HoYoverse Reveals Petit Planet, Beta Signups Open on PC & iOS

HoYoverse, the studio behind Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, has announced Petit Planet, a life-simulation game set on tiny, player-shaped galaxies. It has opened signups for its closed “Coziness Test,” marking the studio’s first major step into the cozy life-sim genre, moving beyond action and Japanese Role-Playing Game (JRPG) titles. The beta signups will support English and Japanese in their initial phase.

HoYoverse’s Petit Planet’s Gameplay Design

The reveal trailer and developer notes for Petit Planet outline its core gameplay, allowing players to grow flora and fauna, fish, mine resources, cook, craft, and design living spaces. A planet's “vitality” system shapes biomes and progression, while multiplayer takes place in the Galactic Bazaar, a hub for trading and shared activities.

The game emphasizes scale, allowing players to cultivate entire planets, customize landscapes and skies, and connect social hubs across a galaxy. Each planet acts as a modular, explorable island chain within a community-wide galaxy. Activities are almost stress-free and social in nature, including decorating, bonding with “neighbors,” and travelling by space car between islets.

HoYoverse, which is known for gacha Role-Playing Games (RPGs) like Genshin Impact, Petit Planet marks a pivot toward community, creation, and social play, potentially broadening its audience if core systems and economy meet expectations.

Monetisation, Live Service Design and Community Reaction

HoYoverse has not yet revealed how Petit Planet will monetise. Given the studio’s history with gacha mechanics and free-to-play live services, it will be interesting to see if customization and cosmetics are linked to microtransactions or if the game will adopt a more player-friendly model.

Technical aspects, such as planet evolution mechanics and any system “re-training” affecting world states, will influence both gameplay and long-term engagement. Clarity on pacing, social features, and the studio’s approach to live operations can be expected only after the upcoming beta tests of the same.

HoYoverse is charting a new course with Petit Planet. It will be interesting to see the early reviews of the game’s experience emerging through the upcoming closed beta on PC and iOS.

The reach and reception of the game will highly depend on how the studio monetizes customization, planet items, and “neighbors,” along with expanding platforms and supporting multiple languages.