XD's anime tactical gacha Etheria: Restart has rolled into its newest chapter. Season SS5 ‘Summer Surprise’ went live on June 11, 2026 and runs through August 10, packing in five new playable Animus, a tougher difficulty option, a fresh boss and a community-driven build system — a generous two-month slate for one of the genre's quieter success stories.
The roster expansion is staggered across the season. Two Animus opened the festivities: Nathenn, the Fifth Warden of Elysian, a high-speed unit built to break through enemy lines, and Sylvia, a support who attacks with her brush while shaving cooldowns off her allies' skills. The priestess-pharmacologist Areal follows on July 2, with the final pair — Piayera and Danvery — arriving July 23.
A new Hard Mode and a fresh Grim Pursuit boss
For players who have long since steamrolled the campaign, Main Quest gains a new Hard Mode — a deliberate difficulty spike with correspondingly richer rewards. The Grim Pursuit challenge mode also welcomes a new boss in Vespera, giving theorycrafters a fresh wall to test their teams against.
Arguably the most interesting addition is structural: an in-game, community-led build recommendation system that surfaces popular team and gear setups directly inside the app. For a game built on mixing and matching Animus and their kits, baking crowd wisdom into the interface lowers the barrier for newer summoners without forcing them out to a wiki.
Summer-limited outfits, new Module Matrices and bonus drop events round out the launch window. Etheria: Restart is free-to-play on iOS, Android and PC, and SS5 is live now — a solid jumping-on point with two full months of content ahead of it.
