How Honkai Star Rail brings turn-based combat to the masses: A look into its popularity and accessibility

Kafka , a 5-star character from Honkai Star Rail (Image via HoYoverse)
Kafka, a 5-star character from Honkai Star Rail (Image via HoYoverse)

The popular role-playing game Honkai Star Rail incorporates the gacha mechanism, which is available worldwide via HoYoverse, MiHoYo's subsidiary. Apart from open-world and dungeon-exploration features, the game has a turn-based combat system, which makes battles more tactical and slower.

Players can construct a roster of characters and lead a group of four in turn-based combat. Since the player's ability to foresee the opponent's next move determines a battle's outcome, turn-based role-playing games frequently emphasize strategic thinking and planning.

The biggest attraction of turn-based role-playing games is that they typically offer rich, engrossing narratives and expansive environments to explore. This article will cover how Honkai Star Rail brings turn-based combat to the masses and its popularity among the players.

NOTE: This list is purely subjective and represents the author's opinions.

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Turn-based combat in Honkai Star Rail and its popularity

Characters in Belobog (Image via HoYoverse)
Characters in Belobog (Image via HoYoverse)

Turn-based combat in Honkai Star Rail works like other role-playing games, wherein players and opponents must bide their time to take action. The battle begins when you approach an opponent and initiate combat. Each character can select an action during combat, such as attacking, healing, or using their ultimate

Look in the upper left corner of the screen to see the sequence and find out who will do what next. It's possible to make the most of your characters' turns by combining various abilities and effects. For example, your healer can restore HP while March 7th freezes the next enemy in the chain, and then Luka can use Bleed before your DPS hits land again. The game chooses the order in which the character and enemy get a turn based on Action Values (AV).

A unit will generally react faster and impact your speed the lower its AV. The AV resets to its Base value once your task is complete. The game gradually reduces each unit's AV until it reaches 0, at which time it is that unit's turn. With less downtime between turns, more can be taken.


Honkai Star Rail's popularity and its accessibility among players

A mobile player's perspective of the title(Image via HoYoverse)
A mobile player's perspective of the title(Image via HoYoverse)

Honkai Star Rail is the latest installment from HoYoverse, which is a free-to-play title and has become incredibly popular because of its captivating narration and fun gameplay. Since its release, the game had over 30 million downloads and has achieved significant success in the gaming industry.

The game is easier to play compared to traditional RPGs owing to simpler mechanics. Just select your target and select between a basic attack, a skill use, or the most powerful hit of a character, i.e., the ultimate. Such ease makes the game different from other available gacha games. Furthermore, it's not restricted to a particular gaming platform, allowing gamers to play on their favorite devices like mobile, PC, and soon on the PS5.

Most famous turn-based RPGs are restricted to PCs or consoles, like South Park: The Stick of Truth and Wasteland 3. Compared to these titles, Honkai Star Rail is an option gamers can play anytime and anywhere.

As the game is free-to-play, a large variety of people can enjoy it, and with frequent updates that add new worlds and characters, it keeps the player base hooked.


These are the reasons why Honkai Star Rail is so famous and accessible to a large part of the community, and one of the big reasons is its availability on almost all gaming platforms.

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Edited by Angad Sharma
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