Honkai’s Next Game Already Has a Big Hurdle It Needs to Overcome

HoYoVerse is once again aiming to release another game to its growing catalog, and the Honkai franchise is going to grow even bigger due to it. The series has consisted of multiple games since 2011, but players are most likely familiar with the latest installment, Honkai: Star Rail. As a result, HoYoVerse saw it fit to release a small teaser for the next Honkai game at Star Rail LIVE 2025, a concert event celebrating the game’s 2nd anniversary. This brief video showcased two different franchise characters alongside dog-like creatures before sending the critters into battle, confirming the rumors circulating that HoYoVerse was working on a Pokemon-like game in real-time.

The idea of a game where players can explore a world and go through turn-based battles like those in Honkai: Star Rail with a bit of a Pokemon-like twist is great. There are a lot of problems with it when analyzed deeper, though, especially in regard to the structure of HoYoVerse games. There’s not a lot of information available on this new game yet, but that gives a window for this new RPG to break pre-release expectations. As of right now, the best place for this new Honkai game to surprise players is for it to be mindful of what might happen when power creep mixes with gacha and cute collectible critters.

The New Honkai Game Should Be Careful With How Its Critters Work

A Common Issue of HoYoVerse Games Might Backfire With Honkai’s Next Venture

Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, and Zenless Zone Zero have become common names among gamers thanks to their fantastic character designs and expansive worlds. There are a lot of positives to HoYoVerse’s games, but players tend to weigh one aspect of them more than others before deciding to jump in, and that’s if they’re willing to put up with HoYoVerse’s use of gacha mechanics. These mechanics require players to save up (or purchase) in-game currency to try to obtain a special character given away in a limited-time banner event.

Regular HoYoVerse fans make it a point to collect as many characters as they can, so these mechanics sound like they might work well with Pokemon-like creatures at first glance. Unfortunately, it isn’t as simple as it seems. Things get messy when the elemental type mechanics both HoYoVerse and Pokemon are known for mix with the power creep most gacha games fall into, including HoYoVerse’s own titles. Power creep in frequently updated titles deals with newer characters gradually becoming stronger than older ones to deal with higher difficulty challenges in the same updates.

If type weaknesses, well-designed collectible creatures, and power creep are blended together without any care towards the consequences, this new Honkai game may end up being one of the most controversial in HoYoVerse’s lineup. While the Pokemon franchise is no stranger to metagame dynamics, almost every entry in the series makes sure its pocket monsters are all reasonably balanced between each other while being somewhat accessible.

HoYoVerse, on the other hand, specializes in live-service games that will always feature some sort of power creep and exclusivity to its gacha mechanics by design. HoYoVerse does balance its games in its own way to prevent players from being unable to progress without the most recent character, but the featured banner character typically makes newer content easier. Making a powerful and popular creature like Charizard limited to a banner that only rotates it back every four patches or so could lead to a ton of players being unhappy about not obtaining or being around to roll for specific critters in a way other games before it haven’t managed.

So far, the only news on this new Honkai title is the fact that it’s currently being developed, and might be released under the name Honkai: Nexus Anima, which HoYoVerse has already trademarked. HoYoVerse is likely doing all it can to make sure this new game is user-friendly while also promoting currency sales. There are ways around the more troubling parts that could mean that Nexus Anima is like Pokemon in unexpected ways. If the teaser trailer is anything to go by, Nexus Anima might function in a way similar to Pokemon Masters EX where pairs of creatures and different Honkai characters are what players are trying to collect. If that’s the case, then the gacha mechanics will stay relatively the same, where fans will collect characters over the creatures, and that may be for the best.