Last month, the Chinese developer HoYoverse filed a few new trademarks for an upcoming entry in the Honkai series, titled Honkai: Nexus Anima. Although these trademarks didn't provide any explicit details about what type of project this was, all signs pointed toward it being a game of some sort. At around the same time this news came to light, gamers discovered that HoYoverse had registered a website and a set of Twitter accounts using the Honkai: Nexus Anima name. This, according to some fans, suggested that Honkai: Nexus Anima was a direct successor to the 2023 gacha game, Honkai: Star Rail.
A few days after these discoveries were made, HoYoverse announced during a Honkai: Star Rail concert in Shanghai that it was making a "brand-new Honkai game." The studio didn't officially confirm what the name of this game was, but it did reveal a 20-second trailer of the title, which showed characters from the Honkai universe fighting against each other using Pokemon-like creatures. The title in question, which is presumably Honkai: Nexus Anima, seems to be a monster-collecting spin-off of the Honkai franchise, similar in concept to Pokemon or Yo-Kai Watch. While it's great that a game like this is being made, it's unfortunate that HoYoverse isn't giving its other IPs, like Genshin Impact, the same amount of love as Honkai.
Honkai: Star Rail Leaks Major Buffs to Jingliu, Blade, Silver Wolf, and Kafka
A new Honkai: Star Rail leak reveals buffs for four characters - Jingliu, Blade, Silver Wolf, and Kafka - in the next 3.4 update.
HoYoverse Should Make More Genshin Impact Spin-Offs, Just As It Does for Honkai
HoYoverse Has Been Making New Honkai Games Since Its Inception
The Honkai franchise has been around for as long as HoYoverse has existed, and it's played a vital role in the company's rise to fame. So far, almost all the games that HoYoverse has made are set in the Honkai universe. Each installment in the series, however, is radically different from each other, and they all have confusingly distinct names. The first Honkai game (and the first game from HoYoverse in general) was a 2D iOS-exclusive platformer called FlyMe2TheMoon. This game, interestingly enough, was a traditional single-player-only title with zero gacha elements or microtransactions.
HoYoverse followed up FlyMe2TheMoon with a game called Houkai Gakuen, also known as Zombiegal Kawaii in some regions. Houkai Gakuen was a paid single-player action game that oddly featured zombies, even though they had never been present in the previous Honkai title. The game's direct sequel, Houkai Gakuen 2 (a.k.a. Guns GirlZ), had a relatively similar, zombie-slaying theme. It, however, was the first HoYoverse game to adopt a live service business model, one which would later be used in titles like Genshin Impact.
Since the release of Houkai Gakuen 2 in 2014, HoYoverse has launched two other installments in the Honkai franchise: Honkai Impact 3rd and the aforementioned Honkai: Star Rail. Although the differences between these two games are not as drastic as the ones between FlyMe2TheMoon and Houkai Gakuen, they both offer fairly distinct experiences. Honkai Impact 3rd is a sci-fi action RPG with bullet hell and dungeon-crawling elements, while Honkai: Star Rail is a Persona-esque turn-based RPG. These two games have been far more successful worldwide than any of the previous Honkai titles. However, neither of them has been able to match Genshin Impact in terms of popularity.
Even Though Genshin Impact is a Massive Hit, It Hasn't Received Any Spin-Offs Yet
Genshin Impact was originally conceived as the fourth mainline entry in the Honkai series, but it eventually evolved into an independent project during its development. This free-to-play action RPG set the world on fire when it was released in late 2020, and it generated over $3.8 billion in revenue in just two years. Even though Genshin Impact is, by far, HoYoverse's most successful video game to date, the company hasn't really made any spin-offs for it. There are a lot of ways that HoYoverse can expand the Genshin Impact IP to other genres, but until the company starts treating it the same way it does the Honkai series, it seems unlikely that this will happen.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 83 /100 Critics Rec: 90%
- Released
- April 26, 2023
- ESRB
- Teen / Fantasy Violence, Mild Suggestive Themes, Simulated Gambling, In-Game Purchases (Includes Random Items), Users Interact
- Developer(s)
- HoYoverse (Formerly miHoYo)
- Publisher(s)
- HoYoverse (Formerly miHoYo)
WHERE TO PLAY
- Engine
- Unity
- Genre(s)
- RPG, Turn-Based RPG
