Aniimo Put a Legendary Aniimo in a Shop 25 Days After Saying It Would Not

A Legendary Aniimo sat in an in-game shop screen at a fixed price of 99 during Aniimo's third closed beta, 25 days after Pawprint Studio told a preview outlet there would be no Aniimo in the store. The test closed on July 25 with every server wiped. No rates were published for the event, no announcement was ever posted for it, and as of August 1 the studio has said nothing about it on the record.

What Pawprint said before the beta

Two people spoke for the studio during the Summer Game Fest round in June, and they did not say the same thing.

Jovi Zhang, Executive Producer, told MMORPG.com on June 26 that "Aniimo is definitely not a gacha game", that creatures would not be locked behind pulls, and that monetisation "will mainly focus on people or Aniimo outfits, like the costume or their little items". He also set the terms of the test: "The global beta test in the West will not [have] purchase available, but we will also provide enough tokens for people to purchase items in the game."

Jonathan Lemberg, speaking for the development team to MonsterVine two days earlier, on June 24, was narrower and more specific:

"Monetization is not fully nailed down yet. It'll be tested in the upcoming beta for the first time, but the goal is definitely not a gacha game. There will be no Aniimo in the store, and the devs are very aware of not falling into the trap of having pay-to-win or pay-to-progress."

MonsterVine did not publish his job title. That last sentence is the one worth holding on to: unlike "gacha", it cannot be argued about definitionally. It names a screen and a thing that must not be on it.

The official beta trailer shipped alongside the June press round. Pawprint Studio is a publishing label established by FunPlus; the legal publisher is Pawprint Interactive Entertainment Pte. Ltd., which took over from Kingsglory Singapore Private Limited effective 15 April 2026.

What Rift Exploration: Irisalis actually was

It was a time-limited Challenge Dungeon, not a banner, not a permanent mode, and not plural. The in-game title is "Rift Exploration: Irisalis", singular, with the creature's name after a colon. The screen header above it reads "Challenge dungeon".

The client cannot agree with itself on what to call the feature. The dungeon is Rift Exploration. The shop tab is the Crevice Exploration Shop. The Irisalis tooltip says the creature is "Obtained by participating in the Crevice Exploration Event". The entry item is activated "inside a Vein Crevice" and is "forged from the energy of a Vein Rift". Four names, one feature, in one build.

The entry panel carried a countdown rather than a printed window, reading "Event Ending In 8 d 6 h" at capture. It listed "Required Level: Level 20", without saying which level, a "Cost: 1", a three-icon Rewards Preview, and a button marked "Begin Investigation". The cost was paid in Crevice Beacons; the counter on that screen read 2.

The flavour text framed it as rescue work. "A surge of abnormal energy has sent a newly born Legendary Aniimo into a frenzy. Use Aniipods to absorb the chaotic energy, help the Legendary Aniimo calm down, and stabilize its form. During the process, the Legendary Aniimo may offer you rewards, and could even recognize you as an ally!"

Step one is a fight. The overlay reads "Stage Objectives: Defeat the Frenzied Legendary Aniimo", the boss bar sits at 10358/10358, and the corner carries the beta client version 2.0.3032670.3042823.

The part that was actually the draw

The fight is not the mechanic. Step two is.

"2 / Prepare for calming / Throw an Aniipod to calm the Legendary Aniimo." The selected tier in this capture is Aniipod Mega, with five tier counts on the hotbar beside it.

This is not capture in the ordinary sense: an Aniipod does not catch Irisalis. It spends a stock of consumables across five tiers to fill a meter, and the tier chosen is the size of the bet. The hotbar shows five slots with counts of 589, 1590, 57 and 1153, the scarcest tier being the one that returns most. Aniipod Mega and Aniipod Ultra are the two named on screen. The run then resolves on "Investigation Results", subheaded "A Gift from the Legendary Aniimo".

A losing run. Three reward tiles, 42000 gold, 4 pink crystals and 1 blue shard, and no Irisalis. The materials are what feed the counter in the shop.

The 99

Twenty-five days after "there will be no Aniimo in the store", this is the store.

