Final Test Direct – Release Announcement

Etheria: Restart have just released what they have called the Final Test Direct, hosted by Mary and Michael, part of the Etheria: Restart Team.

The Final Test Direct serves as an opportunity to give the community the inside scoop on the upcoming official launch of Etheria: Restart, running through all of the exciting features the game has to offer.

First of all, for those of you who are not aware already of Etheria: Restart, it is an urban supernatural strategy RPG with a turn-based combat system. The developers have taken classic turn-based gameplay and mixed it with deep strategic elements and mixed it with deep strategic elements and open exploration, creating a well-rounded game that feels fresh and exciting, and really stands out. The flexibility in battle is incredible, with the ability to create so many different team combinations based on each Animus’ unique abilities.

Etheria: Restart is fully cross-platform on PC, iOS and Android from the launch, meaning you can play whenever and wherever you want to.

The official release date for Etheria: Restart is June 5^th, and pre-registration is now available on all major app stores. You can also head to the Etheria: Restart Website to pre-register for your preferred platform.

Pre-registering will gain you access to exclusive rewards when the game goes live!

To ensure everyone has the best possible experience at launch, there will be one final test window, between May 8^th and May 19^th. This test will include payment features with a special bonus for those who want to spend in the game.

Any purchases made during the test will come with multiple rebates at the official launch. We have a designated article explaining this rebate system, which you can find from the button below.

Now we’ve covered the upcoming test and global release, it’s time to break down all of the exciting content coming at launch, plus reveal brand new gameplay features that haven’t appeared in any previous test.

Read on to learn more about the Main Story, Development System, Starter Teams, New Animuses added to the game, all of the game play modes, including a new Arena type that we’ve not experienced yet, and finally – the very first Redeem Code of Etheria: Restart!

The story of Etheria is set in a future where humanity faces civilisation collapse. To survive, people transfer their consciousness into a virtual world called Etheria, where they live alongside Animus, beings who wield the power of Anima.

For a time, everyone coexisted peacefully. But then, a disaster known as Genesis began to corrupt the Animus. They turned violent, putting human lives at risk.

To fight back, the Union was formed. As a Hyperlinker, you’ll enter Etheria to cleanse the Genesis and restore balance to this fractured world.

Overall, Etheria is set in a Sci-fi, Post-Apocalyptic setting.

When you start the game, the first thing you’ll experience after the introduction is the main character’s home. The interface is designed to feel like a cosy living space, but outside you’ll see a bleak, snowy landscape, reminding you that the real world is still trapped in the aftermath of the apocalypse.

The main home screen isn’t just cosy, it’s also functional. You can use the Work Station to develop and upgrade your Animus, browse the archives with Chaku-ring, and access other helpful features.

Towards the window, you will notice a Disk, this is where you access the Hyperlink Summons section to bring new Animus to your team!

You can also quickly jump to any function in the game with the shortcut bar, located in the top right-hand corner of the home screen.

The heart of the adventure happens in the real world of Etheria. In the main storyline, as a Hyperlinker, you’ll explore Sandbox-style levels in the virtual world. You’ll be teaming up with your partner, Maggie and other Animus to take on challenges together.

Etheria: Restart is built using Unreal Engine, which allowed the developers to create incredible game environments and characters.

The Main Story features high quality cinematic-scenes that really pull you into the world as you explore and uncover its secrets.

For those who want to be efficient or don’t like reading narratives, you can speed up the story by holding down the fast-forward button, or even skip these scenes altogether.

While exploring, you can take out weaker enemies with stealth attacks, but for tougher ones, you’ll need to face them head-on using your Animus.

Combat in Etheria: Restart uses a turn-based system, where your Animus’ speed determines who acts first.

Skills don’t use up resources, but they do all have cooldowns. When you’re up against powerful enemies, you’ll really need to think about your strategy and plan around your skill timings to counter different challenges you may face during encounters.

Early in the story, you will already have access to a strong team. During the prologue, Maggie introduces you to four powerful Animuses from the Union so you are set up for success right away!

You’ll meet Gray, who boosts Critical Damage, Cachi, who can stun enemies and help your teammates, Dorothy, who keeps everyone healed up, and your very first SSR Unit, Lian, who deals massive damage.

These four make an incredibly well-rounded team that can handle most early challenges that you’ll face. They are perfect for farming equipment Dungeons and other early game content.

Lian especially stands out with her incredible damage output, in fact, she will carry you until you build more specialised teams. You’ll even see Lian dominating in Arena.

