Roco Kingdom Dev on Jinies, the Open World, Monetization and Going Global — A VGTimes Interview from gamescom 2026

At gamescom 2026, VGTimes spoke with Xiaoye Tang, Narrative Director and Localization Lead for Roco Kingdom. We discussed why the hugely popular Chinese game is heading to global markets, what separates it from other creature-collecting titles, how Jinie progression, multiplayer and the open world work, how the free-to-play game will be monetized, and why the team is keen to stress that Roco Kingdom is not a gacha game.

Roco Kingdom is a major new entry in a popular Chinese franchise that has been around for years. It is a colorful RPG set in a world inhabited by creatures known as Jinies: players explore different regions, meet their inhabitants, build their own team, and take part in turn-based battles. At its core, the game combines adventure, creature collecting, and exploration of a fantasy world.

VGTimes: Roco Kingdom is already very popular in China. How did you decide to bring it to a global audience?

Xiaoye Tang: The idea actually didn't come after the domestic launch. A global version had already been part of our plans while we were developing the Chinese version.

We needed to focus primarily on preparing the Chinese release, but we actually started working on the global version about three months before the domestic launch, around December last year. So it has been in development for almost a year now.

We believe the values of the game, its aesthetics and its gameplay features should be easy for any audience to appreciate.

Chinese players aren't the only people who love cute little animals. Chinese players aren't the only ones who enjoy a low-pressure experience, an open world and rich stories.

So for us, bringing it to the global market was really a no-brainer.

VGTimes: For players who don't know Roco Kingdom, what makes this world special in your opinion?

Xiaoye Tang: At its core, it's a traditional creature-collection game with a heavy emphasis on social and multiplayer features.

I think that's been something of a pain point for the genre. Players have always wanted to build teams and have turn-based battles, but also experience that in an online and social environment. I think that's one of the things that makes our gameplay special.

There's also the aesthetic. Our style is a mixture of Western cartoons and anime. It leans a little toward Western animation, but it also has a lot of similarities with anime. It's somewhere in between.

Applying that style to the creatures makes the Jinies themselves very appealing. Some of them are honestly among my favorite creatures in games of this kind.

Xiaoye Tang: We also don't try to avoid traditional fantasy creatures just for the sake of giving them completely different names.

When it's a dragon, we say it's a dragon. We want players to be able to catch a dragon.

If it's a griffin, we say it's a griffin. It's literally a griffin, so why call it something else?

I wouldn't necessarily call that a unique feature by itself, but I think it's quite noticeable within this genre.

VGTimes: How does catching and training Jinies work?

Xiaoye Tang: You can have a team of Jinies. Whenever you defeat enemies or wild Jinies, every Jinie on your team gets experience.

You don't have to train every Jinie individually. When you earn experience, the whole team earns it.

You can also get materials by completing certain activities in the open world. Those materials can then be used to develop your Jinies further and evolve them into the next stage.

That's basically the overall idea behind Jinie progression.

During our hands-on session, the team also demonstrated the catching system.

Players can catch Jinies during combat, but they can also throw special pods at them directly in the open world without entering a battle.

Different pods have different capture probabilities, and their effectiveness can also depend on the Jinie's type. For example, a pod designed for a particular elemental class can be more effective against a matching Jinie.

There are also generic pods. They aren't the strongest option, but they're not the weakest either and can be used against different types of Jinies.

Captured creatures can be viewed and selected through the Jinie Box.

VGTimes: How important is the open world in your game? Can players explore freely from the beginning?

Xiaoye Tang: The open world is one of the core features of the game, so it's extremely important. Most of the activities and Jinies are tied to it.

We do have a tutorial chapter. How long it takes depends on how you play and how quickly you understand the game.

It can take somewhere around 30 minutes. If you're playing more slowly, it could take about an hour.

After that, you're free to do whatever you want.

VGTimes: Can we play the whole game solo, or is multiplayer an integral part of the vision?

Xiaoye Tang: We currently don't have a switch that completely turns multiplayer off.

But when we design multiplayer features, we understand that players don't necessarily want hundreds of people around them at the same time.

So we dynamically distribute players throughout the world. In a town like this [points to the town shown on screen], for example, you might see around 20 players. That's not an enormous number, but it's enough to make the town feel alive.

Out in the open world and the wilderness, you'll see fewer people.

We're trying to imitate what it feels like in real life. If you're out in a field, you don't see hundreds of people. You might see three to five people at a particular location.

That doesn't mean the entire open world is limited to five players. It's about how many people you see around you in a particular area. Sometimes it can be more, but we try to control the density so it feels natural rather than like an overcrowded MMO.

VGTimes: The game is coming to PC, mobile and consoles. Will the experience be the same on every platform?

Xiaoye Tang: There will be full cross-play.

VGTimes: The game is free-to-play. How will you monetize it?

