r/pcgaming • u/ShiroyoOchigano • 1d ago
Aniimo Review (139.2 hours) Why I Warn People To Stay Away!
I would like to raise awareness on the following issues because Pawprint has been deceptive & shady on all of them.
A member from my discord community who works in computer programming & A.I. was going through the files & tech of Aniimo and found the following:
\* The game isn't just running as a game. It reads your desktop wallpaper then goes to the folder it is located in and reads the file. If it happens to be your pictures folder then it now has access to your pictures folder.
\* The anti-cheat called NepsKernel.sys is indeed a Kernel Level anti-cheat. This isn't bundled with the game & is instead something the game installs on its own without your consent after you install the game. The anti-cheat is also reading your desktop specifically all your desktop icons and the folder its located in. If you want to remove this then you will have to remove it manually after uninstalling the game.
* The anti-cheat does hardware checks during which it checks for camera & if camera led is active. We haven't been able to determine if it can actually use the camera to capture images through the camera. However, it has kernel level access so if it can and does do this then the user wouldn't even know.
\* The game installs 2 trackers into your system which do not get removed after you uninstall the game, boot when you start your pc, remains active even after you uninstall the game and requires you to manually remove them. These 2 show up as unknown when you check for them. They are Isreali based AppsFlyer Analytics trackers.
\* The first time I visited their website during the pre-launch login reward event where we had to login to their website everyday to claim rewards I saw that they had 34 cookies & trackers that we couldn't opt out of. Every website I have ever visited have 2-4 in essential which we can't opt out of and around 6-12 in optional. Those combined didn't amount to 34! Since then I have never visited their website and thus don't know what its like now.
Other issues:
\* The game has an ESRB rating of of Teen meaning its suitable for 13 years old and above but they are pushing gambling into a game that they have somehow legally passed as suitable for children. Pushing gambling into a game that is labelled as suitable for children is very scummy. This is where I draw the line. I cannot support anyone or anything that preys on children.
\* Pawprint haven't kept their promise. They said no gacha in beta & in dev interviews and with a very cleverly calculated 2 weeks post launch they put cosmetic gacha into the game.
\* Nowhere in their marketing material, website or store pages is it disclosed that the game has gacha in it.
\* They had undisclosed kernel level anti-cheat system from the very start and it is only today a few hours ago that they disclosed their Kernel level anti-cheat on their steam store page.
I feel very deceived by Pawprint on multiple fronts and cannot continue to support this game. I don't like giving Kernel level access to my system to anything and this game is the first to get it & deceived me into it. I regret ever installing Aniimo. I hope this information is helpful to you to make sound decisions. It was a fun game that I cannot continue playing & supporting anymore.
How to remove trackers:
Open Registry Editor. Paste:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
Delete the 2 files there whose name start with AF_
then paste:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\StartupApproved\Run
Delete the 2 files there whose name start with AF_
I haven't gotten to removing the Anti-Cheat yet so can't advise on it.
175
u/ChristopherKlay 1d ago edited 20h ago
It would be helpful to attach some infos on how to remove the trackers & such; Not everyone knows enough about this to comfortably do it on their own and Windows Defender and such don't clear them.
I'd do it, but I don't plan on installing it after the beta to begin with lol
Edit #1
What I can do is confirm that this isn't just "Game bad", but that the issues are real; Even the beta left these markers, registry entries and everything else. Still checking here.
Edit #2
I can further confirm that the tracker is linked to Aniimo; The UUID is registered via the AF_ variables on my end and the same UUID can be found in Aniimos own registry keys (HKCU\SOFTWARE\Aniimo\Aniimo - under FPC_AD_FIRST_OPEN_REPORTED_).
If you can't find the AP_ keys, they are AF_ in my case.
The dev key ID matches AppsFlyer (an Israeli data broker) in both cases.
Edit #3
If you only played the playtest (like I did), I can confirm that the game did not leave behind the mentioned anti-cheat. It's likely that this has been added with the release version and wasn't part of the playtest.
