Today is a big day for Honkai: Star Rail, and everyone who’d been looking forward to the game’s first (and long-teased) collaboration event. The free-to-play RPG welcomes the world of Fate/stay night as part of this new event.
The collab arrives about a week after the release of patch 3.4, which brought more to the game than just content inspired by the visual novel.
We’ve known for a while what to expect from today’s launch, thanks to a developer livestream that took place in June. Without question, one of the most-anticipated elements of the Fate/stay night is the pair of new guest characters.
First things first, the collaboration content won’t be going anywhere for a good long while; in fact, there’s no end date listed yet, although rumours have surfaced that it’ll last until at least November of this year.
Saber, from the Fate series, drops in Honkai: Star Rail as a 5-Star Wind/Destruction hero. Archer is another 5-Star addition, a Quantum/Hunt character instead. Archer is free for anyone who logs in during the collaboration event, whereas you’re going to have to pull to get Saber. Archer also comes with enough materials to get him to level 60.
The launch brings four special banners for Saber, Archer and their respective light cones. Interestingly, there are no boosted drop rates for 4-star characters or weapons on any of these banners, though you are guaranteed to get Saber’s light cone after 200 warps.
One other thing worth mentioning is that none of the Fate collaboration characters have English voice over, seemingly by design, which is particularly interesting given MiHoYo’s recent harsh stance against their US-based voice actors supporting the SAG-AFTRA video game strike.
Beyond that, you can also look forward to a new Trailblaze Continuance called Sweet Dreams and the Holy Grail. And for the next 30 days – ending August 11 – you can take part in a limited-time event that’s basically a combat challenge. There are exclusive rewards you can earn right up until that date. The event content itself will later join the game’s Conventional Memoir for those who missed it, but several of the rewards are time-limited.
Earlier this month, the game added more playable characters that aren’t part of the Fate series. Phainon, who’s been an NPC in Honkai: Star Rail for a while now, joined the roster of playable characters. Phainon is likewise a 5-Star hero, with a Physical/Destruction speciality.
The first phase of reruns also arrived alongside 3.4 on July 2. We saw the return of Tribbie, Sunday, and Sparkle. Phase 2, which kicks off on July 23, will see the return of Firefly (who’s also getting a new outfit), Jingliu, and Blade.
Update 3.4 also introduced some upgrades to Kafka, Silver Wolf, and Blade, which took the form of enhanced game mechanics. The timing of Jingliu’s rerun is pretty good, too, considering her kit got an upgrade alongside those three.