Honkai: Star Rail is a new turn-based, space fantasy game where players must travel across planets to uncover answers about a great evil threatening the universe. The title comes from HoYoverse, the developer behind the massively popular games Genshin Impact and Honkai Impact 3rd. Just exiting its final run of beta s earlier this month, Honkai: Star Rail is slated for release some time this spring.
The game draws great inspiration from Eastern fantasy in both its silkpunk visuals and unique storytelling, following a protagonist who's been injected with Stellaron - which has been described as seeds of ruin - in a world full of powerful, evil gods called Destructions. Honkai: Star Rail's combat marks HoYoverse's first foray into turn-based battles, and players can expect a wholly different experience than in previous games from the developer. The protagonist will traverse the world on the Astral Express, the inspiration behind the title's name, as they seek to uncover the mysteries behind the Stellaron.
HoYoverse's Senior Director of Global Business Development Fish Ling and Global Business Development team member Michael Lin sat down with Screen Rant to discuss the world of Honkai: Star Rail, its fantasy inspirations, and what players can expect from the game.
Screen Rant: I'd love to first just hear about how this whole idea started out and how it's grown from the beginning.
Michael Lin: Sure. So the game is a space fantasy RPG. So a bunch of the development, consisting of 500 people for the game itself, are big fans of sci-fi, and are big fans of turn-based RPGs. And we felt that the turn-based combat system is something we have not done before in the company yet, in all our previous games. It's still a viable genre to base the game on, and we felt that it's something that we would really like to give it a try, and our players are really feeling for it, and that's why we developed something like that.
And for sci-fi, in reality, our developers felt that it's something that provides hope, and it's very inspiring for younger generations to really look forward to. Sci-fi represents something that is classic, and sci-fi plus turn-based RPG is something that we would like to give a try. Yeah, that's how the game came to be.
How did the turn-based aspect first come about? Why did that feel so integral to the sci-fi experience?
Michael Lin: So the game itself is set in a different world from our previous games. And we just felt that the turn based combat system better represents how that can work out. Can't provide any spoilers to how the game will turn out, but that's how our producer felt. In reality, if you actually try the game out, you'll feel that it really adheres to what the game is trying to do.
You described the game as silkpunk earlier, can you talk about that a little bit more?
Michael Lin: Yes. So one of the worlds that you get to visit in the game is called the Xianzhou Luofo, which is a battleship or station for one of the alliances of the factions in the game called The Xianzhou Alliance. The whole environment of the game is based on Eastern fantasy, it's really hard for us to show it to you without the screen in front of us. But as soon as you play the game, you immediately see why that is. And we're using fantasy, we want to call it silkpunk, because it really adheres to the fantastic elements that really show in the game.
Fish Ling: I do want to add something, when you say why we tried turn-based this time. So our company history for our existing titles, we've had quite successful experiences on producing high-quality, original content, and also action games. So this time, it's like a very new challenge and also an exciting trial for us also to enter this new genre of turn based RPG. And because also, we think in the market, that the turn-based RPG is still a very engaging and also interesting game genre, and it does provide lower entry for newcomers to try the game.
Is there anything you can reveal about the turn-based mechanics specifically? How does that aspect work?
Michael Lin: So the game itself, we've tried to make it as intuitive as possible. And the way we approached that is, instead of giving players options out of their minds, so many options to choose from, we've diluted it down to basically two moves that will be available for each character. There will be one basic attack, and there'll be a skill that's available and different between each individual character, right? So there are basically two moves, and that's with the exception of the ultimate which is considered a separate thing.
So this provides easier accessibility to players who have not played a turn-based combat system before but would still like to have that strategic variance with engaging combat with an enemy. I can hit the enemy, take on a defensive move, you can choose to hit multiple enemies at the same time depending on how you want to make your next move. So that will be very different from an action RPG where everything happens in real time, you're having to constantly make them. A turn-based system provides the strategic elements in the game and are engaging and easily accessible to players.
You used the phrase "one of the planets," I'm curious if you could reveal anything about the overall size of the game?
Michael Lin: Yeah. So there will be three planets at launch, three areas that you can explore at launch. There will be the Herta Space Station, the Jarilo VI, and the Xianzhou Luofu. This will be a live service game. and free to play too, so we'll keep having updates available constantly, just to keep adding new stories and content, new minigames in the game to keep players engaged, there is no endgame in sight. So yeah, there'll be more content than you can possibly imagine.
Do you have a favorite part of the game that you're really excited to see players' reactions to?
Michael Lin: Yes. So we have engaging characters in the game, one of our fortes at the company is we build these characters that are very engaging and very relatable to players. My favorite character is called March 7th. March 7th. That's a character name. [Laughs] She is one of the earliest companions you would meet in the game. She's very relatable, she's very cute, as you can see from the pink hair. And as you can see from her name, she's full of mysteries. You will get to know why she's called March the 7th as you progress in the game.
But yeah, she's one of my favorite characters. And because we have so many characters, the game is actually filled with, you know - it's a character drama, you'll see a lot of different conversations happening between the characters, their mysteries. And that's how the game is engaging to our players, and you know, I like to hope that as I felt it, our players will as well.
Is there anything you can reveal more so about the general plot of the game?
Michael Lin: Yeah. So in the game itself, the game has something called the Aeons, the Aeons are godlike beings. And then, within the Aeon, there are evil Aeons, we call them the Destructions. The gods are not all, you know, good. They're not all good. There are bad gods who want to do destruction, and we call them just Destruction. So Destruction traverse the galaxy and spread what's called the Stellaron, that's basically seeds of ruins across the galaxy. With the seeds of ruins, there are monsters born, there are factions trying to fight each other, because they see ruins happening there with disruptions coming and all that.
And the main character, we call them protagonist, you can choose between a boy and a girl, they're injected with a Stellaron for one reason or another - you'll eventually find out. And the protagonist will traverse the galaxy with his own companion to figure it out, uncover the mystery behind the Stellaron, Destructions, Aeons. And yeah, the galaxy is huge, right? You're going to be traveling on what we call the Astral Express - so, therefore, Star Rail. So you'll travel multiple worlds and uncover the mystery behind that. That's the gist of the story.
Is there anything else that you want players to know about the game?
Michael Lin: Yeah, the game will be available on multiple platforms and be cross-platform. It'll be on iOS, PC and other mobile devices at launch and be cross-platform compatible and cross save. So one highlight that I always like to share is, you know, we're living in a world where the day runs differently for each person, we're sometimes in house and sometimes out of the house. And for us, I am a particular player who plays on multiple devices. So the experience that we can bring with Star Rail is someone can play a Honkai: Star Rail on the go in the metro or on a bus and whenever he or she gets home, they'll be able to hop onto the computer and continue the journey on computer, and that's something very unique to the game. And the game is built with fantastic graphics and s Metal, of course, Apple's powerful chip, and we can achieve that both on the go and on PC.
Source: Honkai: Star Rail/YouTube
Honkai: Star Rail is expected to release for iOS, Android, and PC in this spring.