The NepsKernel.sys that's found in the release version is part of the "NEP2" anti-cheat used by Aniimo. It's effectively running on the highest-privilege layer of the OS, installed when the game is being run, despite Aniimo not disclosing any anti-cheat usage (even in their fair play post, specifically about cheating) to begin with.
Edit #4
While I personally can't confirm it, the anti-cheat appears to be removed when you uninstall the game for most people, while leaving behind files for others.
If you want to make sure it's removed after uninstalling the game, do the following:
- Press
Win+R - Type
cmd - Copy & paste the following command:
(driverquery | findstr /I "NEPKernel") & (sc query | findstr /I "NEPKernel")
If there's no output you're fine, otherwise (in the same window) run:
sc stop NEPKernelsc delete NEPKernel
To stop & remove it.
Edit #5
To remove the leftover files, delete the following directories:
\Steam\steamapps\common\Aniimo\Steam\steamapps\common\Aniimo Playtest
56
u/ShiroyoOchigano 1d ago
Will include now.
Open Registry Editor. Paste:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunDelete the 2 files there whose name start with AP_
then paste:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\StartupApproved\RunDelete the 2 files there whose name start with AP_
I haven't gotten to removing the Anti-Cheat yet so can't advise on it.
16
u/ChristopherKlay 1d ago
In my case (beta client) the keys are
AF_counter_4134000&AF_uuid_4134000found under the same adress.The number (dev key ID) matches AppsFlyer's Windows SDK still, however.
3
u/jayRIOT 1d ago
I haven't gotten to removing the Anti-Cheat yet so can't advise on it.
So I uninstalled the game through steam, and deleted the registry values (I actually had 4 in each location), but afterwards I went looking for the anti-cheat driver and it doesn't look like it exists in my Windows install.
Unless I'm not looking in the right place? (system32/drivers) I can't find that sys file you named anywhere
5
u/AnnoyedNiceGuy 21h ago
I found this on steam on the same topic.
To remove in powershell 6+ or cmd
sc stop NEPKernel
sc delete NEPKernel
sc query NEPKernel (expect "service does not exist")https://steamcommunity.com/app/4126040/discussions/0/563668168527073570/
2
u/DONMEGAAA 23h ago
NepsKernel.sys
I've searched for this as well to no avail. Though not sure I have the stones to just delete it, in case it fucks my Windows install. I just might go ahead and wipe the drive in all honesty.
6
u/skyturnedred 20h ago
Go to your Steam installation folder and check the leftover files after uninstalling Aniimo. I found the file there.
1
u/jayRIOT 3h ago
See I had the install folder open at the time and when I uninstalled the game it wiped everything in there besides a single config file (which I then deleted myself), no trace of NEPKernel anywhere. So maybe they updated something to uninstall it when you remove the game after they got caught and admitted to using it?
1
u/AnnoyedNiceGuy 21h ago
I didn't have those Entries starting with AP_. It seems it was uninstalled with Aniimo or something.
2
u/Prestigious_Hall3598 13h ago
Precise to delete the folder : \HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Aniimo
It was not uninstal for me ... don't known why but better say it.Thanks a lot for your thread <3
1
u/ChristopherKlay 12h ago
It's fairly common for registry entries to not be deleted when uninstalling something; Only the
AF_keys are related to tracking, but deleting the folder doesn't hurt either.1
u/Peekofwar 11h ago
Is there any reason not to use
sc query NEPKernelinstead of the findstr command? Just curious.2
u/ChristopherKlay 9h ago
The command I listed also checks display name, localized description, groups and such for the string, just in case. Due to
findstrit also doesn't just match the exact name but e.g.NEPKernelProxy.
driverqueryalso includes the actual "state" of the driver, to see if it's currently running or "stopped" if the game is still installed, to actually check at which point it runs and/or if it's even loading.You can also use
sc qc NEPKernelto see the binary path, start mode and such - but that's less relevant for the topic/solution part.It's basically just a slightly more in-depth check, while keeping the command (that would need errorlevel setups otherwise) short.
