Cygames has shared a major update on Project Awakening, confirming that the long-awaited action RPG has officially entered full-scale development after years of limited public updates.
According to the studio, the game’s core design has finally come together, allowing development to accelerate. The team now includes both the original developers and staff who recently completed work on Granblue Fantasy: Relink.
One of the project’s main goals is achieving what Cygames describes as “hyper-photorealism.” Rather than simply pursuing realistic visuals, the studio says it wants its characters to feel more lifelike by combining high-resolution 3D scans with manual sculpting. Traditional polygon-based hair and eyelashes have also been replaced with strand-based technology.
Cygames revealed that every character was rebuilt after improvements to its internal 3D scanning technology in 2019. Existing assets were discarded and recreated using the updated process to achieve a higher level of visual fidelity.
The studio also outlined how combat differs from Granblue Fantasy: Relink. Although members of the Relink development team are handling the action system, Project Awakening features slower, more grounded combat designed to emphasise weight and player reactions through dodging and blocking.
Enemy behaviour and animation systems have also been expanded. Cygames says repeated attacks can trigger different animations depending on the surrounding terrain, while enemies may continue fighting from the ground instead of entering fixed knockdown animations. Motion matching is also being used to increase animation variety.
The game’s open world draws inspiration from 13th-century Europe. According to Cygames, vegetation and geological features are being created using real-world principles, with geologists and specialist vegetation artists contributing to improve authenticity.
Project Awakening is being developed using Unreal Engine 5 alongside tools including Maya and Houdini. Cygames says it is still refining the project’s final visual quality targets while continuing to experiment with new technologies.
The studio also shared its long-term ambition for the project, saying it aims to build a world-class AAA game capable of winning Game of the Year. Project Awakening was first announced in 2016, but Cygames has yet to reveal a release date or target platforms.
