The bunny girls have been hard to miss this month. Guilty and Sin's new looks drew plenty of hype, and the winter rerun gave players another shot at some old favorites. Now the mood is shifting. The 4th Anniversary is getting closer, and most Commanders are already asking what comes next.
This NIKKE banner schedule is here to answer that. We cover the current banners, the next one, and the upcoming banners most likely to happen. After that, we sort through the NIKKE leaks that are still unconfirmed.
Want a few extra pulls before the anniversary hits? You can top up NIKKE Gems through GamsGo at up to 18% off.
One quick note on dates: official notices use UTC+9 (Korea Standard Time). The tables below add US Pacific times. The FAQ covers other regions.
About this article: Confirmed details come from the official September 17 patch notes and SHIFT UP's Developer's Notes. Predictions are kept separate from confirmed banners, and we update the page when an official notice replaces a guess.
Current NIKKE Banners (September–October 2026)
The COIN RUSH SHOWDOWN update went live on September 17. It added bunny versions of Guilty and Sin, plus a Limited Select Recruit that brings back six winter Nikkes. Here is a closer look at each banner and the units worth your attention.
Guilty: Mighty Bunny
Guilty is one of the reformed convicts in Missilis's Real Kindness squad. Her bunny version comes in a high-tech exoskeleton suit, and her new kit is built almost entirely around boss fights.
Her whole kit revolves around two Bunny Modes. In Stance mode, she gains Attack Damage and Charge Damage, and every fully charged hit adds a large chunk of bonus damage. In Engage mode, she loses those self-buffs, but her normal attacks and Burst turn into true damage.
Holding a full charge for one second swaps between the two, though you cannot switch while her Burst weapon is active.
Her Burst, Mighty Stomp, trades her rifle for a single heavy shot with a 1.5-second charge. That one round gets a 1,400% Charge Damage boost, and she keeps an Attack Damage buff for 10 seconds afterward. This is why Miranda with her Treasure pairs so well with her. Miranda's buff is built for exactly this kind of one-shot Burst weapon.
The numbers back up the hype. Nikke.gg puts her damage at roughly 80% of Snow White: Heavy Arms, a limited Pilgrim, and rates her S for bossing. Inven Global places her just below Snow White: Heavy Arms and Dorothy: Serendipity among Water DPS. Nikke.gg even expects her to push Bready out of some Water raid teams.
Her weak spots are just as clear. She has no AoE, so she struggles in regular Campaign stages and scores only a C in Arena. If you build her, Nikke.gg suggests 4x ATK and 4x Elemental Damage Overload lines, then Charge Speed. Level Skill 2 first, and aim for skill levels of 4/7/7 for now.
Sin: Swift Bunny
Sin is Guilty's partner in the Real Kindness squad, and her banner opened a week later on September 24. The two look like a matching set, but they fill very different roles.
Sin uses the same Bunny Mode system, and the two stay in sync. When one switches modes, the other follows. Her Stance mode is a crit build, with a 35% Critical Rate boost and a 75% Critical Damage boost. Her Engage mode turns her normal attacks into true damage, just like Guilty's.
Her Burst is where she stands apart. It raises her ATK by 110% for 5 seconds and hits every enemy on the field. On top of that, it adds either a big crit-friendly hit in Stance mode or a big true damage hit in Engage mode. For the next 5 seconds, she also switches to a fast-charging weapon called Swift Carrot.
That AoE nuke makes her better than Guilty outside of boss fights. Nikke.gg's early ratings give her 4.5 out of 5 for both PvP and Deficit, the high-difficulty Campaign pushes where enemies outlevel your team. For bosses, Guilty still comes out ahead when both run in a true damage team.
Build-wise, she is more demanding. Prydwen notes that she scales better with duplicate copies than Guilty does. Charge Speed Overload lines also matter more for her. Some fan trackers list her banner as ending on October 8, but the official patch notes say October 15.
Winter Limited Select Recruit Rerun
The third banner works differently. In Limited Select Recruit, you pick one Nikke from a list of six. Only your pick gets the 2% rate-up, and you can switch to a different one at any time. The rerun closes on October 8 at 04:59 (UTC+9), and none of these units join the standard pool afterward.
Two of the six stand out for most accounts, so we cover them in detail first.
Ludmilla: Winter Owner (X-Ludmilla)
Ludmilla: Winter Owner first arrived in December 2023 as the owner of a northern hot spring. The community calls her X-Ludmilla, and she has been a Water raid staple ever since.
