A New Story Begins: What You Need To Know About Honkai Impact 3rd Part 2
A fresh start for newcomers and veterans of Honkai, the mission to save Mars begins on February 29th!
Honkai Impact 3rd is a free-to-play 3D action game by miHoYo, the developers of titles like Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. Honkai 3rd (also called HI3) features an anime-inspired artstyle and is influenced by the combat of games like Devil May Cry and Bayonetta. This long running multimedia franchise follows the engaging and much-loved story of the Valkyries, heroes who fight to save the Earth from a mysterious force called Honkai.
A new installment to the story is on its way, and designed to bring new players in; read on for all you need to be prepared for the new release at the end of February 2024!
Turning a long running game into a fresh new start
In early 2023, Honkai Impact 3rd's story reached its first ending and climax with the end of Part 1 and continued the journey of its well-loved cast through the rest of the year. miHoYo's announcement that Honkai Impact 3rd would continue forward with a new story brought a lot of attention and excitement from the player base, followed by the announcement in September 2023 that Honkai Impact Part 2 would start fresh with a new cast and setting.
While this news was met initially with some worry and skepticism immediately following the announcement, since then we've learned quite a lot about what to expect as the story moves to the bubble universes surrounding Mars. We've since learned of the connections that exist between the new cast and our previous cast, the nature of how the gameplay is adding on new mechanics and accessibility options for the future, and in what ways things are both changing and staying the same.
For new players, Honkai Impact 3rd Part 2 is designed as an entry point for first-timers to ease themselves into the modern quality of storytelling without having the expectation of knowing the entirety of Part 1's plot. While the previous Honkai Impact 3rd story required reading manga, visual novels and other external media to understand the story, the new story of Honkai 3rd is designed to all be self contained within the game itself.
As the second part of the greater Honkai Impact 3rd story, we can expect the plot to eventually turn its way back to the characters and settings veterans are familiar with, and hopefully re-introduce fan favorite characters in a context that's friendly to newcomers.
What To Know About The Story Ahead
Part 2's story will follow the journey of a brand new main cast of characters, bridging the worlds of Earth and Mars in the Honkaiverse.
Many eons ago, a dangerous otherworldly force known as Honkai arrived on the planet Mars, bringing the calamity of Finality upon its world. A human civilization once existed on the red planet, coming to a standstill in its war against Honkai. While Honkai turned the surface of the planet into the desolation we see it as today, remnants of the people of Mars escaped into the mysterious realm known as The Sea of Data, where they lived on in small "bubble universes." The scattered bubble universes of Mars stay connected to each other through the ancient "Anchors of the Apocalypse," which serves as the symbol and key to their survival.
Our story starts in the year 2024, and follows the Dreamseeker, an engineering student from the cyberpunk-inspired metropolis of Oxia City, as they embark on a journey to explore the Sea of Data through the Anchor of the Apocalypse. Along the way, they will encounter new companions and friends, and uncover the ancient secrets of the Honkai war and the enigmatic Goddess who has long watched over the planet. Their adventures will lead them on a mission to save the Martian bubble universes from falling into the corrupting power of the Sea of Data, eventually leading to the meeting of the people of Earth and Mars.
New and Returning Characters
Part 2's new main cast brings together characters from Earth, Mars and beyond, in this new adventure that spans across the solar system.
Dreamseeker
The player-controlled protagonist, a student of the Data Research Institute in Oxia City. The Dreamseeker starts by default as the left design shown above (1P), but can be changed to the right appearance (2P) by looking at the mirror in their apartment after completing a few quests. The Dreamseeker is their own character, has voicelines, and is NOT a silent protagonist.
Senadina - S-Rank [Deepspace Anchor: First Light]
A red-haired girl, and one of the first friends Dreamseeker makes on their journey, Senadina is a bubbly girl who will be your inseparable companion. She fights with a yo-yo, and her appearance resembles the mysterious goddess who watches over Mars.
Erdős Helia - A-Rank [Valkyrie Boltstorm]
A hard-working fighting valkyrie of Shicksal, and an astronaut from Earth assigned as one of the two members of the Earth-Mars expedition. She is a huge fan of the valkyrie hero Durandal, and trained under her before the mission to Mars. She fights with a set of powered crossbows. She's roughly in her mid 20s.