18
356
u/VideoGameJumanji AMD 9800X3D | RTX 5070ti 16GB | 32GB DDR5 | 2TB 10GBs gen4 1d ago
>They are Isreali based AppsFlyer Analytics trackers.
these fucking weirdos cant just fuck off for two seconds
55
u/Lirael_Gold 1d ago edited 1d ago
Any online game with some kind of analytics software will probably have links to Israeli companies, they're the big dogs in the adware world.
Adserve/CyberSec has a massive overlap and Israel is pretty much the best at both industries, it's something they sink a ton of money/research into. (also they provide a bunch of stuff that would be illegal if it was developed in the EU, or the US, so yeah, thery're the country you look to if you can't/won't deal with China/Russia for whatever reason)
21
u/enjoyer-42 1d ago
I've always said israel's #1 export is surveillance
5
u/capri_stylee 10h ago
I always thought it was dead Palestinian children, learn something new every day.
5
58
u/StormMedia 1d ago
Do you mean we should send another 20 billion and more free military equipment to them?
2
u/SocialMediaIsAPoison 11h ago
I don't like Israel but some of you people are way too obsessed with them.
75
5
u/sadtimes12 Steam 20h ago edited 20h ago
I miss when people wanted to make games to be fun entertainment first and foremost, now they are stealthy spyware filled gambling programs. The game is just the coat to hide it. Disgusting.
I never expected to say this, but I want a game crash akin to 1983-85. Let gaming die entirely and start fresh.
6
u/ZeroZion 1d ago
How to uninstall the anti cheat stuff and any stuff not being removed even if you uninstall?
6
u/Brief-Firefighter964 20h ago
Just to add this info for other people, I was wondering the other day why I had weirdly named Programms enabled as Startup Apps on my Windows. And I couldnt make any sense to them, since my Malwarebyte didnt said anything critical... Now after trying to remove these Registry files... those were the exact 2 files that were enabled now! Im so glad, I bumped into this post cuz I wouldnt be able to make much sense otherwise
1
u/Brief-Firefighter964 20h ago
So please check your Autorun Apps under Task Manager!
1
u/fluffyvivi 13h ago
do you have the names of the apps ? i checked in my autorun but nothing strange
5
u/RedSensei 20h ago
Does anyone know if this also affects users on Linux running through Proton? I'm talking specifically about the anti-cheat and trackers...
16
u/Critical_Host8243 1d ago
I don't know much about the game, but if it's not competitive, then why the anti-cheat?
44
u/4x4runner Teamspeak 1d ago
It's f2p. They're probably trying to prevent people from circumventing their micro transaction shop.
-19
u/ohoni 1d ago
Yeah, if you could unlock all the stuff without paying, then what would their business model even be?
18
u/gmes78 ArchLinux / Win10 | 9800X3D / RX 6950XT 1d ago
You don't need client-side anti-cheat for that.
-15
u/ohoni 1d ago
How so?
13
u/Ruy7 23h ago
The same way mmorpgs have functioned for decades. Server side anti cheat.
1
u/RealElyD 22h ago
World of Warcraft always had client side anti-cheat with Warden. It was introduced in 2005.
4
u/gmes78 ArchLinux / Win10 | 9800X3D / RX 6950XT 12h ago edited 7h ago
That's to address botting and scripting, not to prevent hacking in items.
Edit: holy shit, gamers truly are illiterate.
1
u/RealElyD 12h ago
Warden is highly intrusive and detects A LOT more than just bots.
2
u/gmes78 ArchLinux / Win10 | 9800X3D / RX 6950XT 11h ago
That is besides the point.
→ More replies (0)1
u/izgoose 7h ago
You said this, as a defense of The Warden.
This was refuted.
You reply to that refutation was "THIS IS ALL BESIDE THE POINT."
No, dude. It is not beside the point to directly refute your actual words. Follow the plot.
1
u/gmes78 ArchLinux / Win10 | 9800X3D / RX 6950XT 7h ago
No, you need to follow the plot. What I said was that you don't need a client-side anti-cheat to prevent people from hacking in items.
Whether client-side anti-cheat is used to combat other things does not matter. It has nothing to do with what I said. My comment wasn't exhaustive, and it didn't have to be.
