The Hidden Ones - Hand's On Preview
The Hidden Ones is a new 3D action-fighting game that took me by surprise with how good it feels in even just pre-alpha. The Hidden Ones is being developed by Morefun Studios, the same developers who are working on Arena Breakout: Infinite. I’m not usually one to play fighting games since my strength is definitely more with first person shooters, but The Hidden Ones really impressed me with its artstyle, snappy combat, and story.
The Hidden Ones is currently planning to release on PC, iOS, and Android sometime in Q3 2025 and is going to be a free-to-play game. I got about an hour and a half of hands-on game time in and here are my thoughts on how The Hidden Ones is coming along.
Background
For some additional context, The Hidden Ones is based off a Chinese webcomic titled “Under One Person: The Outcast” created by Dong Man Tang. This webcomic was published in February 2015 by Tencent then turned into an anime series called Hitori no Shita: The Outcast in July 2016.
The story revolves around Chou Soran, a college student, who gets caught up in an accident in a small village. Soran was visiting his grandfather’s grave when he’s suddenly attacked by zombies until a girl, Fu Hoho, saved him. Soren comes to learn that his grandfather’s martial arts technique is knowledge that many people want to learn. Having been taught this technique by his grandfather, Soren aims to protect this art and dives into researching who exactly his grandfather was.
That’s the webcomic’s story that fans are familiar with. When I asked the developers about if they would be using the anime or webcomic’s storyline, they said they would be using both to fully realize the narrative. I also asked if they were fans of the anime or webcomic and they replied, “Well you kind of have to be, right?”
Roster
Right off the bat, The Hidden Ones’ main menu grabbed my attention. It features several of the characters, or Outcasts, in the story walking across a crosswalk. It’s funny to say that the main menu actually did a really good job of capturing each character’s personality in just the way they choose to walk across the screen.
Each Outcast has their own unique moveset and fighting style, including elements from Chinese Kung Fu, Taoism, Yin-Yang Bagua, Chi, and more. I ended up really liking Feng Bao-Bao, the not-at-all-scary girl with the knife, since her playstyle was very up close and personal. I’m going to be perfectly candid and tell you I suck at fighting games but I was able to actually figure out movement and attacks and squeak out a win.
While the Hidden Ones has a roster of unique characters with various different skill sets, there’s also a gameplay mechanic called Doppelganger. This ability allows you to summon doppelgangers of the main characters as a spectral form to cast some of their own unique elemental abilities to aid you in fights.
You can equip up to three Doppelganger powers but you only have four Summon Points at your disposal. Some of the Doppelganger powers require more Summon Points, so what I found myself doing was equipping a Doppelganger ability that cost three Summon Points, then equipping two lesser abilities that only cost one point each.
There are very different abilities you can equip from the current collection of Doppelgangers, so it allows you to mix and match various elements and actively change your playstyle regardless of the characters you choose in your line up.
Combat System
The combat system is pretty easy to get used to. You’ve got all of your Outcasts’ skills then the Doppelgangers and the only elements that are really tricky to get used to are blocking, parrying, and using the break away mechanic.
Let me start with explaining break aways. When you initiate your basic attacks, you’ll actually end up chaining them in a combo that will shove an enemy away from you once you complete that combo. However, you can actually cancel your combo in the second or third basic attack to sidestep with your RB button (Shift on PC) then continue using your basic attacks without shoving your enemy away from you.
Using the break away button will use up some of your stamina, so you can’t just continue to wail on your enemies with constant attacks.
Parrying and blocking will not use up your stamina and if you end up perfectly parrying, you’ll actually get an opening to attack your enemy after interrupting them. A yellow bar will pop up just below the middle of the screen and that will indicate your tiny window in which you can hit back at your opponent.
Unfortunately some attacks cannot be parried or blocked, indicated by a red flash from the enemy. You’ll have to dodge away from these attacks but if you evade at the perfect time, you can get another opportunity to hit back at your opponent.
Anyone can dodge any ultimate as long as they’re able to do it in time. There’s a tiny window after someone activates their ultimate where they must land their second strike. Failing to do so will result in the ultimate being wasted and the player penalized with a slower cooldown.
The combat felt incredibly intuitive, especially for someone like me who’s most decidedly a novice fighting game player. There are no specific special combo moves you need to perfect and The Hidden Ones rewards you for perfect timing and stamina management. It feels like a lot to keep track of but it’s so rewarding when you get your rhythm down.
Story Mode
During my hands-on time, I wasn’t able to play too much of the story mode except for one level that was about three chapters in. While I wasn’t familiar with the character I was playing, Wang Ye, I was really intrigued by the chapter’s villain.
