Honkai: Star Rail (, ) is a 2023 free-to-play turn-based role-playing gacha video game developed and published by miHoYo (with publishing outside mainland China under Cognosphere, d/b/a HoYoverse). It is the fourth installment in the Honkai series and the spiritual successor to Honkai Impact 3rd, featuring alternative versions of characters from earlier titles in the series, as well as gameplay elements from miHoYo's previous game Genshin Impact. The game features the main character, who is referred to as the Trailblazer, traveling across the universe on a train called the Astral Express to help and connect the worlds while involved in resolving various disasters.
The first closed beta test was launched on October 27, 2021. It was publicly released internationally for Windows and mobile devices on April 26, 2023, and for PlayStation 5 on October 11, 2023.
Partially due to the popularity of Genshin Impact, the game was widely anticipated before its launch. It was received generally positively by critics, who praised its story, characters and combat system. However, opinions were mixed on its character progression system and gacha monetization strategy.
Gameplay
Honkai: Star Rail follows the gameplay style of classic Japanese role-playing games where players build up a lineup of characters and control a team of up to four in turn-based combat. In addition to various stats that affect characters' strength, each character has a combat type that affects the kind of damage dealt to targets, a character class referred to as a Path that defines their combat role, and a set of unique abilities called Traces used in combat. Each character can equip a weapon known as a Light Cone, that has various effects that activate if the Paths of both the character and Light Cone match. Characters can also equip various Relics, similar to Artifacts in Genshin Impact.
Elements of open-world and dungeon exploration are present, with multiple mechanics including the gacha system, carried over (with slight differences) from Genshin Impact. Instead of exploring one large map, players explore smaller, self-contained areas on each world, which contain treasure chests, puzzles, and other interactable elements. Both games have mechanics of gacha games, in which players spend in-game currency that can be earned in-game or purchased with real money through microtransactions to receive new characters and weapons. Additional gameplay features include an auto-battle system, fast-forward options during combat, and cross-save support between platforms.
The game's premium currency, Stellar Jade, is primarily used to purchase Star Rail Passes to obtain characters and Light Cones through a mechanic called "warping", and can be earned through gameplay progression, events, and achievements.
Story Setting and characters
The game is set in a science-fantasy universe in which humanity and sapient non-human beings are aligned with specific universal concepts known as Paths. Each Path is associated with an Aeon, godlike higher-dimensional beings that preside over aspects of existence across the universe. Those who follow Paths are known as Pathstriders, which align closely with a respective Path based on their wills, while those who are directly blessed with divine powers by the Aeons are known as Emanators. They are typically enforcers of Aeons' wills often incomparably more powerful than mere mortals.
Each Path espouses an ideal: for example, the Abundance is based on the view that immortality is a blessing and that healing and altruism should be valued as a top priority. The Destruction believes that civilization is cancerous to the universe, and seeks to eradicate all of civilization through the spreading of various disasters, such as the Stellaron, an object known as the Cancer of All Worlds, which brings destruction to any planet it is placed on.
Some Paths were led by Aeons who are now deceased, but continue to exist without the influence of their Aeons. The main character of the game known as the Trailblazer, a mysterious amnesiac possessing a Stellaron, follows the Path of Trailblaze, a Path created by the missing Akivili. Pathstriders of Trailblaze, also known as the "Nameless", seek to "explore, establish, and connect" among different worlds.
Different Paths are portrayed as antagonistic, protagonistic, or neutral. The primary antagonist of the game is Nanook, who controls the Path of Destruction, along with Antimatter Legion led by Lord Ravagers, the Emanators of Destruction. Other Paths, such as the Path of Abundance, are not necessarily seen as antagonistic, but are involved in rivalries with The Hunt and other Paths, who view the immortality granted by the Path of Abundance as a curse.
Aside from the Path of Destruction, the Stellaron Hunters are a somewhat antagonistic antihero group throughout the game, who search for and collect Stellarons across the universe and claim to be able to see the future. The main characters are often in conflict with the Stellaron Hunters, though they more or less end up aiding each other on their journeys.
Plot The Herta Space Station is attacked by the Antimatter Legion, followers of the Destruction. During the chaos, the Stellaron Hunters, Kafka and Silver Wolf, steal a powerful object called a Stellaron and implant it into an artificial body. That body awakens as the player character, the Trailblazer, but Kafka wipes their memories before leaving. The amnesiac Trailblazer is rescued by March 7th and Dan Heng, who are passengers of the Astral Express, a train that travels across worlds. The Trailblazer joins them as part of the Nameless.
Their first major stop is Jarilo-VI, a planet frozen by a Stellaron's influence. After being declared fugitives by Cocolia, the crew discovers that she has been corrupted by the Stellaron and intends to sacrifice Jarilo-VI to reshape it. With help from the Aeon Qlipoth, the Trailblazer gains the power of Preservation and defeats her. Leadership over Jarilo-VI passes to Cocolia's daughter Bronya, who promises reform.
