While sampling the vibes at this year’s GDC event, we spoke with Honkai Star Rail team members, and we had some specific questions to ask them. For instance, is there any reason why there are so many imaginary male characters in the game?
Turns out, no. To quote Honkai Star Rail’s Lead Game Designer, Chengnan An, “it was not intentional. It was [a] happy coincidence” that there are literally nine male characters with the imaginary element – that all happen to be five-stars, too. You can read our full interview here.
There are nine five-star imaginary characters, eight of which are male (if you chose the male Trailblazer, if not, then it’s seven). Six out of those seven are limited, with HSR Welt being available in the standard banner pool.
Six limited, five-star, male characters who all use the tall model and, interestingly, all have gold metal in their designs. While we love the likes of Honkai Star Rail’s Dr. Ratio and Honkai Star Rail’s Imbibitor Lunae, it feels like they could have been different elements. For instance, if The Herta and Herta are both ice, shouldn’t all the Dan Heng and Feng’s be wind?
According to An, the “path and attribute of a single character are interconnected with the combat mechanics”. This is interesting, given that Welt’s whole black-hole shtick in his ultimate has more to do with quantum physics than imagination. We also have Honkai Star Rail’s Mydei. What the heck, why isn’t he fire? Similar to Yunli and, more recently, Aglaea, Mydei uses a flame-like effect in his attacks, more so than imaginary-vibe animations.
We also ask why there are no male quantum-using characters in the game. While we didn’t get a solid answer, Hoyoverse assured us that the team will “take into account the players’ feedback on this” in the future. Five-star quantum-using Sampo, please!
There is a joke that, ha ha, the male characters are all imaginary as they barely exist in Hoyoverse games. Ha! Hilarious and true. Now we just need to wait and see whether Phainon gets to use imaginary elemental attacks, too.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go and use the Honkai Star Rail codes to pull Mydei and then use only five-star, limited, tall, imaginary-using men on both sides of the Memory of Chaos.