The level I started on had me taking Wang Ye to a teahouse for a mini boss fight, then pursuing the main villain through the streets of the city. I had to fight off a few groups of enemies on the way and win against another mini boss which gave me time to figure out parry and block timing before approaching the chapter’s final boss, Ling Jiu.
The difficulty spike from the previous boss fights to Ling Jiu’s was pretty aggressive. She has an interesting moveset where she’s able to dodge a lot of attacks and has a grapple move that deals a good chunk of damage against you if you’re not able to dodge it. With each boss fight, you’re given five attempts to get back into the fight.
Ling Jiu ended up being a two-phased boss, which I didn’t even realize could happen in a fighting game. LIke I said, I do not play a lot of fighting games and definitely didn’t play a lot of the campaigns when I did. Luckily, I hadn’t used all of my lives yet and when you choose to get back into the fight, the boss’s health remains the same so you don’t lose any progress. If you do end up using all five of your attempts, you won’t be reset all the way to the beginning. There are checkpoints within the fight that you’ll get reset to, so with Ling Jiu, you’d start at the second phase if you died after that point.
The boss fight really tested your ability to react to unparryable or unblockable moves and your reaction time to dodging giant AOE attacks that could cause huge staggers. If you successfully parried an enemy’s attack, you can follow up quickly afterwards with your own chain of attacks as a reward. Perfect dodges also gave you a similar opening to attack so you could realistically alternate between parrying and dodging if you weren't confident in doing one over the other. However, dodging takes up a good tick of your stamina bar so knowing when to use it is key.
After finishing the boss fight, I was instructed to swap over to the PvP mode, Duel, but not before I got to get a glimpse of a little cafe scene our main character loaded into after the big fight. It looked like a social hub with various other characters from the game sitting together, giving you the opportunity to chat with them about the day’s events.
Duel Mode
I didn’t get to play through that point but I did get to kick some ass in Duel. I was in a small preview group so I only got to play against about three other people but it was fairly competitive. Starting out in Duel, I had to pick three characters I wanted to use so that if I lost a match with one of the characters, the next in line would step up as a replacement. Just note that you can’t swap out characters mid match like tag team fighting games.
Once you’ve selected your Outcast and Doppelganger abilities, you’ll get thrown into a match playing against a real person as opposed to the game’s AI. The one difference between Dual and Story Mode is that you don’t get health packs lying around the arena. It’s just you and your opponent.
The 3D animation and space really work for PvP fights. I felt a good sense of freedom of movement and could play distanced if I needed to get my bearings but I could also easily close the gap with one of my special abilities. The balancing between each character felt really good. No one was “OP” over another and it all really just depended on your playstyle. I specifically did really well with Feng Bao-Bao since she excelled at close range quick attacks and could dash forward with her knife.
A lot of the Duals I played were evenly matched, with each match going to the full five games. The more I played, the more I wanted to practice hitting specific combos with ability rotations to try and increase my flow and maintain my stamina bar. As sweaty as some of those Duals were, I found myself wanting to queue back in to fight some more.
Trial Mode
For players wanting a good challenge with fighting games, the Trial Mode is definitely going to be something you’ll want to look into. Trial pits you against all the bosses that you’ll come across in the main Story Mode but you can change the difficulty. Since the Story Mode doesn’t come with difficulty options, Trial will be the mode for you to queue into if you really want to put your abilities to the test.
Trial Mode does still have health packs lying on the ground in the boss arena, which will come in extremely handy since the bosses will hit much harder and you only have one life to defeat the challenge. The boss fights can be incredibly aggressive and you’ll have to really get down your parry and dodge timing to successfully win.
You can select any Outcast you want to play in any Trial and you can also select any Doppelganger abilities. While I liked this mode for the more hardcore players, I’m definitely not going to be entering a ton of Trials until I get extremely comfortable with my blocking and parrying timings.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I’m really excited to see the future of The Hidden Ones. It’s a fun challenging fighting game with a unique combat system and has a very pretty artstyle. The 3D aspect to The Hidden Ones works really well with the various different stages you can fight on. The art style reminds me of anime movie graphics and it definitely feels like you’re just in The Outcasts’ tv show, controlling the characters.
When I asked developers Fox Lin (Lead Game Designer) and Stan Fan (Senior Game Designer) about what their free-to-play model may look like, they told me that they hadn’t thought very far into that since their main goal is to get further into the game’s development before solidifying monetization plans.
It was honestly very refreshing to hear gameplay and experience was being put first over any monetization ideas. During my hands-on time with The Hidden Ones, I didn’t run into any bugs or huge issues and had dealt with a few graphical stutters from time to time. Considering what I played was an early build, I feel very optimistic about the future of The Hidden Ones.
If you’re interested in getting some time in The Hidden Ones, there’s a pre-alpha playtest running from January 7th to January 15th, and you can visit their website and sign up.