A screen headed "Shop", two tabs, Crevice Exploration Shop active and Pearl Cascade Exchange beside it. Stock left to right: Irisalis, tagged Recommended, at 99; Glimmering Mirage at 2; Prismana Crystal, tagged Discount, at 30; Sparkling Crystal x6 at 1; Star Essence at 4. The counter under the item panel reads 52/99 in red.

The item text is unambiguous: "Obtain the Legendary Aniimo Irisalis with a Perfect potential guaranteed." Its How to Obtain field lists two sources, purchase from the Crevice Exploration Shop and participation in the Crevice Exploration Event. All five prices are denominated in the same purple orb, and that currency is never named anywhere on the screen. There is a Buy button.

Irisalis is not an event trophy shaped like a creature. On Pawprint's own index it is Aniilog NO.013, Grass element, DPS role, with a full stat block: HP 102, ATK 130, P.DEF 80, M.DEF 80, BREAK 50, REGEN 108. Its trait is Bloom Cluster, its four skills are listed with EP costs, its Homeland ability is Pathfinding Fly Lv.3, and its evolution is the Prismana Form. The one field left blank on that page is How to Obtain.

The defence available here is that the shop sold a Perfect-potential variant rather than the creature itself, and that an ordinary Irisalis might come from somewhere else. The shop row argues against it without help: the Prismana Crystal, the upgrade material, sat two slots away in the same shop, in the same unnamed currency, at 30. The creature was priced at more than three times its own upgrade path.

Where the Beacons came from

Every attempt cost one Crevice Beacon, so the question of who could run the dungeon and how often is a question about Beacon supply.

Crevice Beacon, category Materials, quantity 2. "Activate inside a Vein Crevice to lure out a Legendary Aniimo." How to Obtain lists three sources: purchase from the Crevice Exploration Shop, the "Tracing the Trail" event, and the Companion Handbook. The header wallet reads 6125 and 17908898.

The Companion Handbook is the battle pass, with free and premium tiers. Real-money pricing for it was not enabled during the test, and no Western tester was charged for anything: the studio handed out tokens instead, exactly as Zhang described. That is the plumbing that matters. The entry item for a dungeon whose shop sells a Legendary creature is listed, by the game, as a battle pass reward.

What was never published

No drop rates were disclosed for this event. Not on the dungeon panel, not in the Rewards Preview, not on the Investigation Results screen, not in the shop, not in any item tooltip, and not on Pawprint's news site. Checked again on August 1: there is no rate sheet for Rift Exploration: Irisalis, and there has never been one for any Aniimo system.

There was also no announcement. Pawprint posted notices for the beta opening, for Bond Pact and for the closure, and nothing at all for the dungeon that generated the argument. No wiki or database documents it either: Game8, Fextralife, aniimotools.dev, aniimowiki.com and Pawprint's own index all have nothing, checked August 1. Outside coverage amounts to five sentences and no numbers, published July 21. The captures above are the record.

The test itself, in three timezones

Both ends of the beta were a single global instant, published three different ways.

Every opening stamp is 02:00 UTC on July 9, every closing stamp 15:59 UTC on July 25. The test ran 16 days and 14 hours. Officially it was the Global Closed Beta, the third test after CB1 in mid-2025 and CB2 "Paws Up", and the first to run PC, iOS and Android at once. The studio calls it "a limited-entry, free, data-wipe test", and the closing notice is blunt about what that means: "the servers will close and all game data from this test will be deleted".

What the Bond Pact list actually says

One thing survived the wipe. Bond Pact: Seal Your Aniimo let each tester seal a single Aniimo in an Egg, with 3 additional swaps during the window, to be reclaimed at launch on the same account and channel and hatched once the form is unlocked in the Aniilog.

The studio's own farewell video for the Global Closed Beta. The CB2 equivalent of Bond Pact was a separate event called "Reunion Promise".

The FAQ carries three exclusion categories, and all three belong on the page:

1. Prismana Form Aniimo, an entire form class.
2. "Certain Special Aniimo": Helion, Lunara, Irisalis, Fulmintis, Dazmand, Besauce, Somniwing, etc.
3. "Partial Aniimo from the Whisperwake Isles region": Cheekie, Wavwal, Reefish, Coraliz, Popapus, Gachapus, Bubbeep, Glameep, Malangel, Malevsera, etc.

