Aniimo launches now — over 200 creatures to catch in the free-to-play world of Idyll

Aniimo, the free-to-play creature-collecting game from Pawprint Studio, is live now. The game drops players into Idyll, an open world filled with more than 200 catchable creatures across diverse biomes, and is available on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox PC, and Xbox Game Pass.

At launch, the roster includes new additions like Squarrel and its evolution Squashel — a squirrel-like creature that rolls down hillsides and fights with fast combo tail attacks. Pawprint also overhauled the Legendary Aniimo encounter flow based on beta feedback, reworking capture, gameplay, and the encounter ritual itself. The Aniimo training system got a tune-up too: the Held Item System is simplified, Star Dust drop rates are up, and progression caps now unlock naturally with an Aniimo's level. Homeland mode received expanded maps, new activities, and refined level progression. On the technical side, controls are optimized for both mobile and gamepad, and multilingual voice acting has been added to the main storyline. For PC players, preloading was available from September 14 — the install footprint is around 40 GB, though the actual download clocks in closer to 28 GB.

Aniimo is clearly aiming at the space Palworld carved open — an open world packed with recruitable monsters — but leans harder into the creature-collecting side and drops the survival crafting and guns. Being free-to-play without gacha mechanics puts it in a relatively rare spot for the genre, where most competitors either charge upfront or lean on loot-box monetization.

Pawprint says the beta community's feedback directly shaped the launch build, and the studio has signaled that more Legendary Aniimo events and content updates are already in the pipeline.