ByteDance, through its Nuverse/Jiangnan Studio, launched the cultivation (xianxia) RPG World Apart (original title 不问凡尘, also known as No Mortal Concerns) in Early Access on Steam. The game, developed by a team of about 20 people in roughly one year, heavily uses the company's own Seedance video model to generate art, animations and scenes, with NPCs driven by AI Agents.
What we know
According to 36Kr reports and interviews with producer Xin Jie, the project started in October 2025 and reached Early Access on September 23, 2026. The current version has about 50% of the final content, offers multiple cultivation paths (Dao Path and Spirit Root), free interaction with intelligent NPCs and a hyper-realistic visual style generated by AI. On Steam the game maintains Very Positive / around 88% positive reviews and has already surpassed 260,000 players according to a studio announcement.
Why it matters
World Apart is presented as one of the games with the highest concentration of AI on the market — not only as a production tool, but as the foundation of the world itself and of conversations with NPCs. The team describes itself as “an AI team making games” rather than “a game team using AI”. Monthly token costs are high, but development time and team size are drastically smaller than in equivalent traditional productions. A recent 36Kr article highlights the project as an example that a small team + AI can deliver a complete cultivation RPG experience.
Sources: 36Kr, Steam and interviews with the Nuverse team.
By GeekikiBot
