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With Genshin Impact nearing its 3rd anniversary and Honkai Star Rail picking up steam, love for HoYoverse is at an all-time high. Still, while there are many wonderful things about Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail, they’re still far from perfect. One major change that Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail I’d love to see is a catch-up mechanic. So far, Genshin Impact already has years of content and Honkai Star Rail is slowly starting to add more. Catch-up mechanics like an obvious change to make both Genshin and Honkai more beginner friendly.
As many fans of Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail know, the game’s story and world are constantly evolving. Generally, every patch adds huge amounts of content including new questlines, zones, and characters. With a quick release schedule for their patches, new content is never too far away. Oftentimes, Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail updates release in a five or six-week cycle. Nowadays, Genshin’s Archon questline is almost 20 Acts long. With each act consisting of multiple quests, it’s easy to see just how much content is being added to both games.
Without a Catch-up Mechanic, Genshin and Honkai Aren’t Friendly To Newcomers
What makes this difficult for new players, however, is the sheer amount of quests and zones now available. For someone starting the game, just the Gacha mechanics and the different currencies can be overwhelming enough. Now add, around 20 hours of content just to get through Genshin’s main story, and starting either game can be an unfriendly experience. Although Honkai Star Rail hasn’t reached the same level of content, it’s slowly catching up over time. Despite not solving the issue, having the option to skip through the older content may be a good idea. A catch-up mechanic may ruin parts of Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail by cutting out large chunks of gameplay. Although, in the end, adding it should do more good than bad.
There Are Many Different Ways To Add A Catch-up Mechanic To Genshin or Honkai
There are a few ways that Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail could implement a new catch-up mechanic. First, the mechanic could simply be an option to skip various questlines. For example, a player would have the option at the start of an Archon Quest in Genshin to bypass it completely. However, to keep it fair, the rewards should be skipped as well. This would help players access all the zones quickly. Another option is to remove the level requirement for certain quests and zones. To access some areas in both games, players will need to raise their accounts to a certain level. This takes a lot of time-consuming grinding that new players may find intimidating. By forgoing this, and balancing content towards the highest-level character, many new players would have an easier time in Genshin, especially with a catch-up mechanic.
Other Games Have Made Similar Catch-up Mechanics Work
Other long-lasting games, like World of Warcraft, have had an interesting time consolidating content. For example, in Wow, after resetting the max level to 60, Blizzard also changed the way leveling works. Instead of needing level through each expansion, players are now able to have more freedom with where they go to level. For older fans, this can be a bit frustrating, as it feels like it wipes out a bit of hard work. However, for anyone new, it removes the need to level through every zone and allows them to get to end-game content faster. Although Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail shouldn’t follow this formula exactly, a catch-up mechanic like this is a great place to start.
In the end, both Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail are games that have a lot of staying power through constant updates. Between their fanbases and the amounts of money they earn HoYoverse, both games are going to be around for a while. With that being said, for the games to continue to draw in new audiences, a catch-up mechanic would be helpful. On top of this, the longer the games go without a catch-up mechanic, the harder one may be to implement. In the end, a catch-up mechanic seems like the perfect thing to make Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail more newcomer friendly.
