Honkai: Nexus Anima Exploration Guide: Iia Town & Map

Honkai: Nexus Anima is not only an auto-chess game: it wraps its battles in an explorable open world that starts in the town of Iia, in the Plane of Reality. Exploring is how you find new Anima, trigger Bond Encounters, and take in the setting, and your Anima double as your mounts and traversal tools. The short version: get comfortable moving through Iia early, because exploration feeds directly into the roster progression that powers your teams. This guide maps the town, explains Anima traversal, walks through the local cast, and covers the day-night cycle and photo mode.

Note: the game is in closed beta (the Evolution Test, starting July 9 2026 on PC, iOS, and Android), so locations and features below reflect current reveals and may change. Treat the map details as a snapshot of the beta build, not a final map.

Key takeaways

• Iia is your hub. The starting town clusters the main-story Animasters, the Arena, and key services, so learning its layout first pays off.
• Anima are your movement kit. Some are mounts, some enable jump pads or gliding, so which traversal Anima you own decides how much of the map you can reach.
• The day-night cycle matters. Time of day changes what you encounter, so revisiting an area at a different hour is a real exploration tactic.
• Exploration is progression. Sweeping the map surfaces Anima and Bond Encounters that feed the evolution loop.
• Photo mode is for enjoyment, not power. The built-in photography tool is a creative feature, not a progression system.

Iia: your home base

Iia is the starting town and the hub you return to between adventures. In the Evolution Test build it is noticeably richer than earlier looks suggested: brighter lighting, fuller streets, more detailed buildings, and a softer fantasy atmosphere overall. It reads less like a tutorial box and more like a place people actually live.

Its core landmarks are worth learning first:

• The New Quarter, the developed heart of town and the busiest district.
• The Nexus Hall, a central civic and story location where main-story beats tend to land.
• The True Nexus Building, home base of the True Nexus Syndicate’s local branch, run by Olympia.

Learning Iia’s layout early pays off because this is where the main-story Animasters, services, and the Arena cluster together. You are a plane-hopping traveler who set out from Iia, so treat the town as the anchor you keep coming back to rather than a place you leave behind. Meet the people who run it in the Animaster guide.

Key locations around town

Beyond the core landmarks, several named spots anchor the districts you pass through. Each tends to attach to a character, a service, or a story beat, so it helps to know what you are walking into.

Location	What it is	Why you go there
New Quarter	Developed heart of town	Central hub, scenic, busiest streets
Nexus Hall	Civic and story location	Main-story beats
True Nexus Building	Syndicate local branch	Olympia and Syndicate business
Aniwon Plaza	Central gathering space	People, side content, atmosphere
Montemar Academy	School with Planar Geography classes	Shilian teaches here; lore and worldbuilding
Quick Bites	Local eatery	A stop with character
Kampete’s Gallery	Art gallery	Worth a visit (and a photo)
The Arena	Competitive venue	Battles, Arena Masters, ranked play

These are the places story beats and side content tend to cluster, so sweeping them is the reliable way to surface Bond Encounters and new Anima. If you are new to the whole loop, the beginner progression guide sequences what to prioritize in these early hours.

Anima as traversal companions

Your collection is also your movement kit. Anima serve as traversal companions, not just battle units, and this is one of the features that separates Nexus Anima from a menu-driven auto-chess game.

Anima double as mounts and traversal tools, not just battle units.

The traversal roles break down roughly like this:

• Mounts let you cover open ground faster than on foot.
• Jump pads and gliders open up vertical routes and long-distance shortcuts you cannot take without them.

Why traversal Anima are worth catching

The practical upshot is that the Anima you catch have value well beyond your formation. Exploring efficiently is partly a question of which traversal Anima you have unlocked. A mount saves minutes on the ground; a glider or jump-pad Anima can be the only way to reach a ledge, rooftop, or outlying area at all.

That also ties movement back into progression. The more of the map you can reach, the more Anima and Bond Encounters you find, which feeds the bonding and evolution loop. In other words, a traversal Anima is not “wasted” roster space even if it never enters a battle: it is what lets you find the units that do. Browse what is catchable in the Anima dex and note which ones double as movement tools.

The day-night cycle

Iia and the wider world run on a day-night cycle. Beyond setting the mood, the time of day is worth paying attention to as a mechanic: revisiting an area at a different hour can change what you find there.

If a location feels quiet or empty, it may simply be the wrong time of day rather than fully explored. Treat the clock as another axis of exploration, not pure atmosphere. A spot that has nothing for you at noon may have an Anima, a character, or an encounter after dark, and the reverse holds too.

Tip: when you clear an area and it feels thin, make a mental note to come back at a different time before writing it off. Exactly which encounters are time-gated is unconfirmed beta detail, so experiment rather than assuming.