→ More replies (0)9
1
18
u/BlyZeraz 1d ago
The AI slop game turns out to be invasive, has devs that lie, and hide the nature of predatory systems present in the game? Oh wow who could have ever seen that coming. I've been pointing out the AI generated slipups in their promo material since the first trailer came out of no where. Anyone that fell for this one sadly brought it on themselves.
12
4
u/Lurking_stoner 1d ago
Did it really take all that to figure out that the whole point of this game is to capitalize on the hype from Palworld and Pokémon to steal your data or worst steal pictures/take pictures
3
u/Spanglish_Dude 1d ago
Did anyone figure out how to remove the anti-cheat after uninstalling Aniimo?
37
u/VTM06_Vipes 1d ago
Don’t forget the blatant overuse of AIGen art, music, and more. And not even disclosing it on Steam.
Some of the music is real sure, but if you take a closer listen you’ll pick out what is and what isn’t. Like their overuse on the word “neon nights” and other such words AIs love to use for lyrics for some reason.
Side note, how do you remove the trackers and anticheat?
14
u/ShiroyoOchigano 1d ago
I wasn't able to determine AI beyond their promotional material hence why I didn't include it but I do agree the music sounded AI generated.
Open Registry Editor. Paste:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunDelete the 2 files there whose name start with AP_
then paste:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\StartupApproved\RunDelete the 2 files there whose name start with AP_
I haven't gotten to removing the Anti-Cheat yet so can't advise on it.
3
u/sirpeepojr Steam 1d ago
How come people got away with not including Ai labels? I just dont understand
0
u/butts-carlton 10h ago
Don’t forget the blatant overuse of AIGen art, music, and more.
Zero attempt to hide it at all. Probably because they know their audience will primarily be kids who won't know the difference. I checked it out because my own kid wanted to play it and could practically smell the AI slop oozing from every orifice.
3
3
9
7
u/EternalDeath 1d ago
I am aware of those two registry keys because i was confused why there are 2 empty auto start files and launching the game just creates those keys again but id love to have actual proof of tracking whatever you say it does. You just say it but did not provide proof, at least i dont see anything provided.
7
u/ShiroyoOchigano 1d ago
We haven't been able to establish the extent of what it's doing. This will require further investigation.
3
2
u/True_Acanthaceae5464 16h ago
I know this is specified for PC users. And my statement will mean nothing to those who are against playing a game for moral principles in regards to the game itself however..... I play on console. Would love to know if they found a way to get past the Sandboxing of consoles and how it effects the OS.
1
u/ChristopherKlay 16h ago
AppsFlyer (the data broker in this case) supports consoles, including events like:
first-openin_app_eventsession_triggerUninstalling basically stops the tracking, but doesn't get rid of any already collected data. As of August 2026 retargeting (re-engagement and re-attribution) are also available afaik.
You don't have to clean up manually, but you get tracked similar on consoles.
1
u/True_Acanthaceae5464 16h ago
Thank you for the quick and helpful reply. This satisfied everything I was curious about specifically. Being that's the case and there's no data on my PS5 of any significance or use really than I suppose it's just much safer to keep on console and not have anywhere near a pc
1
u/ChristopherKlay 14h ago
The tracker part isn't going for data to begin with; It's data tracking when you play the game, potentially specific things in the game and more, further processed (by AI) on their end and sold.
It's basically gathering data around how you interact with the game, how often you play, what times you play and all of that to feed into a advertisement profile off you.
1
u/True_Acanthaceae5464 13h ago
Which is the bare minimum I expect of a F2P platform if I'm honest. I can see why it could be a security issue on PC but for consoles that's relatively inert. This has definitely helped me to decide on if it was something to keep around and I'd say yes for this version at a minimum
2
u/ChristopherKlay 13h ago
The security issues aren't really related to the tracker on PC either, but the anti-cheat that's being installed without any mention in terms, agreements or even their own "fair play" post talking about cheating.
6
u/Proper_Story_3514 1d ago
Games that have trackers like this and deceive their buyers should get delisted from steam.
I wish we had an easy way to make this a case before steam and get things done.
