Summary
While players may be riding on the hype train forWuthering Waves, some fans also seem to be boardingHonkai: Star Rail’sAstral Express. According to game statistics site Activeplayer.io, the game gained over 547,143 users in the past month alone, adding to the millions of active players that log in for their dailies, pulls, and story missions. The game is consistently raking in new players, and it’s no surprise as there are many reasons to pick upHonkai: Star Railleading into its Version 2.4 release.
Gacha games have always had a niche market, but they exploded in popularity whenGenshin Impactcame out in 2020. Its developer, MiHoYo, banked on its success and released its latest titleHonkai: Star Raila little over two years later. It features the same anime art style and epic overarching storyline as its predecessorsGenshinandHonkai Impact 3rd, but withturn-based gameplay. It’s well-received by fans, gaining over 100 million downloads since launch, according to MiHoYo.
Honkai: Star Rail is in its Best State Yet for F2P and New Players
Gacha players often need to spend in-game currency, and sometimes real money, to get the best characters.Honkai: Star Railis no exception to this notion, but it does make getting and building its best units significantly easier for free-to-play and new players to acquire.
Honkai: Star Rail has an Abundance of In-Game Rewards
One of the best qualities of this game is that it gives Stellar Jades, its premium in-game currency, for free by just playing the game.
One of the Best Units Honkai: Star Rail is Free
During the first few patches,Honkai Star: Rail’s player character, the Trailblazer, was seen as one of the weakest units in the game. Players readily accepted this unfortunate fact, as protagonist characters are often used as mere springboards to learn a game’s mechanics in most gacha titles. However, theHSRseems to have other plans for its main character. The Trailblazer recently got its Imaginary Harmony form, which is now considered essential for theHonkai: Star Rail’s break-focused meta.
Honkai: Star Rail’s central combat mechanic is called Weakness Breaking and it works by using the right elemental attack to whittle down an enemy’s toughness bar. When players completely deplete the opponent’s toughness, the enemy receives massive damage and gets into a Weakness Break state, which inflicts damage over time and delays their turn.
New characters like Firefly, Boothill, and Gallagher, as well as the current rerun banner Ruan Mei, focus on shredding toughness bars.Harmony Trailblazercomplements these units perfectly because they’re currently the only unit that can apply the Super Break buff, which lets characters deal additional damage (based on break effect and character level) when attacking broken enemies. This has led to various clips of players using Firefly, Harmony Trailblazer, Gallagher, and Ruan Mei to obliterate bosses in a single cycle across YouTube and Reddit.
What’s great about this composition is that it’s accessible to F2P players compared to other high-level builds. Harmony Trailblazer is free and players can get Gallagher through theOrigami Bird clash’s limited character selector reward. The plethora of rewards these past few patches makes it easier to pull Firefly or Ruan Mei without spending a dime.Honkai: Star Railis in its best state yet in terms of rewards and metagame, so those looking for a new RPG or gacha game to sink their time into should give it a try.
