Honkai

Honkai (traditional Chinese: 崩壞; simplified Chinese: 崩坏; pinyin: Bēnghuài; Japanese: 崩壊; rōmaji: Hōkai; "Collapse / Deteriorate") is a video game franchise developed by miHoYo, published by miHoYo in mainland China and worldwide by Cognosphere, d/b/a HoYoverse. While the foremost entry in the series, FlyMe2theMoon, was a paid mobile game for iOS released in 2011,^[2] and was developed by the five-person "miHoYo studio" startup team;^[a] the first installment of Honkai series was Houkai Gakuen released in 2012. The series has seen several more games since, with the most recent main entry being 2023's Honkai: Star Rail.^[6]

Honkai
Genre(s)	Role-playing
Developer(s)	miHoYo
Publisher(s)	CHN: miHoYo WW: HoYoverse
Creator(s)	David Jiang Cai Haoyu Zhang Qinghua
Writer(s)	Shaoji^[1]
Composer(s)	HOYO-MiX
Platform(s)	iOS Android PC PlayStation 4 PlayStation 5
First release	FlyMe2theMoon September 28, 2011
Latest release	Honkai: Star Rail April 26, 2023

The Honkai series is set in an Universe called the “Imaginary Tree” and follows the adventures of characters such as Kiana, Mei, and Bronya.^[7][2] While the series features recurring characters such as Kiana, each installment has different backgrounds and character settings and can be considered as stories that take place in different Worlds in the same Universe without absolute connectivity. The series primarily revolves around the theme of "rebellion against the end and saving the world" and features "Honkai" disasters as the core setting.^[2][7]

Starting from 2017, David Jiang served as the producer of the Honkai series.^[8][9][10]

Games

Release timeline

2011	FlyMe2theMoon
2012	Houkai Gakuen
2013
2014	Houkai Gakuen 2
2015
2016	Honkai Impact 3rd
2017–2022
2023	Honkai: Star Rail

Main series

• Houkai Gakuen, also localized as Zombiegal Kawaii, is the first installment of the Honkai series, and the first ever game title developed by miHoYo as a company. It was released on the iOS platform in 2012 as a paid single-player game. The game's design was inspired by the 2D side-scrolling shooter game Zombie Town and the Japanese anime series Highschool of the Dead. The project began in December 2011 and underwent four to five iterations within three months. The game was developed using the Unity engine and Maya graphic software, and the values were fine-tuned and the systems improved for eight months. The game was released in version 1.0 in November 2012 and entered public testing in December of that year.^[11] Houkai Gakuen is an action game set in a school campus in the near future. The protagonist, Kiana, fights against zombies using various weapons in the besieged campus.^[2] This is the first game with the "Honkai" trademark.
• Houkai Gakuen 2, also localized as Guns GirlZ, is the second installment of the Honkai series, inheriting data, code, and art design from Houkai Gakuen.^[12] Comparing with Houkai Gakuen, the biggest change was from a paid game to a free-to-play game with gacha system. It was released in mainland China in 2013. The game's core gameplay is inspired by Puzzle & Dragons. Houkai Gakuen 2 adds new characters, weapons, and costumes that were not present in the Houkai Gakuen. The game began testing on January 26, 2014, and was launched on the bilibili platform in March, becoming miHoYo's first successful commercial game.
• Honkai Impact 3rd is an action role-playing game developed by miHoYo, based on the manga spin-off Honkai Impact 3rd.^[2] It was first released for iOS in March 2016^[7] and entered open beta in September of the same year.^[13] The game was released in October 2016.^[14][12] Honkai Impact 3rd is an action game set in a post-apocalyptic world, where players can take on the role of various Valkyries and fight against enemies using a variety of weapons and skills. The game features characters from the previous game, including Kiana Kaslana, Raiden Mei, and Bronya Zaychik. In addition to the game itself, Honkai Impact 3rd also has an anime series, visual novels, manga, and live-action promotional materials. It has gained a following worldwide since its release.^[15] After being released in mainland China for several months, the game was launched in Japan in February 2017, Taiwan in May 2017, Southeast Asia in November 2017, and North America and Europe in March 2018. A PC version was released on December 26, 2019.^[16] A massive expansion of the game, titled Honkai Impact 3rd - Part 2 was released on February 29, 2024. Built upon the existing game, the update marks the start of the second major story arc of the game, with new characters, reworked UI, an updated engine, and a shift from a mission-based structure to a limited open-world structure similar to Honkai: Star Rail.
• Honkai: Star Rail is a turn-based role-playing game set in a galaxy of the Honkai universe. Players play as the Trailblazer, a mysterious amnesiac possessing within them a Stellaron, a world-ending catalyst given by the Aeon Nanook. To find their purpose, the Trailblazer joins the crew of the "Astral Express" to follow the path of the deceased Aeon Akivili, and to help and connect the worlds raptured by the Stellaron incidents by Nanook, while encountering various friendly ans opposing factions, including the Stellaron Hunters, who has an interest in the Trailblazer's journey. It is the fourth installment in the Honkai series. Honkai: Star Rail was globally launched on April 26, 2023.^[7]

