Honkai
Honkai is a video game franchise developed by miHoYo, published by miHoYo in mainland China and worldwide by Cognosphere. Initially led by Cai Haoyu, David Jiang took over as the series producer as of present.
The series originates with FlyMe2theMoon, a paid mobile game for iOS released in 2011, which was developed by the five-person "miHoYo studio" startup team. The first installment of the Honkai series was Zombiegal Kawaii released in 2012. The series has seen several more games since, with the most recent main entry being 2023's Honkai: Star Rail.
The Honkai series is set in a universe called the "Imaginary Tree" and follows the adventures of characters such as Kiana, Mei, and Bronya. 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.
Common elements
Plot and themes
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 civilisation. 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 civilisation in that region. 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 or kana spelling of the Japanese word 崩壊 due to proprietary naming considerations.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. 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. 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 the Honkai series. Besides Genshin Impact, Tears of Themis's universe is also hinted to be connected via Imaginary Tree.
Characters
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 Zombiegal Kawaii, formed the trio protagonists with Kiana and are the core characters of the Honkai series. The plot of Guns Girl Z continues the story of Zombiegal Kawaii, 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 Guns Girl Z by introducing the main characters of the previous game with new personalities and designs. Honkai: Star Rail also follows this tradition and features well-known characters from the Honkai series, such as Bronya, Himeko, and Welt Yang.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 referred to as "expy" . In an interview with Den Fami Nico Gamer, the writing team explains that the concept of "expy" is the most effective way to demonstrate connections within the series. Through this technique, fans can observe how a single character can explore different possibilities across parallel worlds while each work maintains its own independent identity. Genshin Impact, another game developed by miHoYo, also heavily borrows the character designs of the Honkai series, 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
Gameplay
Apart from many elements present in games that emphasize on elemental strengths and weaknesses, two unique elements are shared in the Honkai series, namely Imaginary and Quantum.Like most RPGs, the Honkai series use an experience level system for character advancement, in which experience points are accumulated by killing enemies. Certain materials can be used to speed up the character advancement. Level caps on certain levels for each character are placed, and players need to do ascension quests or submit materials to ascend further.
History
Origin
The Honkai series began with the release of FlyMe2theMoon, a 2D side-scrolling paid game. 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. On 28 September 2011, miHoYo released FlyMe2theMoon, a paid game priced at 18 Chinese yuan, on the App Store as an independent developer. 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. The game's title and theme are inspired by the anime Neon Genesis Evangelions ending song "Fly Me to the Moon." 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.Main series
Zombiegal Kawaii, also localised as Houkai Gakuen, is the first installment of the Honkai series. Although the miHoYo startup team received little financial success on FlyMe2theMoon, they eventually got an angel investment of 1 million yuan from Skye. To spend the investment funds, miHoYo began developing Zombiegal Kawaii in December 2011, releasing on the iOS platform in December 2012 as a paid single-player game. Influenced by the 2D side-scrolling shooter game Zombie Town and the Japanese anime 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. 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. Zombiegal Kawaii 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.Guns Girl Z, also localised as Houkai Gakuen 2, is the second installment of the Honkai series, inheriting data, code, and art design from Zombiegal Kawaii. Guns Girl Z was initiated in June 2013. Comparing with Zombiegal Kawaii, the biggest change was from a paid game to a free-to-play game with live service business model. The game's core gameplay is inspired by Puzzle & Dragons. Guns Girl Z adds new characters, weapons, and costumes that were not present in Zombiegal Kawaii. 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 Zombiegal Kawaii. The game released on 26 January 2014, becoming miHoYo's first successful commercial game. On 6 July, Cai Haoyu shared his experience in developing and promoting Guns Girl Z at the GameLook Open Day in Shanghai. The concept of the "Honkai Universe" was also proposed during this period.
Honkai Impact 3rd is an action role-playing game developed by miHoYo, based on the manga spin-off Honkai Impact 3rd. Honkai Impact 3rd was initiated in June 2014. 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. 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. It was first released for iOS in March 2016 and entered open beta in September of the same year. The game was released in October 2016.
Honkai Impact 3rd is 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. After being released in mainland China for several months, the game was launched in Japan on 22 February 2017, Taiwan on 18 May 2017, Southeast Asia on 1 November 2017, and North America and Europe on 28 March 2018. A PC version was released on 26 December 2019.