Tides of Annihilation Confirms First Public Hands-On Event This Summer
Eclipse Glow Games has confirmed that Tides of Annihilation, its Arthurian-inspired action-adventure debut, will be playable by the public for the very first time this summer. The Chengdu-based, Tencent-backed studio made the announcement alongside a new behind-the-scenes technical video detailing a deep engineering partnership with NVIDIA and Epic Games’ Unreal Engine team.
The reveal, shared across the game’s official channels and corroborated by outlets including GamesBeat and Push Square, marks the closest the project has come to a real, hands-on public test since it stole the show at Sony’s State of Play in February 2025.
Kun Fu Confirms the Studio’s First Global Hands-On Event
China’s Eclipse Glow Games announced that its single-player action-adventure title, Tides of Annihilation, will host its first hands-on event this summer, offering the public their first opportunity to experience the game’s “Neo-Medieval” combat firsthand. Detailed schedules, locations and platform requirements have not yet been shared.
Producer Kun Fu framed the milestone as validation of years of behind-the-scenes engineering work. “To achieve our technical goals for Tides of Annihilation, we are taking a two-fold approach,” stated Kun Fu, Producer of Tides of Annihilation. “We want to push the visual ceiling to the absolute limit of current technology for our game, and are equally committed to rigorous optimization. We want to ensure that every player, regardless of their setup, experiences a smooth and immersive journey in our re-envisioned modern Arthurian action-adventure.”
He added that the studio is eager to finally put controllers in players’ hands: “We’re very excited to have gamers around the world experience Tides of Annihilation for the first time in this hands-on event.”
Nanite Tech Built Specifically for the Game’s Giant Knights
The technical showcase leaned heavily into how Eclipse Glow Games is tackling the game’s most ambitious set pieces: colossal, roaming knight enemies that dwarf the player character. Kai Yuan, Lead Technical Artist of Tides of Annihilation, detailed the use of Unreal Engine’s proprietary Nanite-based setup specifically for the encounters with “Giant Knights,” a system that utilizes automated collision and shadow optimization to preserve the high-mode texture fidelity during high-speed movement without compromising runtime performance.
On the engine side, Wei Liu, Technical Director of Unreal Engine China, revealed that the teams have conducted a systematic analysis of CPU and GPU bottlenecks for Tides of Annihilation, a collaboration that has resulted in a refined animation and gameplay logic pipeline that significantly reduces computational overhead.
NVIDIA Adds Driver-Level Optimisation on Top of DLSS and Path Tracing
Beyond Epic’s engine team, building on previously announced support for DLSS and path tracing, NVIDIA is providing deep performance analysis and driver-level optimization, ensuring that players on a wide range of hardware configurations can enjoy a smooth, cinematic experience. The pairing suggests the studio is treating PC as a first-class platform rather than a straight console port, a notable stance for a debut project of this scale.
Push Square, reviewing the same behind-the-scenes footage, noted that Eclipse Glow Games will allow fans to go hands on with uber promising action game Tides of Annihilation later this year, with more details to be announced in due course. The outlet’s own writer cautioned that a full retail launch may still be some way off despite the demo news.
A Tencent-Backed Debut Built by Yakuza, For Honor and Assassin’s Creed Veterans
Tides of Annihilation is Eclipse Glow Games’ first title, developed with investment from Tencent out of the studio’s Chengdu base. Fueled by fierce personal vengeance and a desperate mission to save her sister, protagonist Gwendolyn embarks on a high-stakes journey across two worlds: the devastated, fog-shrouded modern metropolis of London and the mythical realm of Avalon, unravelling the mystery behind her newfound powers along the way.
The team fielding that ambition is stacked with outside experience: the Eclipse Glow team is composed of over 100 developers with previous experience creating games for storied franchises, including Yakuza, For Honor, Assassin’s Creed, Persona, and Prince of Persia. Gwendolyn’s ability to summon spectral Knights of the Round Table into combat has drawn comparisons to Devil May Cry-style action rather than the slower, methodical Souls-like combat that dominates much of the genre right now.
Since its debut, the project has kept a steady drumbeat of reveals: a cinematic unveiling at Sony’s State of Play in February 2025, a gameplay-heavy showing at November 2025’s Xbox Partner Preview, and a Lunar New Year trailer earlier in 2026. The confirmed summer hands-on sessions are the closest the game has come to letting outside players — rather than just press and showfloor attendees — actually pick up a controller.
Tides of Annihilation is currently confirmed for PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store, alongside Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5, with no firm release date attached yet. For Kiwi and Australian fans hoping to get their own hands on the demo, Eclipse Glow Games has so far only promised details “soon” via its official social channels — worth keeping an eye on given the timezone gap to any showfloor events that materialise this northern hemisphere summer.
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