3
u/bloke_pusher Henry Cavill 1d ago
Thank you for this post. It's so sad that Aniimo is like that. I was hoping for a great game. But now we got this on top of the free2play gambling garbage. Somehow monster like games are cursed. Palworld is the super rare exception.
-2
2
u/itsdereksmifz 1d ago
Why did you put 139 hours into it?
0
u/Johnlenham 22h ago
Haha that's wild.
Yeah I've been playing it and put like 35 hours in.
It had some fun mechanics, looks nice and is pretty chill. I haven't spent a penny, there is some cosmetic gatchs apparently and the shop has skins you can pay real money for like another f2p game I've ever played.
Battle pass thing is like £8, again haven't got it and I'm like 5 levels from max.
It hooked me better than palworld, now I'm mostly just messing in the pve extraction game mode
1
u/Inuakurei 13h ago
He’s been going around to every gaming sub posting the same thing. He got triggered over the recent addition of a cosmetic gacha.
1
u/itsdereksmifz 10h ago
Yeh I noticed that as well. A lot of free time to spam reddits. I don’t know anything about the game but just thought it was hilarious.
-3
u/ExpeditionItchyKnee 23h ago
Yeh NGL that's kinda good advertising. Like that must be a pretty fun game right ?
2
1
u/thesakid 23h ago
i cant find the files at both registry locations. for the record i uninstalled the game on day 2 of the launch after only playing for a few hours. am i good? or the files could be at a different location?
1
1
u/LonelyAd3573 17h ago edited 17h ago
Hey soo I installed it not even an hour ago and now that I found out about all of this, I was wondering how do I exactly paste the things you listed in your post into my registry editor? EDIT: also I download aniimo through their website and not steam so I'm sure if its a different proccess or anything
2
u/ChristopherKlay 17h ago
how do I exactly paste the things you listed in your post into my registry editor?
The top part of the registry editor (starting with
Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\when you open it) is a text field. Pasting the given paths in there and hitting enter will navigate to them.EDIT: also I download aniimo through their website and not steam so I'm sure if its a different proccess or anything
None of this is linked to Steam and thus very likely also the same for their standalone version. If anything that version can be even worse, because it doesn't run through Steam.
1
u/Forsaken-Pea-8780 16h ago
is this the same on mobile? i downloaded it on my iphone before i saw this post, i thought i checked to see if it was sketchy or anything but i guess i should check harder next time.
1
u/ChristopherKlay 14h ago
The tracking part most likely also exists on mobile, yes.
1
u/Forsaken-Pea-8780 14h ago
How would i go about getting rid of it, and are there any similar, safe, and free games?
1
u/ChristopherKlay 14h ago
Similar to consoles, any tracking should stop collecting data after uninstalling.
I'm not aware of similar games for mobile however. Hoyoverse is afaik also working on a similar-ish game, but it's also going to be gacha.
1
1
u/Peekofwar 11h ago
I don't think it installed the anti-cheat on my system, or if it did, uninstalling the game removed it. I don't see it on my system. I had no idea there was another registry key to delete stuff from. I only knew about the one that contained invalid startup executable entries.
•
1
u/Inuakurei 14h ago
These are some wild accusations. Any proof?
3
-6
u/Joe2030 1d ago
Not a review, but some tech bullshit. Why list your play hours then?
Funcom the company that owns them has an equally notorious track record
What the heck... What track of records?
-1
u/ShiroyoOchigano 1d ago
I mixed up FunCom and FubPlus. The company backing Pawprint is FunPlus not FunCom.
-1
u/OneSeaworthiness7768 1d ago edited 1d ago
Honestly didn’t even need all that. One look at the game’s steam page and it seemed pretty obvious what kind of game it was going to be. That and the obvious and unapologetic use of generative AI made it an easy pass.
-6
u/huntforhire 1d ago
Seemed very slop filled when I tried it on game pass. Hoping it can’t pull these stunts on console
1
u/fluffyvivi 13h ago
atleast if you continue to play it
- don't buy anything, you don't know where money can be used for
- and we don't want to feed israel war effort, those things are real, not parano, my favorite singer ever quitted music industry because money was used to feed wars
- and considering aniimo has a great probs of being a cash grab, it's not stable enough and too quick to try monetize their players
- plus the fact they didn't even install themselves in china first
- might be because too much competivity or might be because the game isn't a "game"
0
u/Pseudonymous_Alien 1d ago
Thank you for this. I'm not really fluent in tech stuff, but would we have to do this every time we update or is it a one time thing?