Other games

• FlyMe2theMoon is the first-ever game in the Honkai series, developed and released as an independent game by "miHoYo Studio" before the establishment of miHoYo company.^[3][17] The game was initially released on the iOS platform on September 28, 2011, as a paid game priced at 18 Chinese yuan.^[18] FlyMe2theMoon is a 2D side-scrolling game with 60 levels across four game modes, including exploration, puzzle solving, racing, and survival. The game's story follows Kiana Kaslana, a genius witch, as she travels to the Lunar Ruins to uncover the truth about her past after completing the Mage's brutal trials.^[2] The game's title and theme are inspired by the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion's ending song "Fly Me to the Moon."^[4][5] FlyMe2theMoon was developed using the Cocos2d software and the Box2D physics engine. The game's main theme song, Moon Trip, was composed by Yu Jianliu, with lyrics by Lemonjolly and performed by the VOCALOID software Hatsune Miku.^[19][20] Although the game's title does not include the words "Honkai," both the main character Kiana and the theme of "flying to the moon" are core elements of the Honkai series, making FlyMe2theMoon the starting point of the series.
• Genshin Impact is often considered a spin-off of Honkai series, with similar character design^[21][22] and was confirmed to be set in the same multiverse^[23] as the Honkai series.

Common elements

Character design

Kiana Kaslana, who first appeared in FlyMe2theMoon, is the first and foremost character designed by miHoYo and the protagonist of multiple works in the Honkai series. Mei and Bronya, who first appeared in Houkai Gakuen, formed the trio protagonists with Kiana and are the core characters of the Honkai series.^[2] The plot of Houkai Gakuen 2 continues the story of the original Houkai Gakuen,^[24][25] and after the conclusion of the "Retrace" arc, the new chapters "Inheritance" and "Rebirth" begin to use a parallel world setting to tell new stories with existing characters. Honkai Impact 3rd continues the approach of Houkai Gakuen 2 by introducing the main characters of the previous game with new personalities and designs.^[26][27] Honkai: Star Rail also follows this tradition and features well-known characters from the Honkai series, such as Bronya, Himeko, and Welt Yang.^[28][29][30]

While every game in the Honkai series is considered a "spiritual sequel" of its predecessor, many share similar characters within the series. The practice of miHoYo adopting the character designs but endowing them with entirely new personalities and character settings is often mistakenly referred to as "expy."^[31][32] However, the term's definition, which implies a resemblance with no in-lore connection^[33][34] does not match the nature of these variant characters, which share a more explicit connection within the franchise.^[35][36] This has led to some confusion and disputes among players, causing its usage to be denounced by the same people who introduced it to the community.^[37][38] Genshin Impact, another game developed by miHoYo, also heavily borrows the character designs of the Honkai series,^[21] and is thus considered by fans to be a spin-off of the Honkai series. This was confirmed by CEO Cai Haoyu in 2021, who named the Honkai Universe as one of the primary reasons for Genshin Impact's development.^[39] Some character names in Genshin Impact are similar to those in the Honkai series but not exactly the same,^[40] and the Chinese and Japanese voice actors are the same as in the Honkai series. For example, the appearance of Raiden Shogun in Genshin Impact is similar to that of Raiden Mei in the Honkai series, though their personalities differ significantly. Both the Chinese and Japanese voice actors for the two characters are the same: Juhuahua for Chinese and Miyuki Sawashiro for Japanese.^[41][42][22] During a live stream before Genshin Impact's release, developers Liu Wei and Aquarius encouraged players to seek out the characters that bear resemblance to their predecessors.^[43] Liu Wei repeated this sentiment during a 2020 App Store interview.^[44]

Setting and theme

The "Honkai," a term coined within the Honkai series, is the core concept and foundation of the Honkai universe. It is an interdimensional alien force with a certain level of intelligence and various emanations whose goal is to assimilate developed civilizations through any means. The Honkai can be spread as energy, through beasts and humans, causing them various symptoms, and can also trigger viruses, natural disasters, world wars, or any other form of damage to civilization. The highest manifestation of the Honkai is a "Herrscher," which are emanations of the Honkai with powerful specialized abilities and will. Whenever civilization arises, the Honkai will appear, and the strength of the Honkai is always proportional to the degree of human civilization in that region.^[45] Worlds devoured by the Honkai will fall from the Imaginary Tree and enter the Sea of Quanta, becoming "bubble universes" that gradually disappear. The English term "Honkai" is a coined word that specifically refers to the "Honkai" disaster, which intentionally avoids using Hepburn (Hōkai) or kana spelling (Houkai) of the Japanese word 崩壊 due to proprietary naming considerations.^[7]

