Those of you who play live service gacha games like Genshin Impact and Wuthering Waves will know the “point zero” updates are among the most important in each title’s lifecycle.
Turn-based RPG Honkai: Star Rail, now well-established for a few years, will reach v4.0 on 13th February, taking the Astral Express to an all-new location: the otaku coded Planarcadia.
Inspired by anime, streaming culture, video games, and comic books, the Trailblazer finds themselves something of a celebrity in this new world, as the entire Astral Express crew is part of a hit manga.
While there are connections to the title’s wider sci-fi storyline – this is the home planet of the Elation’s deity Aha – the more centralised plot will focus on the Phantasmoon Games, a gauntlet attracting all kinds of factions to Planarcadia where the grand prize is the ability to experience life as a god for one full minute.
For those not up to speed on the lore, though, you can look forward to a more light-hearted story compared to the occasionally glib – and often completely overwritten – Amphoreus.
The gameplay looks like fantastic fun, too: exploration will at times transition from traditional 3D navigation to a 2D side-scroller, with the development team referencing inspirations such as Mega Man, Super Mario, and Sonic the Hedgehog. You’ll unlock upgrades to your platforming arsenal as you progress.
There’ll also be new combat mechanics, which will see characters on the newly added path of Elation’s skills buffed.
And of course, Elation units will headline this update: new characters Yao Guang and Sparxie will feature in both banners in this cycle. The latter is a livestreamer who incorporates aspects of the medium into her kit.
The mysterious nature of Sparxie is yet to be revealed, but she will pair well with the previously released character Sparkle, who’ll get a buff in this update along with Black Swan.
Meanwhile, there’ll be a new trading card minigame and an event where you’ll need to work as a magazine editor, concocting clickbait in order to improve your publication’s readership. The latter really appeals to us.
The popular endgame mode Currency Wars will also be getting an expansion pack with new combat mechanics, characters, and content. And there’ll be various other quality-of-life improvements, including to the user interface.
And in terms of all-important rewards, you’ll get around 30 free pulls through various simple login activities, as well as a new outfit for Ruan Mei and a complimentary 5-Star character – not bad!
But it’s the new planet that’s really the star of the show, and we really enjoy the theme. Obviously, we’ll be spending a full year or so on Planarcadia – the storyline will unfold over the coming months, through various updates – and there’s a lot of potential for fun minigames, events, and character designs.
We’re already in love with some of the new artwork and enemy designs we’ve seen, like a new relic set which resembles a set of mangas and a foe that’s a literal livestream.
We’ll likely re-review Honkai: Star Rail based on the latest version of the game later this month, so look out for our thoughts on that in the coming weeks.