ANANTA Beginner Guide: What to Do in Your First Hours

What the first hours are for

The opening is a tutorial corridor disguised as a crisis. You arrive as the new Captain of the A.C.D., a department that has already collapsed, and the game uses that premise to introduce movement, parkour, the parry, and the first environmental weapon in sequence. Nothing here is optional in any meaningful sense: the systems it teaches underpin every later activity.

That matters because ANANTA has no character gacha and no purchased shortcut. Characters unlock through the story and through identity work, so skipping the prologue does not save time; it removes the context that tells you which character to use where. If you usually rush to the endgame, this is one game where rushing the intro costs more than it saves.

The prologue beats you can rely on

Testers who played the Cologne 2026 and TGS 2025 builds describe the same five-beat opening. The order is worth knowing, because it shows when the game expects you to start experimenting.

1. You take command of a depleted squad. The A.C.D. is understaffed, and your first job is to respond rather than to win.
2. A runaway elevated train cuts through the city. This is the tutorial's crisis set piece: respond, locate the source, and stop it spreading.
3. The squad goes viral. Handling the incident makes the Captain an online name, which starts the fame loop that replaces a traditional XP bar.
4. The tutorial escalates. Movement, then light attacks and dodges, then the grapple, then the first environmental weapon, then the first swing-and-release traversal segment.
5. The city opens. Once the corridor ends, you are given a district and a list of jobs rather than a next objective marker.

The exact chapter names are not official, and no source confirms whether the train sequence is a quick-time event or fully playable. Treat the beats as structure, not as a walkthrough.

The first 48 hours, in three phases

Break the opening into three phases rather than one long checklist. The hour marks are a suggested pace, not an official rhythm, and they assume you read and explore rather than speed-run. What matters is that each phase has a different job.

In the prologue phase, do not skip a tutorial prompt to save time. Grapple, wall-run, dodge, parry, and environmental pickup each get one introduction; none is repeated later. The prologue also hands you Taffy, so there is no starter choice to agonise over; the Captain is the only character you control until the story says otherwise.

In the story phase, resist the urge to clear side content in the district you just unlocked. Each main mission introduces a system that makes the side content faster afterwards. If a fight feels impossible, the usual answer is better use of movement and the environment, not more levels; there is no level wall to grind past.

Which identity to level first

Identities level separately, so order matters more than balance. A workable sequence is Captain first, then Taffy, then Richie, and Seymour later, because each one makes the next cheaper to learn.

1. Captain. Your own body. The gravity kit is the one ability set you always have, so become fluent with it before splitting attention.
2. Taffy. Courier work teaches the street network: which alleys connect, which roofs chain, where the shortcuts are. That map knowledge pays off in every other identity.
3. Richie. The police side teaches the order system, including how wanted levels escalate. You will meet that system whether or not you level it, so learning it deliberately beats learning it by accident.
4. Seymour. Hacking is the most situational loop and the one that benefits most from a city you already know. Saving it for later costs nothing.

After that, switch by in-game day rather than by mood. The identity system guide explains what each day type produces and why there is no shared account level to fall back on.

Four cheap things that grow fame

Fame replaces an experience bar, and the cheapest inputs are also the most reliable. In rough order of payoff: resolve a city incident such as an anomaly, a falling object, or a data leak; chain citizen requests of the same kind across several days; take performance or streaming side jobs; and pick up photos, cats, and mini-games in passing.

None of these require a route. That is the difference from a daily-routine game: there is no published cap, no five-ring loop, and no timer to beat. The efficient habit is to do the one in front of you and move on. The fame guide covers the negative half of the same system, which is the part that catches new players out.

Check your mail before you do anything else

Pre-registration rewards are delivered in-game, which means there is a claim step. The milestone ladder is confirmed; the delivery timing is not. Open the mail as soon as the prologue ends. It is the cheapest sensible habit: the cosmetics and currency do not help you fight, but they remove early friction.

The full ladder, and what each item is and is not, sits on the pre-registration page. Two cautions carry over: Jillion Vouchers have no published use yet, and none of the rewards guarantee beta access, because there is no public beta.