Aniimo out on expeditions or currently deployed are also excluded. Sparkling, Alpha and Darkler variants are explicitly eligible.

Irisalis is on the second list, which is the line most worth reading carefully, because with all three categories printed the exclusion reads much more like a routine content boundary than a verdict on Irisalis specifically. An entire form class and most of a region are barred alongside it. Worth noting all the same: one of the two launch-day events, "Prismana Promise", handed every tester a preserved Prismana egg to start with, and Prismana Forms are the first thing the preservation event refuses to carry.

Three things will settle this

Nothing has been said. The closing notice thanks testers, says feedback "will remain one of the most important guides for improving Aniimo", and does not mention monetisation, the shop or the dungeon once. The argument was circulating by July 21, the servers closed on July 25, and as of August 1 there is no statement from Pawprint reconciling any of it with what Zhang and Lemberg said in June. Nothing has been retracted either.

Three dated, checkable things will resolve it at launch:

1. Whether Rift Exploration, or anything with a fixed-price creature at the end of it, ships in the Q3 2026 release build.
2. Whether a non-Perfect Irisalis turns out to be obtainable in normal play, which would fill in the blank How to Obtain field on NO.013.
3. Whether Crevice Beacons, or their successor, carry a real-money price in a region that is not being handed free tokens.

Every screen in the beta carried the same line along the bottom: "Aniimo is still a work-in-progress! The final version of the game may be completely different." That caveat is real and it cuts both ways. A monetisation test exists to be changed, and this one did its job by producing exactly this reaction. The open question is whether the studio changes the mechanic or just stops describing it.

Aniimo launches globally in Q3 2026 on PS5, Xbox Series X and S, Steam, Epic Games Store, Xbox PC, iOS and Android. We will update this piece if Pawprint responds on the record.

FAQ

Is Aniimo a gacha game? Pawprint Studio says no, on the record, twice in June 2026. Its third closed beta then ran a time-limited dungeon whose shop listed a Legendary Aniimo at a fixed price of 99, with a Buy button and a 52/99 counter. The studio has not addressed the two together.

What was Rift Exploration: Irisalis? A time-limited Challenge Dungeon in the Global Closed Beta, not a banner and not a permanent mode. It required Level 20 and cost one Crevice Beacon per attempt. You fought a frenzied Irisalis, then spent Aniipods across five tiers to calm it, and an Investigation Results screen paid out either the creature or materials.

Were the drop rates disclosed? No. No percentages appear on any screen of the event, and Pawprint has never published a rate sheet for it or for anything else in Aniimo. Verified August 1, 2026.

Did the event have a pity system? It had a fixed-price exchange, which is the same thing by another name. Materials from runs accumulated toward a 99 price on Irisalis in the Crevice Exploration Shop, with "Perfect potential guaranteed" in the item text.

Could you buy more attempts with real money? Not during the beta. No real-money purchase was available in the West and the studio supplied tokens instead. The Crevice Beacon's own tooltip lists the Companion Handbook, the battle pass, as one of its three sources, so the path exists in the design. Whether it carries a price at launch is unknown.

When did the closed beta end? July 25, 2026 at 23:59 UTC+8 on Aniimo-Apac, 11:59 UTC-4 on Aniimo-America and 15:59 UTC+0 on Aniimo-Europe, which is one instant, 15:59 UTC. All test data was deleted.

Can I keep a creature from the beta? Only through Bond Pact, which sealed one Aniimo per tester in an Egg for reclaim at launch. Three categories are excluded: Prismana Form Aniimo, "Certain Special Aniimo" including Irisalis and Fulmintis, and part of the Whisperwake Isles roster.

Who makes Aniimo? Developer Pawprint Studio, which is also a publishing label established by FunPlus. The legal publisher is Pawprint Interactive Entertainment Pte. Ltd. of Singapore, which took over from Kingsglory Singapore Private Limited effective 15 April 2026. It is not a NetEase title.

When does Aniimo launch? Q3 2026, no exact date announced as of August 1, on PS5, Xbox Series X and S, Steam, Epic Games Store, Xbox PC, iOS and Android.