Hailed by many as “Anime GTA,” there is no doubt that Neverness to Everness (NTE) is the “trending game” of the moment. It being a high-production multiplatform gacha game inevitably means it’ll also get that “the next Genshin Impact” branding, which has made many people curious. But how high are the hardware borders to entry for mobile players?
Honestly, we could just link the NTE System Requirements and call it a day. It says that Android users need at least a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 (2019 flagship chip found in devices like the Galaxy Note 10), Dimensity 8000, or Kirin 990. Recommended, however, would be the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2/3, Dimensity 9200, or Kirin 9200S.
Apple users have it much simpler: at least an iPhone 12 Pro, recommended is iPhone 14 Pro and newer.
The game also needs at least 8GB of RAM to run smoothly, and 20+GB of storage to keep it (likely more for future updates).
These graphical requirements are borne of the usage of Unreal Engine 5 for the game – one of the most complex, demanding game engines in existence today. The PC and console versions of NTE are definitely significantly more detailed and heavier, but we would’ve never imagined a game of this scale playable on smartphone just a decade ago.
So we got to Reddit. As expected, many are looking forward to giving this game a try, but not everyone has the hardware for it. Others are wishing their potato PCs can run it, others have entry-level phones that successfully installed the game from Bilibili (Play Store eliminated them due to low specs), while others gave up and bit the bullet on a PS5.
Others have praised its optimization on mobile. Another user named CYBERGAMER_ tested it himself with two devices: A Vivo X Fold 3 Pro with the recommended Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 (2023 flagship), and the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra with the minimum (and infamous) Exynos 990 (865 equivalent time-wise, but 855 power-wise).
Keep in mind that he put in many hours (70 to be exact) in the Beta test, which can still be further optimized.
With the 8 Gen 3, his device played it excellently locked at 60 FPS. Most of the time it played at 60, occasionally going below but never under 50. Thermals were also managed well and the game crashed only thrice in all his hours of play.
Meanwhile with the minimum Exynos 990, the game could only be properly played at medium to low settings. The averages were around 20-25 FPS, with some stutters here and there. Pushing up the graphical settings caused the phone to crash. But keeping it at low? No reported crashes, although the user did explain he spent MUCH less time playing on the Note.
The long and short of it is that sure, it won’t be the prettiest experience playing this on the minimum settings. But if all you want is to be able to play the game for sustained amounts of time with decent frame rates, it’ll be able to do it (still depends on the phone of course). Your best bet: get a thermal cooler for sustained gameplay sessions.
You may even get lucky and find it playable with an even older device (like this iPhone 11). One thing’s for sure; this game might just be the new standard for graphics testing phones, surpassing old-timers like Genshin Impact and Wuthering Waves.
What’s your NTE story?