Each and every Animus has its own role to play in battles; winning comes down to finding the right combinations and strategies.

Each Animus in Etheria: Restart has been carefully designed, and when the game launches on June 5^th, we’ll be able to meet even more new Characters than we already have.  Here is a small preview of 5 of the new Animuses coming to the game on June 5^th.

Rilmocha, a Hollow Element SSR Animus, who appears to be built as a damage dealer.

Rosa is an Odd Element SSR Animus who is also equipped with heavy-hitting damage gear.

Tsukiyo Mi, an Odd Element SSR Animus who appears to provide buffs for your team, in the preview, she was built out with tons of Defensive stats and Effect ACC.

Borgne is another Odd Element SSR Unit, who the developers showcased in a high-speed build with heaps of Effect ACC in his build.

Mia is a Reason Element SSR, who just like Borgne is built with a large amount of Speed, however, a glimpse of her skills shows that she is a support who provides Shields, Dispels and Heals – she could be a real winner!

While they weren’t mentioned, we also spotted some other additions during the stream, but we do not know any more information about them just yet. But at a glance, we saw at least one new SR Animus, Rin the Unbowed, similar to the other SR Animus, Rin.

In total, there are over 50 Animus waiting for you in the game, and don’t worry too much about early resources. Through various game modes, you’ll be able to earn plenty of summoning resources to build your dream team!

Above, we broke down 5 new SSR Animuses who are coming to the game, but on top of that, there will be a Featured Summoning Event when the game goes live for another new SSR, Freya.

Freya is Hollow Element, and appears like a Jack-of-all-trades by reading her skills, of course we’ve not had the ability to test her just yet, but from the preview shown we can get an idea of how valuable she will be for your accounts.

The developers showcased Freya in a speed-heavy build, with high Effect ACC, which is an absolute must-have for her skills to place the valuable  Nightmare debuffs.

Skill 1: Freya deals 2 instances of damage to a single enemy. The first instance can apply 1 stack of Dreamlike to a random ally, while the second has a chance to place Nightmare to the target enemy for 1 turn.

Dreamlike allows allies to consume 1 stack and trigger Purify, and stacks up to 3 times, allowing you to passively deal with debuffs on your team.

When an enemy affected by Nightmare is attacked, Freya’s ally will recover some of her HP. Enemies under Nightmare debuffs will also take 20% more damage!

Freya’s exclusive Passive Skill boosts the Turn Meter by 4% on allies who receive buffs, and each time an enemy is inflicted with a debuff it will reduce their Turn Meter by 4%, these effects ignore Resistance stats, and can be triggered up to 3 times per turn! When Freya is the one triggering these effects, the results are doubled.

Skill 2: Freya grants all allies Defense Up, increasing their Defense by 60% and also applies Dreamweave to all allies for 2 turns, with a high chance (100% when upgraded) to place an additional stack of Dreamweave.

Skill 3: Freya grants all allies Attack Up for 2 turns, increasing attack by 40%, then attacks all enemies 4 times, each with a chance to apply Nightmare debuffs for 1 turn.

Freya overall appears to be a complete gamechanger who can enhance your teams offensive and defensive capabilities, whilst also making sure you aren’t overwhelmed with pesky debuffs AND completely controlling the pace of the fight by boosting your teams actions whilst simultaneously reducing the enemies.

As mentioned, Freya will be available through a Limited-time Featured Summon, and the banner has a special feature that everyone should know about; you are guaranteed to get Freya if you summon an SSR, without fail – and that will remain true for any future Featured Summon banners.

Besides the Limited Time Summon Banners for new characters, there are plenty of other types of summons in Etheria: Restart.

To welcome new players to Etheria: Restart, the developers have prepared one beginner-exclusive summons event, where you can pick an Animus from a select list, you will be guaranteed to get them in just 40 pulls, however this banner will vanish once you have obtained them, so be sure to pick wisely – don’t worry, we will cover this in a future post closer to release to help you make an informed decision.

During the official launch, there will also be a special Rate Up summon for a fan-favourite SSR, Messiah, where you will guarantee adding him to your roster with a maximum of 100 summons.

Outside of these special banners, there are standard summon pools where you can use your summons to collect new Animuses for your roster.

In the Animus Development Interface, you can use upgrade materials to boost your character’s level and star rating. Every Animus, regardless of rarity, can be upgraded to a maximum of 6 stars and level 50!

You can also enhance their potential, upgrade skills, and use duplicate Shadowprints for quality upgrades.