There is no pull screen to check

Coming from a similar-looking game, you will look for the summon menu, the starter banner, and the reroll guide. ANANTA has none of them. The developers have said characters are part of the story and will not sit in a paid random pool, and every store field and interview since has held that line. Cosmetics, vehicle modifications, and housing are the confirmed paid categories, and none of them change combat output.

For hour one, that means one thing: there is nothing to reroll. Your account's starting state is the Captain, and the roster widens as you play. Guides that open with "best starter character" are describing a different game.

Progression comes from doing the job

Identities are jobs, not classes. The delivery identity levels by completing deliveries, the police identity levels by conducting stops and writing tickets, and the hacker identity levels by tracing signals and running intrusions. Testers describe this as "going to work": the activity is the progression, and the route is often designed to drag you through districts you would otherwise skip.

The practical consequence is that your first identity choice decides your first week. Pick the loop you actually enjoy, because you will repeat it. The identity system guide explains what each loop involves and why there is no shared player level to fall back on.

Move up before you move across

Ground level is the slowest and most crowded layer. Testers consistently recommend going vertical early: get onto low roofs, then use rails and elevated lines as your default east-west route, then glide off height instead of running down streets. There is no player stamina bar, so this costs nothing but practice.

None of that requires unlocked abilities beyond what the prologue teaches. What it does require is unlearning the habit of following the road. The traversal guide covers the three vertical tiers, wall-running, and glide chaining in detail.

Seven habits that cost you time

These are behaviour mistakes, not content mistakes, and each is common enough to read before launch rather than after.

1. Treating identities as collectible characters. There is no role pool and no shared skill tree. Advice about a main damage dealer and a support is a genre transplant.
2. Spreading time evenly across every identity. Progress is per job. A little of everything leaves all four loops underlevelled.
3. Chasing 100% exploration during the opening. Clear the requests on the main path and leave rooftop secrets and interior puzzles for later, when your movement kit is complete.
4. Switching characters mid-fight expecting a swap. Character switching has a camera fly-in and is built for exploration, not for combat. In a fight you block, parry, and use the environment.
5. Buying fame multipliers. No official "fame compounding" or reputation multiplier item has been confirmed. Posts selling the idea are describing a different game.
6. Ignoring the wanted level. Vandalism and trespass accumulate, and the response escalates from patrol officers to heavier units and air support. When the alert goes up, grapple out of the district rather than fighting the escalation.
7. Copying an emulator key layout. Android emulator mapping is an overlay on the mobile client and shares nothing with the native PC build. Calibrate your own layout instead; the controls guide explains why the PC map is still a draft.

Content to ignore outright

• Tier lists and "best main DPS" posts. No official combat roles, skill names, or multipliers exist. Anything with numbers is invented.
• Stamina management advice. The break gauge belongs to enemies. Your sprint and swim do not consume a resource.
• Daily farming routes. Fame has no published thresholds, conversion table, or cap, so no route can be optimised yet.
• Build guides for specific characters. Characters are unlocked by story and identity work, and their kits have not been published.
• Beta key offers. There has never been a public beta, and there are no keys to claim.

What to check yourself on day one

Six things are still unpublished, and each one changes how you should play. Checking them early beats trusting a guide written from a closed test.

• The native PC key map and whether rebinding is full or partial. Set your layout before you build muscle memory on a default you may change.
• Whether the fame screen shows numbers or only narrative prompts. That determines whether any "efficient fame route" can exist at all.
• Whether the two cities share one reputation track or two. If they are separate, spreading fame across both is slower than deepening one.
• How switching cities actually works. Every "fast travel ticket" system described online is an invented term, so test the real transition yourself.
• The exact blue and red attack prompts and the parry window. Frame data is unpublished, and community cooldown figures are single-source impressions.
• What the store's randomised purchases contain. The store field is confirmed; whether the randomised items are cosmetic only is not.

The short version

Finish the tutorial, claim your mail, pick a job you like, and travel by roof. ANANTA rewards players who engage with its systems as a city sandbox; it punishes players who arrive looking for a character-collection game. The first two hours set that expectation, and the next forty decide which loop you actually enjoy.