We walked through the many halls of Tokyo Game Show on day one, and lived to tell the tale.
Day one of Tokyo Game Show has officially concluded, and thus has a long day of demos, swag giveaways, and long queue lines come to an end. We’re at Tokyo Game Show this week to check out the latest in current and upcoming video games, and the event–which is bigger than ever, boasting over 4,000 booths–is pretty daunting to cover, to say the least.
It’s likely that we won’t have the time to check out all the biggest titles available at this year’s event, simply because the queues are so massive even on the first two days, which are not open to the public. Some queues, like those for Silent Hill f (which is already out) and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, would last for an hour, with people in attendance very much eager to try these anticipated games on the show floor.
Regardless, we managed to test out a number of games big and small on the show floor today. Here are our impressions of all the games we played at Tokyo Game Show, on day one:
Ananta (TBA)
NetEase Games dropped a gameplay trailer for Ananta just two days before we got our hands on it at Tokyo Game Show, and boy, did that trailer make an impact. NetEase’s booth for Ananta was packed to the gills with visitors eager to try out the hot new anime-crossed-with-GTA video game, though we suspect a few of them were just there to snag the booth’s very cool swag: a flashy green backpack featuring one of the game’s characters, which can store all the other merch one might collect from wandering around the show floor.
Thankfully, we managed to get our hands to the game thanks to an appointment with NetEase. This has been one of my most anticipated demos of Tokyo Game Show, if only because it seems to be an impossible mish-mash of multiple conflicting IPs. Previous trailers showcased the game’s protagonist swinging from one building to the next like Spider-Man, before driving in vehicles, shooting guns, and punching opponents into submission.
Ananta’s demo went down much the same way. We were told to play a story mission before engaging in an open roam mode. The story mission, being an extended version of this week’s new gameplay trailer, saw the male protagonist fight off a few thugs before being rescued by a new acquaintance, who eventually got them both involved in a lengthy car chase.
The car chase, while gorgeous-looking with sakura flowers aplenty and well-timed god rays–felt heavily inspired by a similar sequence in Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, where Sam and Nathan Drake both fired guns out of a moving vehicle in Madagascar. The protagonist, much like Nate, also eventually ends up outside of the vehicle, smashing through walls in an effort to stay alive.
This is not the first time I’ll compare Ananta to another video game, nor will it be anyone else’s. In free roam, the game’s inspirations solidify: you have the web-slinging from Marvel’s Spider-Man (complete with a web zip, here referred to as an “air dash”), the vehicle driving and character-switching animations of GTA V, and the inexplicable telekinetic grab-and-throw abilities of Remedy Entertainment’s Control.
Now, just because I recognise all of these animations from other games doesn’t mean that Ananta isn’t very fun on its own. I wound up walking away from my demo feeling very positive about the whole thing, and looking forward to its eventual release. The gameplay, which varies based on the playable character’s main ability, seems addictive and worth returning to upon release.
Despite all the similarities to other games, of which there are many, I’m looking forward to losing tens of hours, perhaps even hundreds if things go awry, to this game. My only concern, at the moment, is that this demo didn’t give me a good enough impression of its playable characters. Hopefully, their personalities are as colourful and likeable as their designs.
Here’s a fun tidbit: when playing as one of Ananta’s side characters, you can interrogate random citizens and deliver tickets for random crimes like assault or disorderly conduct, and even arrest them. As another character, you can high-five citizens and take pictures with them instead. The police-brutality-to-influencer pipeline is real.
Monster Hunter Outlanders (closed beta in November 2025)
A complicated journey for us to embark on, much like the titular Hunters. When we took on this demo, we played the Japanese version of the game. That’s important to note, as without prior context, we weren’t absolutely clear on its controls. Regardless, we found its gameplay simple to grasp, with some caveats, and that says something about the simplified controls this Monster Hunter installment is working with.
Monster Hunter Outlanders aims to give players the same experience as the mainline Monster Hunter games, only with an on-the-go experience. Controls have been simplified to a few floating buttons on the screen, and players can now be sorted into different classes, labelled “Adventurers,” to secure specific combat abilities.
This demo was short (almost 20 minutes long), so we didn’t get a good grasp of the game just yet. Regardless, we found the short time that we spent with it surprisingly engaging, and true to the aesthetics expected of modern Monster Hunter installments. However, certain elements of this game, like its new companions and Adventurer designs, might divide fans of the franchise.
Exoborne (TBA)
We played a short mission of Exoborne at Level Infinite’s Tokyo Game Show booth. This game puts a rather interesting twist on the extraction shooter genre, by giving players a set of abilities and an exoskeleton suit to work with in an open world environment. The mission I played was rather short. Sadly, we were downed quickly after completing our first objective, ending the demo–but I came away surprised at how much I enjoyed the experience.