Her machine gun deals double damage when it hits an enemy's core, and most bosses have one exposed. Her first skill applies a damage taken debuff to her target, which helps the whole team.
Her second skill adds bonus damage every 60 core hits and raises her Critical Rate at the start of each Full Burst. Her Burst gives her a 62.54% ATK boost for 10 seconds, along with faster reloads.
Against cored bosses, guides compare her damage to Modernia's, and a well-built X-Ludmilla can even pull ahead. She also needs fewer Max Ammo Overload lines than most machine guns. Her weaknesses are poor burst generation and no AoE, and she has no ATK buff outside her Burst. Prioritize Skill 1, then her Burst.
Maiden: Ice Rose (X-Maiden)
Maiden: Ice Rose joined the winter lineup in December 2024. She is an Elysion Defender, but most players treat her as a damage dealer and Electric support rolled into one.
Her kit runs on MP. She gains stacks with each Full Burst and spends them all when she uses her Burst, so more stacks mean a bigger hit. She also buffs every other Electric ally on the team. Prydwen notes she is the only unit that grants an Elemental Damage buff to Electric allies, which makes her hard to replace in Electric-weak Solo Raids.
Outside that niche, she loses some value. Her Burst hits a single target, and her team ATK buff is weaker than it looks because it scales off a Defender's stats. On the plus side, her burst generation is strong for a rocket launcher, which gives her a place in PvP too.
The Other Four Winter Nikkes
The rest of the lineup is more situational. Each one solves a specific problem, so the right pick depends on what your roster is missing:
In short, Guillotine is the only one of the four worth planning around, and only once X-Ludmilla and X-Maiden are covered. The other three fill specific gaps, so pick one only if your team is missing what she offers.
Next NIKKE Banner: What Comes After the Bunnies?
The bunny and winter banners close between October 8 and 15, and SHIFT UP has not announced what replaces them. Past years, though, give a good idea of what this short window usually looks like.
In 2025, Delta: Ninja Thief ran in mid-October. In 2024, Quency: Escape Queen, Phantom, and Rumani filled the weeks before Cinderella arrived. Neither year saved a major release for this slot. The next banner will likely be a smaller one you can skip without much regret.
The rest of October's confirmed content is side content rather than new units. The October Mission Pass adds a Treat Chef costume for Crust. The TRAIL MARKER event also rewards anyone who finishes the full main story by October 8.
One more detail hints at what follows. The August Developer's Note asked players to revisit the STAR ANIS event in the Archives, since it leads into the Third Surface Reclamation War. That name is a strong clue about where the anniversary story is heading.
Upcoming NIKKE Banners With High Probability
Beyond the next banner, two stops on the schedule are close to certain: the 4th Anniversary and the Christmas limiteds. Neither lineup is official yet, but both have a track record that is hard to ignore.
NIKKE 4th Anniversary Banner (Expected Around October 29)
SHIFT UP has not announced the date yet. Still, the last three anniversaries followed almost the same schedule:
All three updates arrived on a Thursday, with the livestream a few days earlier. If that holds, Thursday, October 29 is the most likely launch date, and the livestream should come the weekend before.
The scale, on the other hand, is official. In the August 2026 Developer's Note, director Hyungsuk Yoo said this will be the largest anniversary update NIKKE has ever had. He pointed to a record number of event scenes and new songs, and said several long-running storylines will come together in it.
Likely Anniversary Headliners: Scarlet and Rapunzel
The strongest lead for the headline banner comes straight from the main story. In Chapter 48, released on August 13, Scarlet and Rapunzel return in new forms after losing their original bodies. Fan databases found their new character models in that same patch, so the designs are already finished.
Their status fits the pattern too. Every headliner in the table above was a Pilgrim, one of a group of rare, powerful Nikkes tied closely to the main story. Scarlet and Rapunzel are both Pilgrims and former members of the original Goddess Squad. Bringing them back right before a story climax would fit that tradition well.
Keep one thing in mind: Pilgrim banners run at a 1% rate-up instead of the regular 2%. That would make a Scarlet or Rapunzel banner twice as hard to hit. And until SHIFT UP ties either of them to a date, they are the likeliest picks, not confirmed ones.
