While at Tokyo Game Show 2025, I managed to spend some time with Smilegate, checking out MIRESI: Invisible Future along with its upcoming title Chaos Zero Nightmare, which is set to launch later this year and already looks intriguing. A dark fantasy role-playing game that trades bright anime aesthetics for something far more unsettling, it still features its share of anime-inspired characters, yet carries a distinct sense of Lovecraftian influence woven into its design.
Chaos Zero Nightmare comes from Super Creative, the studio behind the popular mobile game, Epic Seven. It marks a clear departure from the lighter tones that typically define the collectible RPG genre. Under the direction of CEO Kim Hyung-suk, the team is crafting an experience built around card-based combat and a world shaped by cosmic horror.
Few anime-inspired titles—games or otherwise—have managed to tackle cosmic horror. While there are some examples, it remains relatively rare in the medium, and Chaos Zero Nightmare fully embraces the concept. The game unfolds in a universe ravaged by a mysterious force known only as the Chaos. Players lead squads tasked with purging this corruption from planets once inhabited by humanity, navigating twisted landscapes filled with grotesque creatures. The narrative leans heavily into eldritch horror imagery, with monster designs that blend familiar forms with unsettling mutations. While it felt a bit jarring at first, I have to say I love the concept.
Jumping into the game, I was surprised by how robust it felt overall. Often when I hear about a new anime-styled mobile game, I’m skeptical, but I had a lot of fun with the early slice I played on the TGS show floor. At the heart of Chaos Zero Nightmare is a card-based combat system that demands careful planning and adaptation. Each character in the party contributes specific cards to the deck, while an ability-point system limits how many can be played during a single turn. This creates a tactical puzzle where every choice matters, forcing players to weigh whether an attack, buff, debuff or healing card offers the most value in the moment.
The system allows for real-time deck adjustments as battles unfold, giving players room to respond to changing circumstances. Cards can draw additional options from the deck or grant extra actions per turn, adding another layer of strategic depth. The modular approach ensures no two encounters play out the same way, even when facing identical enemies.
Something I didn’t expect to see in a mobile game with anime-style characters was a mental system more commonly found in horror titles—à la Amnesia. The system in Chaos Zero Nightmare tracks psychological stress on characters during combat and is a welcome addition to both the game and the genre as a whole. As team members experience trauma, their performance changes, opening new gameplay scenarios focused on managing mental health alongside traditional health bars. This psychological layer ties directly into the game’s darker themes.
“At the heart of Chaos Zero Nightmare is a card-based combat system that demands careful planning and adaptation.”
Speaking about how all these elements come together in the Chaos Zero Nightmare experience, Kim Hyung-suk said, “The game starts out feeling like a general roguelike, but ultimately, the customization range is endless and vast. The difficulty is designed so players can experience a variety of challenges and situations they haven’t encountered before. We’re preparing an experience that can be played and enjoyed by different types of players—the difficulty level varies from playthrough to playthrough. You’re able to customize different types of skills, and that’s how you can make parts of the game easier or harder, depending on the skills and card decks you have.”
You read that right: Chaos Zero Nightmare incorporates roguelike elements through procedurally generated missions, adding an extra sense of challenge to both the gameplay and how battles unfold. While the basic objective of each run remains consistent, the branching paths to completion change with every attempt. This removes the possibility of memorizing optimal routes and instead pushes players to assess their team’s needs as circumstances develop.
During missions, players face choices about whether to prioritize resource gathering, damage output or acquiring new skills. Learning enemy weaknesses and attack patterns becomes essential, as does recognizing when to push forward and when to retreat. The randomness may frustrate those seeking consistency, but it creates a dynamic challenge that rewards adaptability over rote memorization.
Players will also need to build their deck with care, with each card acting as a vital aspect to the many battles they will encounter. You can have a massive deck at your disposal, but adapting it to the characters is key. “Some players focus on their key cards and operate stably with those core cards throughout their run,” Kim Hyung-suk explains. “Other players prefer a longer-term strategy, building up their deck piece by piece. When they get a new draft of cards, they change their strategy accordingly. Both are viable ways to play.”
As I mentioned, the art direction leans into the game’s dark fantasy premise with a deliberately bleak aesthetic. Rather than embracing the bright colours common in mobile, anime-style RPGs, Chaos Zero Nightmare uses muted tones that highlight the desolation caused by the Chaos. The monster designs draw from eldritch horror traditions, warping recognizable shapes into unsettling forms that evoke genuine unease.
This is a setting steeped in darkness and despair, teetering on the edge of total ruin, so the decision to adopt a more subdued visual style feels fitting. I especially appreciated how some of the creatures are clearly inspired by cosmic horror—I’m fairly certain I ran into Cthulhu during my playthrough, which was an unexpected surprise. I was impressed by the tone and wanted to explore this world far more than I could on a show floor, which isn’t a feeling I usually get from mobile games, save for a few notable exceptions.
Technical features include anime-style skill animations paired with 2.5D active camera movements and dynamic lighting systems. These visual elements build on expertise developed during Epic Seven’s production, adapted here to serve the game’s grimmer tone. The overall presentation had a feel all its own, and in a relatively crowded genre and competitive landscape, it was refreshing to see. It is hard to know for sure how well it will all be received, but I like what I am seeing so far.
There will also be a range of characters you can add to your party as you progress, expanding your roster and providing new ways to take down the creatures you encounter. Even in the short section I played, it was clear this game aims to deliver a dense experience, especially as you move beyond the early stages.
It also seems the team at Super Creative is working to make party building more engaging with Chaos Zero Nightmare. As Kim Hyung-suk explained, “Of course, there are many different characters you can acquire while playing the game. In the actual game service, you’ll be able to combine various characters and play with them. There’s a system called ‘rescue’—that’s how you obtain new characters and mix them together.”
Chaos Zero Nightmare turned out to be far more exciting than I expected when I first booked the appointment, and it’s left me genuinely eager to download it when it launches later this month. The combination of deck-building strategy, roguelike structure and psychological systems creates a framework distinct from Super Creative’s previous work. Whether the tonal shift and demanding gameplay find an audience remains to be seen, but the studio’s track record and willingness to take creative risks make this a title worth watching as release day approaches.
Pre-registration for Chaos Zero Nightmare opened in mid-July, with the App Store listing an expected launch date of Oct. 22, 2025. The game will be available on mobile devices, PC and Mac, though console versions have not been announced at the time of writing.