This is a low-effort habit that pays off, because you are already passing through most of Iia repeatedly on your way to the Arena, the Nexus Hall, and the Syndicate branch.

A practical early exploration routine

You do not need a rigid schedule, but a loose routine keeps you from wandering in circles or missing easy Anima. Here is a sensible order for your first hours in Iia:

1. Walk the New Quarter first. It is the developed heart of town, so you meet the most people and pick up the most opening story here, including early allies like Nanafey.
2. Check in at the True Nexus Building. Olympia and the Syndicate branch are a natural anchor point for main-story direction.
3. Unlock a mount as soon as you have one. Ground speed compounds: every trip across town is faster, so an early mount pays back over the whole beta.
4. Fan out to the outer spots. Aniwon Plaza, Montemar Academy, Quick Bites, and Kampete’s Gallery each attach to characters or side content worth sweeping.
5. Loop back at a different time of day. Anything that felt empty on the first pass is worth a second look after the clock has moved.

The point is not to rush. It is to make sure the ground you cover keeps feeding your roster instead of retreading the same square. Pair this with the beginner progression guide so your exploration and your account level advance together.

Traversal Anima versus battle Anima: an honest caveat

A fair question is whether you should spend roster slots or catching effort on Anima you only use for movement. In the current beta this is genuinely unclear, so treat it as unconfirmed: how many Anima you can keep active, and whether traversal and battle rosters overlap, are details that can change. What is safe to say is that reaching more of the map is upstream of everything else, so having at least one reliable mount and, ideally, a glider or jump-pad Anima is worth prioritizing early rather than treating movement as an afterthought.

Iia’s locals: the people you meet

Exploration is also how you meet Iia’s cast, and the town’s local Animasters anchor the Evolution Test’s opening story. Getting to know them is part of the point, not a detour from it.

Iia’s local cast, like the student Nanafey, anchors the Evolution Test’s opening.

A few of the faces you will run into early:

• Olympia runs the True Nexus Syndicate’s Iia branch out of the True Nexus Building. Her Anima is Noctumbra.
• Kiana is a Planestrider who deals with Anima corrupted by Aspect contamination, working on behalf of the Committee for a Joyful Iia. If you want the background on Aspects themselves, the Aspect synergy guide covers how they work in combat.
• Nanafey is a student who becomes an early ally, one of the first friendly faces of the Evolution Test.
• Hua is a passionate young Animaster you cross paths with around town.
• Shilian teaches Planar Geography at Montemar Academy, which is where a lot of the setting’s worldbuilding surfaces. For the wider setting, see the lore primer.

The Arena crew

The Arena has its own staff worth knowing:

• Jalily Belau is the Arena Master.
• Cassio Rollex and Maple Manybell are the Deputy Arena Masters.

You can read the full local roster in the Animaster guide and on the Animasters page. If you are wondering how bonds with these characters and your Anima develop, the bond guide covers that side.

The photography tool

The game includes a built-in photography tool for capturing your Anima and the world around them. It is a creative and customization feature rather than a progression system, so it will not level anything up, but it rewards seeking out scenic spots.

Kampete’s Gallery, the New Quarter, and the brighter streets of the Evolution Test build make natural subjects, and the day-night cycle gives you different lighting to shoot the same location. If you enjoy the collection-and-companion side of the game, photo mode is where that shows off. It is a nice pairing with traversal: the places that are hardest to reach are often the ones most worth photographing.

How exploration feeds your roster

It is worth stating the loop plainly, because it is easy to treat the open world as scenery. It is not. Exploring is the front end of your entire progression.

Here is the chain:

1. Explore Iia and its districts, ideally on a traversal Anima so you cover more ground.
2. Surface new Anima and Bond Encounters as you sweep locations and vary the time of day.
3. Grow and bond your roster, then push units through the evolution loop.
4. Turn that roster into teams with the formation guide and the team builder, and check where units land on the tier list.

Because the milestone 5-star picks in the reroll guide give you a foundation to build around, exploration is what fleshes out the rest of the roster that supports those anchors. The two work together: pick a direction early, then explore to fill it in.

Bottom line

Exploration in Honkai: Nexus Anima runs on Iia as a hub, Anima as your mounts and traversal tools, and a day-night cycle that rewards coming back to places. Sweep the town’s key locations to surface Anima and Bond Encounters, unlock traversal Anima to reach more of the map, and use photo mode to enjoy what you find along the way. Meet the people of Iia in the Animaster guide, turn your exploration into a stronger roster through the bond guide and evolution guide, and draft the teams it feeds in the team builder. If you are still deciding whether to jump into the beta, the Evolution Test FAQ and sign-up guide cover the how and when.