Inside Gazing Moon's 17-Month Rebuild: 600 Developers, One City
How Shiyue Network rebuilt Gazing Moon from the ground up — expanding from a small team to 600+ developers over 17 months to deliver a reimagined open-world creature-capture RPG.
When Gazing Moon (望月) held its first PC technical test in January 2025, the response from players was mixed. The game showed promise — an open-world creature-capture RPG set in a city inspired by Guangzhou was a genuinely novel concept — but the execution fell short. Art quality was inconsistent, the world-building lacked depth, and the overall polish wasn’t where it needed to be.
Rather than push forward with a compromised product, Shiyue Network made a decisive call: rebuild.
The October 2025 Decision
In October 2025, Xingchen Studio announced a full-scale overhaul of Gazing Moon. The team expanded significantly, growing to over 600 developers — a substantial commitment for a domestic Chinese studio. The overhaul touched virtually every aspect of the game: art direction, character design, world design, gameplay systems, and narrative.
What Changed
The rebuild addressed the core criticisms from the January 2025 test:
| Area | Pre-Overhaul Issues | Post-Overhaul Direction |
|---|---|---|
| Art Style | Inconsistent quality, lacked identity | Cleaner anime aesthetic, stronger character designs |
| World Design | Generic open world feel | Distinctly Guangzhou-inspired Tianyue City with cultural depth |
| Moon Spirit System | Functional but shallow | Deeper creature-city integration, Moon Spirit urban roles |
| Traversal | Basic movement | Motorcycles, hover skateboards, multiple vehicle types |
| Narrative | Weak world-building | Expanded lore around the Yinxian (隐弦士) protagonist role |
Tianyue City as a Living World
One of the most significant design shifts in the rebuild was treating Tianyue City not just as a backdrop, but as a functioning ecosystem. Moon Spirits in the rebuilt game have specific urban roles — construction cats (建程猫) work on building sites, light-emitting sheep (辉光羊) serve as shop signs, weather-predicting salamanders (追风螈) assist with meteorology.
This “Moon Spirit coexistence” design philosophy gives the world a coherence that was missing in the original build.
The 17-Month Timeline
| Date | Milestone |
|---|---|
| January 2025 | First PC technical test (Shuoyue Test) |
| October 2025 | Full overhaul announced, team expands to 600+ |
| May 29, 2026 | New gameplay trailer released, 90% completion confirmed |
| June 19–21, 2026 | Guangzhou offline playtest |
| H2 2026 | Public beta (expected) |
What the May 2026 Trailer Signals
The release of the new gameplay trailer — showing fluid city traversal, polished character animations, and a visually cohesive Tianyue City — suggests the overhaul has largely achieved its goals. The team’s willingness to publicly state 90% completion indicates confidence in the current build.
With 5.54 million pre-registrations across all platforms and a playtest event scheduled for June 2026, Gazing Moon is positioned as one of the most anticipated domestic titles heading into the second half of 2026.