While enemy NPCs can be punishing, it seems simple enough to keep track of your health and resources in the midst of battle. Retreating can be easier than you think, with shifting weather allowing for wind tunnels that cause the player’s parachute to function as extra-long bunny-hops across the map. That reminds me of the whole bullet-jumping issue in Warframe, where the game saw that enough players enjoyed the bug to turn it into a feature. Hopefully, Exoborne does the same.
With an interesting traversal system, fun abilities, and challenging combat, I’m looking forward to seeing how Exoborne fares upon launch. It might have even converted me to extraction-shooter genre, which is saying a lot. I don't love losing my stuff when I die, okay?
Path of Exile 2: Boss Rush (now available in early access)
There’s not much to say about Path of Exile 2 at this point, beyond future content updates. The boss rush we played on the show floor had us wade through maps of enemies to defeat a boss on the game's current build, before doing it all over again with a time limit weighing on our heads. Beating enough bosses would earn visitors swag, too.
Like many others, I await Path of Exile 2’s full release with immense anticipation. I can’t wait to sink my teeth into its full campaign, but it’s slow going as of now.
Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties (12 February, 2026)
My colleague Bruce gave Yakuza Kiwami 3 a shot, being a huge fan of the franchise. I’ve linked his thoughts above, so you can get impressions from someone who’s ardently in love with RGG Studios’ hit Like a Dragon franchise. We weren’t allowed to capture footage directly from the demo for this one, sadly.
Xbox ROG Ally and Xbox ROG Ally X (16 October, 2025)
Interesting story here. We dropped by the Republic of Gamers (ROG) booth to test out the upcoming Xbox ROG Ally and Xbox ROG Ally X handheld devices, and tried out a few different games on both consoles. Namely, Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, Doom Eternal, Umamusume: Pretty Derby, and Dynasty Warriors: Origins.
We noticed a troubling pattern here. Out of all of these games, Dynasty Warriors: Origins is the only game that didn’t seem to exhibit visible performance issues on both devices (Umamsume had some frame drops, which lines up with its mobile performance). Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Doom Eternal both froze outright for lengthy periods of time. We reset Final Fantasy 7 Remake only to find its performance righted, suggesting some kind of memory leak-related issue at hand.
This could be either a software or hardware issue, but we just didn't have enough time to come to a conclusion ourselves regarding the console's technical capabilities. For now, what we can say is that both handhelds feel extremely comfortable to use, with the buttons and grips feeling much like a standard Xbox controller. Personally, I feel like that already gives the handheld a leg up over the Nintendo Switch 2's slim and slightly awkward controls, if not for the potential performance issues.
Interestingly, our senior video producer Jay (check out his work here) had left his stuttering demo of Doom Eternal behind, only for the exact same ROG Xbox Ally X device to be picked up by the one, and the only, Phil Spencer–head of Xbox. He looked like he was having fun with the game, so it’s safe to say that it didn’t freeze up on him too.
Reanimal (early 2026)
Happinet’s booth at Tokyo Game Show included a few fun indies, including Renaimal–an upcoming survival horror game that has caught our eye since its reveal at Gamescom in 2024. Twisted animalistic designs and innocuous characters make up the bulk of this game’s demo, which sees two protagonists find their way through a very grim world.
Granted, I had only just tried out Little Nightmares 3 at Cos-Mic 2025, but this game reminded me of it quite a bit, down to its childlike co-op protagonists. This is a sidescrolling horror game wherein the player faces down threats much bigger than them, much like Little Nightmares, but in more monochrome and grounded environments–if the demo is to be believed.
I had a lot of fun with this one. Its grisly creature designs and interesting co-op gameplay (from one player leading the way with a lamp, to another player taking the lead by digging around for keys) could make for a great time when it launches.
2XKO (7 October early access)
Riot Games’ Tokyo Game Show demo build of 2XKO is very much the same build that’s currently in Closed Beta, but we had a chance to drop by and try the game on fight sticks, and boy does it shine. This game has generated a ton of discourse online based on its high skill ceiling and difficulty, what with its tag team match-ups, Fuse abilities, and movesets, but it flows so well in 1v1 combat that it makes you just want to hop back on for more.
That’s the sign of a good fighter, and while 2XKO hasn’t quite taken shape yet with its limited playable roster, we are looking forward to its next few years of updates. Who knows? With this kind of addictive-yet-frustating gameplay, Riot might have another hit on its hands.
Odds and ends
That wraps up our impressions of the demos we played at Tokyo Game Show day one! There are thousands of game booths available, so keep an eye out for interesting publishers and distributors to check out the titles you’re keen on. We’ll end this by saying that, while it’s easy to be tempted by the numerous Battlefield, Sega, and Ananta bags you might see splashed across the show floor, it’s worth paying attention to the all-new IPs in this event.
Games like Reanimal and even the hot newcomer Ananta have proven to be our favourites of the bunch thus far, and we’re very much not alone in that. Go in there, check out some underlooked games, and get weird with it!
Tokyo Game Show runs from 25 September, 2025 to 28 September, 2025.
