1:37). Districts are in the ANANTA map guide.

The official site and its in-world company pages name the powers:

• Reign Group: Nova City’s largest conglomerate; the site advises against asking what it did in the past.
• Aerie Bank: a bank for the rich run by Lily Leonas; a hacked layer of its page calls it the money bag of the Nova syndicate.
• Saturn Entertainment: Nova City’s film, music and idol empire, which began as a TV station.
• Vault Security: a private security firm whose top contracts include a Chaos security advisor.
• Zenith Project: a Chongxiao robotics company founded by Ji Yunzhou.

On the streets, the ParaBoar gang runs the Veluxity Zone.

What NetEase hasn’t explained yet

• Where Chaos comes from in the current version of the story.
• What a Lingjing is and who counts as an atypical talent.
• What happened to the Captain’s father.
• Whether Lykaia Reign is connected to Reign Group.

Producer Ash Qi told GamesRadar that the main story will continue in free updates with new characters (fact in the registry). ANANTA comes out on January 15, 2027 (fact in the registry).