Christmas Winter Limited NIKKE Banners (December)
After the anniversary, the next fixed stop on the NIKKE banner schedule is December. Every Christmas so far has added a new pair of winter limited units:
Four years in a row makes this one of the most dependable patterns in the game. A new pair this December is about as safe a prediction as NIKKE gets.
NIKKE Leaks and Rumors (Unconfirmed)
Everything above is either confirmed or backed by a strong yearly pattern. The rest of the schedule depends on leaks and fan theories, so it helps to know how much weight they can carry.
How Reliable Are NIKKE Leaks?
Many big gacha games leak through beta test builds weeks before an update. NIKKE has no beta like that for leakers to dig through. Instead, most early information comes from three places. The first is character files that arrive in a patch before they are used. The other two are official silhouette teasers and clues in the story.
That limits what a leak can tell you. Finding a new character model in the game files proves she exists. It does not prove she will be playable, and it says nothing about when her banner opens.
SHIFT UP has also pushed back on leaks before, and at least one major English NIKKE creator publicly stopped posting datamined content in 2023. As a result, much of what spreads online today is secondhand.
To make this easier to follow, we sort each rumor into three levels:
A Low rating does not mean the rumor is false. It just means it is not solid enough to plan your Gems around.
Rapunzel's New Role and a Possible New Year Split
New Weapons — Reliability: Medium
Japanese fans who broke down the Chapter 48 trailer noticed that both Scarlet and Rapunzel carry redesigned weapons. Scarlet has a new blade, and Rapunzel has a new staff. Since the weapons appear in official footage, this part rests on more than guesswork.
What those weapons mean for their kits is less clear. Some fans expect Rapunzel to shift from a pure healer toward a damage-dealing role, but that is still a guess until SHIFT UP shows her skills.
New Year Split — Reliability: Low
Another theory is that the two will not arrive together. The New Year slot has become a major release window. In 2024, a special Christmas livestream revealed Rapi: Red Hood, an Over-Spec unit, meaning a powered-up version of a core story character. Her banner opened on January 1, 2025.
A year later, the Pilgrim Snow White: Heavy Arms took the same January 1 slot. If only one Goddess Squad member headlines the anniversary, New Year 2027 is the most likely slot for the other.
Marian's New Form
Reliability: Low
Marian is the Counters member who later became Modernia, and she has been at the center of recent main story chapters. Because of that, several Japanese fan sites list a new form of Marian as a top anniversary candidate. They see her as the next in a line of story-driven headliners.
The problem is the evidence. Unlike Scarlet and Rapunzel, Marian has no new model in the game files and no official teaser. For now, she is a story-based guess rather than a leak.
Hansel and Gretel
Reliability: Low
Hansel and Gretel are the last two members of the Old Tales squad who are not playable yet. Their storyline stopped on a cliffhanger, when Little Mermaid said the twins are no longer on humanity's side. The 2026 summer event then dropped more hints about where they are.
That is why they are a favorite in fan predictions. The reasoning makes sense, but for now it is only reasoning. Nothing in the game data or SHIFT UP's teasers backs it up, so keep the twins on your radar, not in your saving plan.
NIKKE Banner History 2026
Looking back at this year's banners puts the predictions and leaks above in context. The tables below show how often limited units return and how SHIFT UP spaces out its big releases. In the Type column, Pilgrim and Over-Spec mark the 1% banners, while limited means the unit leaves when her banner ends.
January–June 2026 Banners
The six summer limiteds that came back in June were Anis: Sparkling Summer, Neon: Blue Ocean, Helm: Aquamarine, Mary: Bay Goddess, Rosanna: Chic Ocean, and Sakura: Bloom in Summer.
July–September 2026 Banners
Two patterns stand out. Seasonal limited units now return in big groups instead of one at a time, as the June and September reruns show. New versions of existing characters, such as Arcana, Laplace, Maxwell, Drake, Guilty, and Sin, also make up a growing share of the regular banners.
How NIKKE Banners Work
Several terms in this guide, like rate-ups and Pilgrim banners, come from NIKKE's banner rules. If you are newer to the game, here is how the main banner types compare.
Special Recruit, Pilgrim, and Limited Banners
Across all featured banners, the chance of pulling any SSR stays at 4%. One pull costs 300 Gems, and ten pulls cost 3,000. Regular Recruit Vouchers only work on Ordinary Recruit, so keep your Advanced Recruit Vouchers for the featured banners you care about.