Coralie 6626 Planck - A-Rank [Valkyrie Blastmetal]
A scientist from Anti-Entropy, and the adopted daughter of the famous scientist Lieserl Einstein. Just like Einstein, she received her doctoral degree at 17. She was mutated by exposure to Honkai energy and has dog ears and a tail. As the second member of the Mars exploration team, she's trained in combat and uses a rocket-propelled hammer. She's also about the same age as Helia, in her mid 20s.
Songque
A girl dressed in trendy clothing who specializes in dreams and divination. Songque is a non-combatant character who will become a guide for the new cast in the world of Langqiu. She has some secret affiliations that will bring her at odds with our protagonists.
Vita
The proxy of Sa, the last survivor of Venus. She had her story introduced during Part 1.5, Dance of Life & Death. The developers have said that Vita will reappear on Mars with new companions.
New Gameplay Coming in Part 2
Part 2 is in some ways like a new game layered on top of what we already have in Honkai Impact 3rd. A special button in the menu allows you to swap between Part 1 and Part 2, easily letting you access old content and new content within the same client. Part 2's story will take place in larger worlds to explore, with instanced maps similar to previous open worlds in Honkai 3rd such as A Post-Honkai Odyssey, and the map design in miHoYo’s RPG, Honkai: Star Rail.
Oxia City will serve as the hub world for all your activities in Part 2, hosting a variety of interactable locations, shops and new special gameplay modes.
For newcomers to Honkai Impact 3rd, main gameplay consists of action combat featuring teams of 3 characters, and one support character called an AstralOp. Master combat through a variety of attack combos, skills and ultimate abilities, and switch to other characters using QTE skills to attack and use abilities, making even swapping fun and dynamic. Part 2 introduces jumping and vertical combat as a new element, allowing battles to take on even more action and variation to encounters.
Part 2 is now adding mouse and keyboard controls, a long awaited player feature that allows you to use the mouse to move the camera and click to attack. This brings Honkai 3rd’s control schemes more in line with the newer HoYoverse games.
For longtime veterans of Honkai Impact, regular game modes such as Superstring Dimension Abyss, Memorial Arena, and the Elysian Realm will continue forward, supporting both old Part 1 characters and the new Part 2 characters. Mix and match your favorite characters across the entire Honkai 3rd saga, and even more new gameplay modes are promised in future updates to the game.
Good Changes to Gacha for Characters and Equipment
Part 2 will include new changes to the gacha system for Honkai Impact 3rd. Character Supply pulls will now have their hard pity reduced from 100 to 90. Your current pity in character banners will be reduced by ten.
Focused (Equipment) Supply now has a 60 pull weapon guarantee, and will no longer have off-rate stigmata. This means that you are more likely to pull gear for your characters earlier and faster. Starting from the version 7.3 update, stigmata will now also be free to craft in the Foundry, and at least one stigmata will be given out for free every update.
Weapons now will use duplicates to further upgrade to higher ranks. This change makes duplicates have a sought after use, while still having a lower hard pity rate than full gearing in previous updates. Weapons will also now require special materials received in limited quantities per update to fully upgrade, but miHoYo has announced that just playing through an update should give you enough material to fully upgrade each weapon as they release.
A new shop will be added that will give back currency for pulling in Supply. More details will be added as these shops will be revealed.
The character Coralie will have her character card and equipment given out completely for free in version 7.3. Login, play through events and story to unlock these bonuses! The release period of Part 2 in version 7.3 will also coincide with the Anniversary season, adding on even more bonuses and rewards, making the launch period in February-April a great time to play Honkai Impact 3rd.
The next generation of Honkai begins
During a Honkai 3rd fan celebration hosted by miHoYo in China, CEO Da Wei took the stage to tearfully thank the fans for all the support given to Honkai Impact 3rd over the years, stating that Honkai had many more years ahead, and triumphantly proclaiming that Honkai 3rd was “invincible”.
miHoYo owes a lot of their early success to the faith and following of the Honkai community, and as such has put great effort into modernizing its 2016 release to feel current and competitive in today’s modern gacha landscape. We hope to see this community grow as a result, and that many more new players can enjoy the journey of Kiana, her friends, and all the new characters introduced in Part 2 onwards.
See you on Mars!
MartyPCSR is an artist and Honkai Impact 3rd Content Creator, and one of the admins of Hyperion Team. You can follow his social media at https://twitter.com/MartyPCSR.