I have spent years turning any conversation into a lore dump about Love Nikki, the shockingly good mobile dress-up game whose gorgeous visuals and gloriously sloppy translations obscured a story where people wage war with fashion instead of violence. That is, until someone murders a character with a sword about 15 chapters in, which remains one of the funniest tonal swerves in any game I have played. I fell off the wagon when Shining Nikki arrived, but the 2022 announcement of Infinity Nikki pulled me back immediately. It promised to take the series beyond mobile, onto PC and console, and blend dress-up with action and exploration. At Gamescom, I queued for the demo and discovered exactly what that blend looked like.

The first thing I noticed was the UI. Infinity Nikki shares that Hoyoverse-style interface that has spread into games like Wuthering Waves and Tower of Fantasy. I am not sure why it became the norm, but it felt like a passport stamp from a country I had visited too many times: familiar, efficient, and slightly devoid of surprise. In 2026, that first impression has aged into a clearer verdict. Infinity Nikki is a dress-up Genshin Impact, and I mean that with genuine affection. It is no longer just a booth curiosity; it is a live PC and console game that has carried Nikki out of mobile jail. The dressing is exquisite, the world is inviting, and the action still needs more bite.

Instead of a large cast of waifus and husbandos to switch between, Infinity Nikki gives us protagonist Nikki and her cat companion Momo. The swapsies fun comes from Nikki's outfits, which she can wear to traverse platforming puzzles, fish, catch bugs, and purify creatures around the map. In the demo I could select one outfit per action, though I assume there are more choices for each role further down the line. Outfit switching is the game's skeleton key, with each costume a different tooth cut for a different lock. That idea is still the strongest part of the game in 2026.

The outfits I tried were utterly gorgeous. There is a reason Shining Nikki's clothing and hairstyles are regularly ripped by modders for other games, and I will deny saying that. Extravagant, detailed dresses, adorable dungarees, and wellies were just some of the options available. Beyond action-specific fits, I could dress Nikki in a whole assortment of mix-and-match pieces. Being able to pick from tons of hairstyles, outer pieces, and accessories is the quintessential Nikki experience, and many items carried different category tags similar to previous games in the series. I could not deduce exactly how those tags will shape NPC reactions, but I cannot wait to create some monstrous combinations to satisfy some random NPC's idea of what an elegant outfit looks like.

Now, I did say the dress-up parts have been smashed together with action and open-world exploration, and those things were definitely present. As I headed toward a quest, I was inundated with small platforming puzzles. They were relatively simple, mostly requiring me to glide from one spacious platform to another. I am a sucker for that loop, especially when it involves collecting little doodads and trinkets along the way, but I hope Infinity Nikki has more complex traversal tucked away across its map. The demo suggested a world that wants to be cozy first and acrobatic second, which is fine, but a wardrobe this dramatic deserves a few genuinely tricky stages.

Combat is where my concern is sharpest. I had only a few brief encounters, and they were all painfully simple. I stayed back at a distance, shooting ranged projectiles at creatures and killing them in a few hits. Some would retaliate with a projectile of their own, but those were incredibly easy to avoid. Combat in that demo was a paper fan against a thunderstorm: pretty to watch, but not remotely threatening. I get that Infinity Nikki is not gunning for balls-to-the-wall action combat, but right now it feels like the game does not trust its players to have a speck of battle-oriented comprehension. I would love for it to be just a tiny bit more demanding, which I hope to find in bosses or domain-style challenges.

Despite those concerns, my time with Infinity Nikki left me wanting more. From just the small segment of the map I explored, I was grinning from ear to ear, soaking in Miraland's gorgeous environments and every tiny detail on Nikki's clothing. I am undeniably giddy to see a long-time favourite series break out of mobile jail, and Infold Games has already done a great job of making Nikki feel at home on PC and console. In 2026, the question is no longer whether Infinity Nikki can work outside mobile. It can. The question is whether it can deepen its action and puzzles without losing the dress-up joy that made the series beloved.

My 2026 wishlist is short but pointed:

• 🎀 Keep the outfit variety lavish, but give each action role more meaningful choices.

• ⚔️ Add a sharper combat difficulty curve, especially in bosses and challenge domains.

• 🧩 Hide more complex platforming puzzles across Miraland.

• 🗺️ Preserve the cozy exploration while trusting players with tougher traversal.

• 💬 Keep localisation sharp, because this series has a reputation for sloppy translations that I would rather leave in the past.

If Infinity Nikki can tighten its combat and deepen its puzzles without sanding away the dress-up fantasy, it will be more than a pretty dress-up Genshin Impact. It will be the rare live-service game where the wardrobe is not a side attraction but the reason the world turns. For now, I am still smiling at the memory of that demo, and I am still waiting for the game to hand me a combat encounter that feels as dangerous as a badly chosen hat.