In order to connect multiple Honkai games to build one "Honkai Universe," the "Imaginary Tree" and "Sea of Quanta" are brought up by Honkai Impact 3rd as the multiple universe settings in the Honkai series.^[46] The maximum scale of the Honkai universe is the Sea of Quanta, in which the Imaginary Tree is located and multiple worlds are born. The worlds on the Imaginary Tree are stable and follow the rules of history and time, developing in chronological order, with a linear structure of history. On the other hand, the Sea of Quanta can form "bubble universes" during natural fluctuations, which are unstable and lack complete history, only having fragments of time periods in specific regions.^[47] In this multiverse, the Imaginary Tree and the Sea of Quanta have a long-standing rivalry. The Imaginary Tree seeks to absorb the Sea, while the Sea seeks to drown the Tree. To facilitate this cycle, worlds are like leaves growing on the Tree, and when they fail to persist, they fall from the Tree into the Sea and become fragmented versions of themselves, known as bubble universes, some of which have more stability than others. This multiple universe setting is followed in all the Honkai series games. Genshin Impact is also often considered as one of the parallel worlds on the Imaginary Tree and shares the same universe as Honkai series.^[23][48][49] Besides Genshin Impact, Tears of Themis's universe is also hinted to be connected via Imaginary Tree.

Development

The Honkai series began with the release of FlyMe2theMoon, a 2D side-scrolling paid game. On September 28, 2011, miHoYo released FlyMe2theMoon on the App Store as an independent developer.^[18] Although the game received little financial success, the startup team of miHoYo eventually got an angel investment of 1 million yuan from Skye.^[5] To spend the investment funds,^[11] miHoYo began developing Houkai Gakuen in December 2011, releasing version 1.0 in November 2012 and entering public testing in December.^[50] Influenced by Zombie Town and Highschool of the Dead, the game is set in a world undergoing a zombie invasion, known as "Houkai," which later became the name of the series. The game's protagonist, Kiana Kaslana, was directly borrowed from FlyMe2theMoon, and she eventually became one of the core character of the Honkai series.

Houkai Gakuen 2 was initiated in June 2013. Like Houkai Gakuen, it is a 2D side-scrolling shooting game but with live service business model. miHoYo started designing the server architecture in August and began the art design and system development in November. The development was faster than the original due to inheriting a large amount of data, code, and art assets from Houkai Gakuen.^[12][11] After its release on January 26, 2014, Honkai Impact 3rd was initiated in June of the same year.^[12] On July 6, Cai Haoyu shared his experience in developing and promoting Houkai Gakuen 2 at the GameLook Open Day in Shanghai.^[51] The concept of the "Honkai Universe" was also proposed during this period.^[52] Starting in March 2015, miHoYo began developing the 3D game engine for Honkai Impact 3rd. They developed a physics-based animation system that could simulate different materials using physical calculations, presenting more realistic character movements and destructive scene effects. It can also correct abrupt transitions between animations, making the animations smoother and more natural. In addition, miHoYo developed its technologies for 3D modeling, light mapping, and real-time and pre-rendering systems. Content production for the game began in October of the same year.^[12] During the development process, since no member on the team knew how to do 3D projects, transitioning from 2D to 3D was a challenge. Creating the artwork, model, and animation of Kiana Kaslana took six months. After a test run, the team discarded the work and restarted from scratch to establish the current system.^[4] Initially led by Cai Haoyu, David Jiang took over as the series producer from 2017.^[8][9][10] In November 2018, Honkai 4th: Galaxy was initiated,^[53] but there has been no further movement beyond trademark registration.^[54] Honkai: Star Rail was initiated in 2019, with the initial plan being a lighter live service game, intending to run for at least six years after launch.^[55][56] Since the setting of the previous game Honkai Impact 3rd was Earth, and other planets were mentioned in the storyline, the production team decided to set Honkai: Star Rail in the "universe." Additionally, due to player feedback about the high difficulty of Honkai Impact 3rd, the team decided to focus more on strategy for Honkai: Star Rail, lowering the difficulty and barrier to entry, creating a "playable anime."^[55]

Related media

Animation

Cooking with Valkyries (Chinese: 女武神的餐桌; pinyin: Nǚ Wǔshén de Cānzhuō), a non-canon slice of life cooking television animated series of Honkai Impact 3rd featuring 19 short episodes, was released from July to September 2020. The bilibili releases are available in Mandarin Chinese, while the Japanese broadcast versions are in Japanese.^[57][58]

ELF Academy (Chinese: 人偶学园; pinyin: Rén'ǒu Xuéyuán), another non-canon anime of Honkai Impact 3rd with 10 episodes, was released from July to September 2021, and also contains Mandarin Chinese and Japanese voice acting. This series is about ELFs (Equipment: Living Form), which are autonomous weapons created to replace living soldiers, going to school and interacting with each other.^[59][60]

Notes

1. The "miHoYo studio" startup team consisted of Cai Haoyu, Liu Wei, Luo Yuhao, Jin Zhicheng, and Zhang Qinghua.^[3][4][5] Jin Zhicheng left "miHoYo studio" afterward, before the founding of miHoYo as a company.

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External links

• Official Website of Honkai Impact 3rd
• Official Website of Honkai: Star Rail