Gold Mileage and the 200-Pull Spark
NIKKE has no pity system, which means the game never guarantees a featured unit after a set number of failed pulls. It uses a spark system instead. Each pull on a featured banner gives you one Gold Mileage Ticket. Collect 200, and you can buy that banner's featured Nikke in the Mileage Shop. Unused tickets carry over after a banner ends, so the ones you earn now still count toward the anniversary.
Sparking from zero takes 200 pulls, or 60,000 Gems. That sounds like a lot, but most players only need one copy. Three duplicates fully limit break a Nikke (MLB), raising her level cap to the maximum. Each copy after that only raises her Core level for a small stat boost.
Should You Pull Now or Save for the NIKKE 4th Anniversary?
With the rules covered, we can get to the real question. For most accounts, saving is the better call right now. The exceptions depend on what content you play and which units you are missing.
Who Should Pull on the Bunny Banners?
How Many Gems Should You Save Before the Anniversary?
When you plan, count your Gold Mileage first, not your Gems. Say you already have 80 tickets. You would need 120 more pulls on the anniversary banner to guarantee the featured unit through the Mileage Shop. Advanced Recruit Vouchers count too, since each one is a pull.
You will not have to cover all of that yourself. The anniversary event hands out a large batch of free pulls every year, and the FAQ breaks down last year's rewards. Still, relying on luck alone at a Pilgrim's 1% rate can leave you 150 pulls deep with nothing to show for it.
For reference, a casual free-to-play account earns about 20 pulls' worth of Gems each month, plus event vouchers. If the math still comes up short once the livestream reveals the lineup, you can top up NIKKE through GamsGo. Your order page shows the delivery status, so you know the Gems are in before the banner opens.
Final Thoughts
Here is where the NIKKE banner schedule stands. The bunny banners and the winter rerun are live now, with Guilty and the winter picks leaving on October 8 and Sin a week later. Whatever fills mid-October will most likely be a smaller banner.
The big moves come after that. The 4th Anniversary should land around October 29, with Scarlet and Rapunzel as the strongest leads, and December should bring a new pair of winter limiteds. The rest, from Marian to Hansel and Gretel, is still fan theory.
For most Commanders, that points to one plan. Pull now only if a unit fills a real gap, like X-Ludmilla or X-Maiden for Solo Raid. Carry everything else, especially your Gold Mileage, into the anniversary.
FAQ
What Time Do NIKKE Banners End in My Region?
Banners end at 4:59 AM Korea time on the listed date, which is the day before for most players outside Asia. Guilty's October 8 end, for example, lands at 12:59 PM PT, 3:59 PM ET, or 8:59 PM in the UK on October 7. Once daylight saving ends (October 25 in the UK, November 1 in the US), those times move one hour earlier.
How Many Free Pulls Does a NIKKE Anniversary Usually Give?
Close to 200, though not all of them work on the featured banners. The 3rd Anniversary gave 96 Advanced Recruit Vouchers, 20 event banner vouchers, and 63 daily free pulls. It also added 45 regular Recruit Vouchers, which only work on Ordinary Recruit. The 2nd Anniversary was similar.
Is There Usually a Free SSR During the Anniversary?
Yes, every year so far. The 1st Anniversary story gave Snow White: Innocent Days, the 2nd gave Rapunzel: Pure Grace, and the 3rd gave Chime. The last two also included a selection box, which let newer players claim an earlier anniversary freebie instead. Nothing is confirmed for 2026 yet, but skipping one would break a clear tradition.
What Happens to Guilty and Sin After Their Banners End?
The catch is the Mileage Shop. Once their banners end, you can no longer exchange Gold Mileage for either of them. If you are close to 200 tickets and want a guaranteed copy, exchange before October 8 for Guilty or before October 15 for Sin.
Will X-Ludmilla and X-Maiden Rerun Again This Winter?
It is not a safe bet. X-Maiden did return last December, but X-Ludmilla skipped the 2025 winter reruns and only came back now. Since both just returned in September, SHIFT UP may give this winter's rerun slots to newer holiday units instead.
Do Collab Nikkes Ever Rerun?
Some do, but not on a fixed schedule. The Evangelion units returned in early 2025, and 2B and A2 from NieR came back that summer. EVE and Raven from Stellar Blade reran in May 2026. Others, like the Chainsaw Man and Re:ZERO units, have not returned yet, so a rerun seems to depend on the partner.
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