The crew next travels to the Xianzhou Luofu, a colossal starship aligned with the Path of The Hunt. Political intrigue, interference by the Stellaron Hunters, and manipulation by the Antimatter Legion lead to a major battle. Dan Heng reveals he is the reincarnation of a disgraced dragon-like being, Dan Feng, and helps defeat the Legion's agent Phantylia. The Luofu forms an alliance with the Astral Express.
At Penacony, the "Planet of Festivities", the crew enters a vast shared dream called the Dreamscape. What begins as a glamorous festival spirals into conspiracy: people are seemingly "killed" by a mysterious entity, and the ruling Family is secretly manipulating a Stellaron to control reality. Sunday, one of Penacony's leaders, is exposed as a follower of the Aeon of Order who seeks to trap everyone in a false utopia. The Trailblazer gains the power of Harmony, and with help from allies, the crew restores reality.
The crew's next stop is Amphoreus, a hidden world revealed to be a looping simulated universe created by a sentient supercomputer. The Trailblazer joins a prophetic campaign to break the cycle with the power of Remembrance, while March 7th becomes entangled first with illness and then with an alternate version of herself, known as "Evernight", possessing her body. They learn that the planet is tasked with incubating a Lord Ravager – an Emanator of Destruction – to attack Nous, the Aeon of Erudition. With the assistance of the Xianzhou Alliance, the Interastral Peace Corporation (IPC), and Herta's forces, the Lord Ravager is ultimately defeated. Cyrene, a divine intelligence tied to the world's origin, sacrifices herself to stabilize the timeline and entrusts the Trailblazer with the memories of Amphoreus.
After Amphoreus, the Astral Express heads to the world of Planarcadia, the home planet of Astral Express navigator Himeko, and participates in the Phantasmoon Games, a spectacle where contestants compete for the Aeon of Elation Aha's power. The planet is eventually revealed to be in a tenuous balance between the hidden remains of Oroboros, the Aeon of Voracity, and the Abundance sealing it away in the World in Canvas. The Lord Ravager Asat Pramad tricks the Trailblazer into granting him access to the World in Canvas and attempts to unleash the Voracity onto the planet. In the ensuing fight, Himeko is nearly killed, but the Trailblazer – encouraged by a future version of themself – makes a wish to the Stellaron inside them to protect the Astral Express crew. The crew defeats Asat Pramad, but not before he awakens the Voracity. The IPC, with the support of Aha in human form Nihilux, protects the planet by pulling it into the World in Canvas, as Pearl and the Trailblazer restart the Phantasmoon Games to reseal Oroboros' corpse.
Development
Honkai: Star Rail began development in 2019 with the goal of "exploring new directions for the Honkai series". The production team has about 500 people, most of whom are fans of science fiction works and turn-based role-playing games. This project is miHoYo's first attempt at a turn-based combat mechanism game. The team has stated that this genre is very popular in the game market and can lower the difficulty threshold for players to get started. In previous surveys conducted by HoYoverse, many players expressed that they enjoy this type of game. There were concerns about whether this type of game is too retro, but the production team believes that as long as the quality of the game is enjoyable, it can attract players.
Like other works in the Honkai series, it is in no way "too hard-core science fiction". The setting of Honkai Impact 3rd is Earth, but the plot mentions other planets in this worldview. Therefore, the production team of Honkai: Star Rail decided to develop a cosmological theme around its game's lore and worldbuilding to expand on this concept of "a universe". The setting revolves around taking a train which draws inspiration from the idea of a steam train running through the stars in the novel Night on the Galactic Railroad by Kenji Miyazawa and Leiji Matsumoto's famous manga, Galaxy Express 999. The production sequence of each planet in the game takes around one year to first determine the worldview and theme of the planet, then create the characters and detailed setting information, and then finally write the plot.
The overall artistic vision of each planet is based on elements from real-world cultures and aesthetics:
Belobog, which was named after eponymous Slavic deity, is the name of the blizzard-stricken town in the first planet, Jarilo-VI, which design was inspired by Russian architecture. The design of the space-faring fleet "Xianzhou Luofu" is based on Chinese culture and East Asian fantasy, which has been described as "silkpunk". Penacony's design was inspired by a blend of Jazz Age, Roaring Twenties, Classical Hollywood, and Western modernist culture, which re-imagines through luxurious dream-like fantasy, forming twelve dream worlds that provide different forms of entertainment. The concept of "Amphoreus" takes inspiration from Greco-Roman mythology with its design and aesthetic for its architecture incorporating artistic styles such as Hellenistic, Renaissance, and Neoclassicism. Planarcadia, which is described as an immersive amusement world renowned for its pop culture and entertainment, blends urban fantasy with some elements of metaverse and internet aesthetic where the borderline between vivid imagination and virtual reality co-exists.