In a wonderful twist of fate, I had the absolute honor of meeting with Honkai: Star Rail lead developer Chengnan An at the Game Developer Conference. I was invited to the InterContinental Mark Hopkins Hotel Board Room in San Francisco, where I was met with some of the HoYoverse team and the legendary man himself. I’ll admit that I’m not the most active HoYoverse player, and even with that, Mr. An was incredibly patient in answering any of my questions concerning my own curiosities about the franchise I’d learned in my research and the newly released 3.0 Update for Honkai: Star Rail. Let’s get into it!
Honkai: Star Rail Interview
Before the interview began, we discussed various topics, including our educational backgrounds, other conferences, and, surprisingly enough, getting car sick. We talked briefly about how our love of gaming from an early age encouraged our career paths to be where we are today and how that led Mr. An to HoYoverse in 2016. This change granted him the opportunity to work as a Lead Combat Designer on Honkai Impact 3rd, helping pave the way for what we know as Honkai: Star Rail.
Nat Collazo, Senior Writer for The Nerd Stash: First, I wanted to ask, how are you finding GDC this year? If you’ve ever been prior.
Chengnan An, Lead Game Designer for Honkai: Star Rail: This year was my first time ever to attend GDC. For Honkai: Star Rail, we have so much to present, and we find this to be such an incredible opportunity to get more insight into this industry. We also have met a newer generation of people within the gaming industry, like players who really resonate with our game. I’ve found that to be very exciting.
Nat Collazo: I can only imagine. It’s become such a large, well, I don’t want to call it an enterprise. A large entity in the gaming community. Both Honkai: Star Rail and Genshin Impact.
I’m kind of looking at the game from an outsider’s perspective. I don’t play it often, unfortunately. So, I do want to ask if Honkai: Star Rail specifically was always something that was always on your mind. I know that the franchise is a little over 10 years old. So, I want to know if this specific universe and the direction it’s taken is something you’ve always considered.
Chengnan An: I’m curious. How much do you know about Honkai games? Like Honkai: Impact 3rd?
Nat Collazo: The research that I’ve done is minimal in the context of not playing it as often as I’d like. I’m a blue link addict, so I was able to find a lot of information on the game’s website and other sanctioned locations. The features in the latest in-game update is really motivating me to return to it!
Chengnan An: So the world of Honkai gets increasingly richer and richer throughout the whole process of creating the game. So, at some point, we started creating Honkai Impact 3rd and started thinking to ourselves, “Well, can we make something that’s more than a combat game? Can we add in more gameplay and add in more stories for the players to experience?” We wanted to create something more than an action game.
Nat Collazo: So, this is piggybacking off that previous question, in my research, I found the science-fiction aspect of it all very fascinating. However, I was most interested in the medical terminology that was chosen; specifically that the word cancer was chosen to describe the biggest bads. So, I’m curious to know if that has any particular connection with either you or the team?
Chengnan An: That’s more of a metaphor than strictly medical terminology because the Stellaron can cause damage that increasingly expands and infects the entire universe, sort of like a cancer of the universe. That’s why we came up with this analogy.
Nat Collazo: Now, let’s get into the 3.0 Update! What would you tell players like myself you would almost be experiencing the game for the first time as opposed to those who have been waiting for this since the very beginning. I’m sure there are thousands of players eager to jump in and build upon what they’ve already been working on.
Chengnan An: Every year is a major update where we release a new world for the players. So, if we want the players to finish all the previous journeys in order to experience, or before they can experience the new world, that would be, as you can imagine, be an increasing issue. So, with the 3.0 Update, we are experimenting with a new feature!
We are allowing new players to jump straight into the 3.00 version in order to experience this new world. So, by doing this, we are making the game really easy to access for new players. Also, we came up with this heroic saga Flame Chase Journey theme that we believe to be very attractive to new players since it will release all the heroes and building our stories with interesting heroes and intriguing stories at it’s center.
Nat Collazo: Oh, perfect. I was hoping that would be the case because I was thinking to myself that there was so much to get into. I’m happy that things are much more accessible.
So, this last question is really to satiate my own curiosity: Why the Trailblazer? Why that name? There are games like Destiny that have their own name for the player character in correspondence to what it is they’re doing in the world of the game.
Chengnan An: Why did we choose Trailblazer. So, as you know, the world we want to create is as big as the universe and keeps expanding. If our characters are just passengers passing by, then their presence feels a little limited. We wanted to provide players with the expectation of being a pioneer in this world, exploring the frontier. We want players to always be exploring the unknown. That’s the mantra that we have for ourselves and our team.
Honkai: Star Rail is available to play on PC, mobile devices, and PlayStation.