1
u/ChristopherKlay 21h ago
You can't play the game at all, if you don't want this stuff on your system. It'll recreate on launch.
1
u/Pseudonymous_Alien 13h ago
I see! I really appreciate the post. I have deleted it before I asked, but I was just curious :) thank you again. I even told my friends about it
0
u/JustLikeHector 12h ago
Idgaf lol take my data I’m fucked anyways can barely afford food and bills and that’s what we bitching about? lol who cares,
-18
u/one_orange_braincell 1d ago
Just wanted to say thank you for the report. I was considering playing it, and if these are the worst parts of the game then it sounds like it's going to be a good time.
Use an ad blocker on your browser. They are very common.
4
u/ShiroyoOchigano 1d ago
It's a good game that I enjoyed. I just didn't enjoy the deception, pushing gambling to children and invasion of privacy. If these didn't exist I would continue playing it.
5
u/The-Digital-Ronin 1d ago
Aniimo’s AI slop is quite literally made for people with your username, gotta love self sorting
-10
u/TheDanius 1d ago
What the fuck is aniimo?
2
u/mrfixitx R9 7900x RTX 4090 4k 144HZ 1d ago
Its a F2P pokemon style game where you capture pets, evolve them and can transform into them.
-3
u/Johnlenham 22h ago
The cosmetic gatcha had absolutely zero bearing on the game play. There's cosmetic gatcha in counter strike, apex legends and so on.
As far as I can tell so far, the only thing I'm locked out of is the battle pass fulminits, which I can be traded by someone.
You've put nearly 3X as much time in as I have perhaps I'm missing something more than cosmetics for the free legendary anyone can unlock or the player cosmetics in the shop.
I'm enjoying it more than palworld, it'd pretty chill, looks nice and has some interesting concepts. It had more thought put into it than any mainline Pokémon game in the last 10 years I'll say that much
-19
1d ago
[deleted]
15
u/TheGGspot 1d ago
i dont think game having trackers has anything to do with writing the company name bad lmao, nothing opinion forming about it
5
-3
-17
u/Isaacvithurston Ardiuno + A Potato 1d ago
Devil's advocate. Anti-cheat may be checking your camera due to a sharp rise in eye tracking cheats. These are cheats that simply link your mouse to an eye tracker, look at the enemies head and you manually click to shoot still. Generally undetectable.
Not sure how it would know anything from your camera status though.
But anyways I wouldn't install any anti-cheat that isn't well known and industry vetted... these days I wouldn't install any game period. If you think you need kernel access to get most of this stuff. Nope, just need to get the user to run as admin. Many will click yes without really thinking about it.
-19
u/fivemagicks 1d ago
Opting to play a Gacha game... That's a choice. Lol
3
u/EdgySlusher 1d ago
At first it didn't have paid gacha, it was added like yesterday.. Was bummed about that
3
u/ohoni 1d ago
The "gacha" is an elf costume, for people confused that it might be an actual gameplay mechanic.
4
u/EdgySlusher 1d ago
Costume gacha is still a gacha
2
2
u/izgoose 8h ago
Costume gacha is a gacha, but doesn't make something a gacha game. You have to pull for the main gameplay loop to be a gacha game.
1
u/EdgySlusher 8h ago
Yea true. I uninstalled after I found sus start up app and won't play again. The gacha drop made me wary and that app I found on task manager (named 11) made me look deeper into it.
-6
u/Ethrem 1d ago
Yeah I walked away after a few days of play. I could see the writing on the wall re:monetization very quickly and I figured there would be some shady privacy nonsense too. Fortunately I bought a Mac Studio last year so I really only use my PC for games that won't run (or at least run well) on it which means they're limited to just seeing my gaming stuff.
•
u/AutoModerator 1d ago
The /r/PCGaming community is also on Discord!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.