Honkai Star Rail

About

Honkai: Star Rail is an action game developed by Hoyoverse, the company behind the highly popular Genshin Impact and Honkai Impact 3rd, but with a space stylization. The game features some returning characters from Honkai Impact, though with slight differences to them, as well as newer characters to freshen the cast. Following the game's release date on April 26th, 2023, memes, fan art and discourse about it became prevalent online across multiple sites and social media platforms.

History

On October 7th, 2021, the official Honkai: Star Rail YouTube^[1] channel uploaded the reveal trailer for the game, showcasing the space aesthetic, as well as the main town that players engage with. This trailer was viewed over 1.5 million times within the two years it took for the game to release (shown below).

On April 26th, 2023, Honkai: Star Rail was officially released. The release trailer was uploaded to the game's official YouTube^[2] on April 25th, receiving over 2.9 million views in two days (seen below). This trailer, meant to showcase several of the characters that are playable upon release, as well as future content, revealed that the game was available that day on Android and PC, with the Playstation 5 release being slated for later in May (shown below).

Online Presence

Since the reveal trailer and official release on April 26th, 2023, the game has enjoyed a consistent increase in prominence from the "Hoyoverse" community online around the web.

Leading up to the game's release, TikTokers were notably uploading TikToks of beta content, as well as talking about their favorite characters. One fan-favorite character, Kafka, received a significant amount of fan attention in April 2023, best shown in the TikTok uploaded on April 25th, 2023, by TikToker alxfredo,^[3] which showcases some of her animations, earning over 135,000 likes in one day (shown below).

Various Reactions

Search Interest

External References