Beyond levelling up your Animus, Etheria: Restart also has a unique Matrix system for equipment. By combining Matrix Points from Modules and Shells, you can activate powerful Matrix Effects once you meet certain conditions.

These Matrix Effects can give your Animus huge stat boosts! For example, if your main damage dealer relies on critical hits, you can maximise their potential by equipping three crit-related skills, as showcased in the image below.

Right now, there are 21 different Matrix Effects in the game, offering boosts to stats like Attack, Defence, Crit Damage, Healing, Speed and more.

On top of that, there are 6 specialized Matrix Effects that need a specific combination of Modules and Shells, each requiring 6 points to activate.

The Module System gives players tons of customisation options.

The three Modules on the left have fixed attribute options, while the three on the right can be equipped with any primary attribute, including those with Specialised Matrix Effects.

Modules can then be upgraded to unlock additional secondary stats for even more boosts.

Overall, the Module System offers a huge array of flexibility for custom builds for your Animuses.

You can earn Modules by challenging three unique bosses in Threshold mode, each with 14 difficulty levels.

Different bosses drop different modules, and the higher the difficulty, the better the Modules you’ll get!

After beating a boss on a certain difficulty, you will unlock continuous battles based on your star rating, allowing you to AFK-Farm for valuable rewards – you can even minimise these fights to check out other areas of the game whilst they run.

Shells are basically companions, or pets, and each one has unique skills – some even actively attack enemies while others provide stat boosts or other bonuses to your Animus.

Different types of Shells have different abilities, and they can be upgraded to unlock stronger skills and passive effects.

You can also use Material reconstruction to refine their passive effects for better results!

Shells are acquired by taking on Grim Pursuit mode, where 10 unique bosses are waiting to be challenged.

Before jumping into battle, you can check the boss details page or the archive to see which Shells or Modules from each stage – we also have dedicated guide pages for each of these bosses.

One other thing to note, in this stream, a brand new boss had been added, Shadowflame Hoyan, so stay tuned as we will be sure to do a guide on her as soon as we are able to access her, but she even drops some brand new shells that weren’t in the previous test build!

It looks like a total of 4 new shells have been added since the last Beta.

When the game officially launches, you can use the redemption code: ETHERIA0605 to get your hands on Anima Prototypes (Summons).

During the final test phase, you can also use the code: ETHERIA0508 to get even more Anima Prototypes!

Keep an eye on our Promo Code page for any future codes as and when they are released!

In the Trial Challenge, there are four unique  challenge modes, each with its own gameplay style and special rewards.

A variety of side stages that features each animus you can recruit. Clearing these stages rewards you with tons of great rewards such as Summon vouchers, Upgrade Materials, and even Avatars and other cosmetic items for your characters.

A multiplayer challenge where two Hyperlinkers team up with three squads to take down powerful bosses. The higher your battle rating, the better your rewards and they reset weekly, so there’s always something to work towards!

Deep within Etheria lies the Abyss of Decay, known as Ember. Hyperlinkers are sent to explore this mysterious space in the Ember Trek. This mode features 42 sequential areas where you’ll tackle exploration challenges and battle various bosses. In these areas you’ll encounter “consciousness corridors” that require sandbox-style exploration, Mind Rifts where you’ll face specific Animus teams, and Memory Abyss where you’ll challenge fully powered bosses with enhanced skills. As you explore, you’ll earn Leiboz Supply Points to exchange for rewards at the Supply Hub.

Finally we have the Ethernet Rally, where you’ll build three Animus teams starting from different locations. You’ll tackle various stages to collect loot, upgrade its quality through nodes and ultimately defeat all the bosses for high quality rewards.

To make sure Etheria has plenty of depth, the developers have also added limited-time event modes, these rotating events are fun, easy to jump into and packed with great rewards!

On launch we will start with two Limited-time events, but they will keep adding more in the future!

A mode where you’ll use magical cards on randomly generated number discs to adjust the difficulty, effects, and rewards of each stage. At Lily’s Magic Divination Shop you’ll get Cupid Boards of varying difficulties and use random cards to enhance elements like bosses and rewards. Strategically place the cards to get the rewards you want, and then take on the bosses to claim them!

A prediction event where teams from major Etheria factions compete in the arena. During the event, you’ll predict which team will win the championship – guess correctly and you’ll earn even better rewards!

Starting a new game can be overwhelming when there’s lots of things you need to think about and learn, however the Developers have prepared a series of Hyperlink Charters.

By following the prompts on these charters, you’ll gradually learn the ins and outs of the game while earning some awesome rewards along the way!

