Neverness to Everness hasn’t even launched yet and it’s already at the center of a full community controversy. The upcoming open-world urban fantasy RPG developed by Hotta Studio, a subsidiary of Perfect World Games, is set to release on April 29 across PC, PS5, Mac, iOS, and Android.
The game has been building serious anticipation since its announcement back in July 2024, and with launch just days away, the community has been watching every new detail closely. So when a viral clip surfaced claiming the game had a deeply problematic “dating system” with gender-based restrictions, people reacted fast, and loudly, before anyone stopped to verify whether the information was actually true.
It wasn’t.
How the controversy started
It all kicked off on April 18 when a gameplay video began circulating across X (formerly Twitter) and other platforms. In the clip, a player using the female main character activated a hug interaction with a nearby female NPC. What followed surprised a lot of viewers: the female character embraced the protagonist with one arm and then dramatically lifted her chin in a cinematic, intimate pose. The clip spread quickly and reactions started pouring in.
As the video gained traction, players began digging into how the interaction system supposedly worked. The claim that started circulating was specific: the game allows you to invite up to five female characters to large, purchasable in-game properties, where you can engage in social interactions with them.
The twist that fueled the outrage was that male characters were allegedly locked out entirely, and this restriction supposedly applied regardless of whether the player chose a male or female protagonist. Even if you played as a female main character, you reportedly couldn’t invite any male characters to your property.
NTE Dating System #NTE #NevernesstoEverness pic.twitter.com/FEVSIjMCpe
— Gacha Zone (@Gacha_Zone) April 18, 2026
That detail is what turned a viral clip into a full-blown community controversy. Players on Reddit, X, and gaming forums began calling it out as a poorly designed “dating system” that felt like blatant fanservice catered to a specific demographic while ignoring player choice and representation. A tweet captioned “are we surprised” went viral alongside screenshots of the alleged restrictions, and within hours the narrative was everywhere.
The claims were false, but the damage was already done
Here’s what actually happened: the information was wrong. You can also invite male characters to your property. The restriction that sparked the entire controversy turned out to be a false claim that spread without proper verification.
How this misinformation originated is still not entirely clear. One possibility is that it came from an older test build of the game, where the feature may have worked differently or been incomplete. Another theory floating around the community is that the false information was spread intentionally, to generate controversy and draw attention to the game ahead of launch, potentially pulling players from competing titles into the NTE conversation.
A few voices even suggested it was deliberate bait designed to stir drama in a gacha community that’s already deeply tribal about which games it supports.
What makes the situation more frustrating is how fast the false narrative traveled before corrections started appearing. By the time the facts caught up, the outrage posts had already racked up thousands of interactions, and plenty of people never saw the follow-up. That’s the nature of gaming drama in 2026, the fire spreads in minutes, and the water takes days.
Neither Hotta Studio nor Perfect World Games have issued any official statement addressing the controversy or the misinformation behind it. That silence has been a head-scratcher, because a simple clarification post could have put the whole thing to rest early on. Instead, the community has been left to sort through the noise on its own, which predictably led to more speculation about whether the restriction was intentional, a placeholder from an unfinished build, or simply something that never existed in the final version of the game.
What this means for NTE going into launch
The interaction system at the center of all this is part of NTE’s broader social and lifestyle mechanics. The game isn’t just an action RPG, it also includes property ownership, business management, vehicle customization, photography, and a variety of slice-of-life systems layered on top of the open-world combat.
The social interaction feature, where players can invite characters to their in-game properties and engage with them in various ways, is one of those lifestyle elements. It’s the kind of feature that, when well-executed, players tend to love. When it’s misrepresented or poorly communicated, situations exactly like this one happen.
The bigger issue here is trust. NTE is already carrying some skepticism from players familiar with Hotta Studio’s previous title, Tower of Fantasy, which had a mixed reception after launch. The team has spent nearly two years building goodwill through beta tests and regular community communication, and early impressions from those tests have been largely positive. A pre-launch controversy, even one built entirely on false information, is the last thing the game needed nine days before its global release.
The community is still buzzing, the developers are still silent, and NTE is still launching on April 29. Whether this drama ends up being a footnote or something that lingers will depend a lot on how the game actually plays when it hits servers. But the fact that a completely false claim was able to dominate the conversation for days without any official pushback is worth paying attention to, regardless of how the game turns out.
What do you think, was this whole thing a genuine misunderstanding or calculated drama to get people talking? Let us know in the comments!