Xiaoye Tang: Through a Battle Pass and cosmetics.

One thing that's special about the Battle Pass is that, alongside cosmetics, you'll be able to choose one of two Jinies and get that Jinie directly.

But that doesn't mean people who don't pay for the pass can't get that Jinie.

VGTimes: So you can still earn it without the Battle Pass?

Xiaoye Tang: Yes. A player can also get an item that attracts that type of Jinie to their world.

They can then invite other players who haven't paid for the pass into their world, and those players can catch that Jinie for free.

VGTimes: The Chinese version has already been played by millions of people. What have you learned from those players?

Xiaoye Tang: The first thing we've learned is that Chinese players are very demanding, but they also love our game. They're demanding because they love the game.

Right now, we can see Chinese players going onto YouTube and TikTok and trying to tell global players that the game exists.

They're teaching other people how to play it, explaining what the game is about and telling them that it isn't pay-to-win.

They're out there trying to make sure new players understand the game correctly, and I'm very appreciative of the Chinese community for doing that.

Xiaoye Tang: Another thing we've learned, at least from the domestic market, is that players don't just want a game with a rich story and a fixed set of things to do.

They want other game modes. They want to be able to do whatever they want. They want to build their own homes.

They want something more like a sandbox, a platform with a variety of different gameplay experiences.

That's one of the most important things we've learned.

At the beginning, we thought we could just make a multiplayer creature-collection game, focus on that and double down on it.

That was enough at first, but players kept asking for more, and we have to catch up with what they want. Players are always asking for more.

One of the challenges surrounding the global launch is making sure new players understand what Roco Kingdom actually is.

Xiaoye Tang: We want to convey that this isn't your ordinary anime game. It's not a gacha game.

Players might look at it and immediately wonder, "Is this another gacha game?" No, it isn't.

So one of our challenges is making it clear how the game actually plays.

Xiaoye Tang: We also want to learn whether there are UX issues that might be fine for domestic players but not work as well for a global audience.

Localization is another challenge. This is the first time for the team and the project that we've created a global version involving so many different languages.

We're doing it in a relatively short amount of time and there's a huge amount of content.

We really want to know whether we've done the localization right and whether it feels as natural and tasteful as the original.

One of the most difficult things to tackle was the names of the Jinies.

Their Chinese names can convey a lot of different meanings, and some of those meanings are only understandable in Chinese.

Do we keep that? Do we try to reinvent the name? That's been a major part of our work.

VGTimes: What do you think will surprise new players the most?

Xiaoye Tang: I think they'll be surprised by the sheer amount of content.

On the surface, the game can look almost childish. It's full of cute aesthetics, cute animals, academy students and things like that.

It presents itself as a very lighthearted game, which it is. But that doesn't mean the amount of content or the depth of the game is light as well.

It's actually a very expansive game.

And again, like I said, it's not a gacha game. It's not your run-of-the-mill anime game.

Xiaoye Tang: I also think players will be surprised by the Jinie ecology.

We treat Jinies like real living creatures. When we design a Jinie, we think about what that species would do in its natural habitat, how it would react to other species and how it would interact with Roco.

Roco is the humanoid species the player character belongs to. From the player's perspective, it's basically the equivalent of a human.

We've put a lot of effort into designing the ecology and behavior of the Jinies.

We want them to react to different weather and different times of day.

For example, some Jinies have a different form at night. That can mean you can't catch them in the usual way and have to find another approach.

Some Jinies hide themselves in the woods. When you first see one of them, it might just look like a tree stump.

You can't even target it if you don't know any better. You might simply assume it's part of the environment.

We've designed a lot of these behaviors and routines specifically for individual species.

Xiaoye Tang: Another thing I think players will enjoy is that every Jinie can be interacted with once you've caught it.

Many Jinies can be used as mounts. But that doesn't mean every single one is literally something you can ride.

Some are simply too small. If you have a tiny cat-like Jinie, for example, obviously you can't ride on its back. But if you press the mount button, your character can pick it up and hold it instead.

We want to make sure every Jinie has some form of interaction after you obtain it.

VGTimes has been operating since 2011 and over that time has attended dozens of exhibitions and festivals, where our journalists have gathered a wealth of exclusive material. For example, in 2019 we attended a closed showing of Cyberpunk 2077 at gamescom, in 2017 we prepared a photo report from WG Fest, in 2020 we were at the largest gaming event in Central Asia — CAGS, and we have visited IgroMir several times, where we met Hideo Kojima and other famous developers. In 2024 we traveled to the Land of the Rising Sun for TGS 2024, where we were amazed by the scale of the Tokyo event. In 2025 we witnessed one of Asia's premier gaming exhibitions — ChinaJoy in Shanghai. We also made it to the Thai edition of gamescom 2025 in Bangkok, and at the start of this year attended CES 2026 in Las Vegas and later Computex 2026 in Taipei.