Plus, the powerful starter Animus, SSR Lian, can carry you all the way into the late game, and the Hyperlink Charter even includes exclusive quests for Lian that involve using her in-game modes and upgrading her!

Completing the Lian Chater Quests will provide you with loads of upgrade materials, including Lian’s Anima, which helps you power her up quickly.

Outside of the game, Etheria: Restart have teamed up with none other than… us, at Hellhades.com to create a dedicated Etheria: Restart page, we have been working tirelessly to put together a huge amount of resources ahead of the release of Etheria: Restart, and will continue to work and develop the content and guides we provide as the game gets nearer to release, and onwards.

In Etheria: Restart, you can create your own Union and invite friends to join.

In your Unions, you’ll earn daily rewards for just signing in. Work together on weekly tasks for extra resources, and shop for upgrade materials in the Union Shop.

Plus, with the Union Aid feature, you can request Animus Prototype Shards from your Union members, collect enough shards, and you can upgrade your Animus’ Anima level. You can also contribute Meme wishes to help out your fellow Union Members!

In the Union’s Anchor Recon Challenge, you’ll team up with other members to take down three powerful bosses of varying difficulties.

You’ll need to organise a 5-player squad for these tough bosses, and you can even borrow support Animus from other Union members.

Each time you chip away at the boss’s health, you’ll earn rewards based on the damage dealt. When you finally defeat the boss, you’ll get a Victory Chest packed with Union Coins.

If you want items from the Union shop, team up with your Union and take on these bosses together!

The developers have put a lot of effort into creating exciting PVP Content – they want to deliver a thrilling competitive experience through the Arena Realm PVP modes, which is why they have prepared three exciting different PVP options and another one that is in it’s final stages of development!

First up we have the standard ranking arena, where you’ll use Arena Tickets that refresh daily to battle against other players defensive teams. Simply, winning matches earns you points, but you will need a solid Defensive team as if you are attacked and defeated, you’ll lose points.

Climb the ranks to reach the top, Mythic Tier, and at the end of each season, you’ll earn special rewards based on your rank – if you reach Mythic, you will even unlock a cool Arena Nameplate Frame!

Live Arena ready to go on launch? Absolutely.

The Summit Arena is a real-time PVP mode where you face off against other Hyperlinkers in live battles.  And yes, this supports global cross-server matchmaking too, so finding battles won’t be a challenge – but winning them will be!

In Summit Arena, you’ll take turns selecting Animus for your team. During this phase, neither side can pick the same character as the other. After both sides have selected 5 Animus, you’ll get the option to ban one of your opponent’s picks, making it a 4 vs 4 fight in real-time.

The strategy to Summit Arena begins right at the selection phase, you’ll need to outthink your opponent to secure victory.

Summit Arena also offers rank-up rewards like Etherena, including unique avatar frames for reaching certain tiers. At the end of the season, you’ll earn special rewards based on your final ranking.

The third arena is called the Fearless Arena, which features an official light eSports mode. Here, you can quickly match with 8 Hyperlinkers to compete in a Fearless Cup Event. The event runs every Saturday and Sunday, and you can participate as many times as you want during that period.

Eight players compete, advancing round by round until a champion emerges!

The prize, Decisive Star Emblems, which can be exchanged in the Arena Shop, includes exclusive Hyperlinker outfits and Chaku skins!

The idea that we can jump straight into a tournament from the release of the game against other players is so exciting. We can’t wait to see what clever tricks people have up their sleeves to try and win these tournaments!

The developers are in process of putting the finishing touches on a GvG mode called United Front. This mode will launch after the official release on June 5^th, so stay tuned for more updates on this as and when we learn more!

During the last beta, there was an incredibly successful Fusion Cup Invitational, a Summit Arena, Real-Time PVP Competition, where one contestant was eventually crowned the winner, well there’s some exciting news, the team at Etheria: Restart have just announced the EWS (Etheria World Summit).

Player Feedback and the demand for competitive play has been a major focus for the team of Etheria: Restart, and they are going to provide a global stage for the competitive players to face off against each other.

The first official Tournament will be released right after the global launch, so be sure to get involved in Summit Arena during the final test, and after the launch of the game to quality, and let’s see who emerges as the strongest PVP Player in Etheria!

What a wild ride that was, the preview stream for the official Launch in June and the final test in May has left us with multiple new game modes, a minimum of 6 new Animus, 4 new Shells and a whole lot of excitement and anticipation to be able to play competitively against everyone!

This game has every potential to really carve its name into history for Mobile RPGS, and we are absolutely here for it!