Is there enough room on this train?
If publisher MiHoYo was in any doubt that its newest outing wouldn't perform as well as Genshin Impact, that doubt has now flown out of the window. Downloads for Honkai: Star Rail have well outperformed its spiritual predecessor. The publisher announced the impressive milestone on its official Weibo social media account today.
The new game has stormed onto the scene, beating any predictions with its crazy popularity on opening day. Honkai: Star Rail surpassed 20 million downloads in less than a day of being available to the public.
HSR managed to gain the attention of many in the lead-up to release thanks to innovative marketing strategies. MiHoYo is hosting real-world events across the globe to promote the game on its Astral Express Global Tour.
Why is the game performing this well?
More than 10 million people signed up as pre-registration for the game, so the success for the title was hinted at before release. Players were itching to get their hands on the game after a three-year wait following Genshin Impact.
The accessibility of the gameplay and the beautiful artstyle of Honkai makes the game a big draw for many different demographics. Sure doesn't hurt that it's available not only on PC, but on iOS and Android mobile devices.
Honkai: Star Rail centers around a player-controlled nameless character called the Trailblazer. The story takes you on a journey across space on the Astral Express train. Conducted by the cute and frankly adorable Pom Pom.
The story is easy to follow and the characters are easy to bond with on a visual and emotional level. These are reasons why players tend to overlook the gacha "loot box" type mechanics that are present in the game. Some of the stronger characters in the game are gatekept behind these mechanics but even with the base characters and some collected along the way, the fun is not impeded.
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Outperforming Genshin
Genshin Impact, the previous game from the MiHoYo studio, was one that set the standard for not only gameplay but for marketing and release numbers.
Within four days of the launch of Genshin, it had more than 17 million players as reported by the former App Annie. The game got up to 23 million installs in the first week. These kinds of numbers are usually reserved for traditional AAA releases on mobile. Games like Super Mario Run and League of Legends Wild Rift come to mind but Genshin managed to keep pace with them.
That's a pace that HSR has managed to beat quite spectacularly. Hitting the 20 million mark of downloads in the first day is remarkable. After a day of Genshin's release, the number was closer to half of that.
HSR is setting pace to become the quickest-growing game in MiYoHo's library of incredible RPG titles. If it can add an extra 10 million downloads to that to by the end of the first week, it'll be well on its way to beating more of Genshin's player base records.
To put it into context, God of War (2018) sold 23 million copies; Super Mario Odyssey sold around 25 million copies and Pokemon Scarlet and Violet managed just shy of 21. Yes, those games are not free-to-play and aren't available on mobile devices, but it really puts into perspective the sheer scale of the fanbase that is already establishing itself for Honkai: Star Rail.
Make sure to stay tuned to esports.gg for all of the latest news and guides for Honkai: Star Rail.