In the wake of the “-verse” trend, miHoYo, producer and publisher of popular online game Genshin Impact, is the latest firm to rename. While Honkai Impact 3rd, a mobile action RPG published in 2016, earned international attention, miHoYo’s reputation and fortune fully erupted when Genshin Impact was released in 2020. It was so popular that in its first year, Genshin Impact outperformed both Fortnite and GTA 5. Even while miHoYo has had a tremendous amount of success, some of its decisions with Genshin Impact haven’t always worked out. Genshin Impact’s beta testers have seen a spike in leakers, which has prompted miHoYo to initiate a lawsuit against them for leaking information about future releases.
Unfortunately, some members of the game’s community were offended by the studio’s efforts to track down leakers. Genshin Impact’s playerbase also took issue with the game’s first anniversary prizes, which they felt were underwhelming. A tiny percentage of Genshin Impact players have left the game due to these and other concerns, despite the game’s tremendous popularity. HoYoverse is the new name for miHoYo’s Genshin Impact studio, which has announced that it is changing its name. The corporation, like many others before it, cites its ambitions to diversify its content portfolio as the rationale for the shift.
Virtual characters, anime, comics, light novels, music, and more are some of the other categories HoYoverse is developing into. Additionally, it wants to enter the realms of cloud computing and artificial intelligence. HoYoverse intends to do this by opening offices in Montreal, Los Angeles, Singapore, Tokyo, and Seoul. Genshin Impact’s 2.5 upgrades, due out on February 16th, 2022, will include the playable character Yae Miko, making the timing of the HoYoverse announcement especially timely.
As part of Genshin Impact’s upcoming 2.5 updates, the 5-star character Electro Catalyst will be available to players for a limited time during the first half of the patch. Enkanomiya’s new Enkanomiya area will be included in the latest update, along with two seasonal events for players to participate in and gain prizes from. To a large extent, HoYoverse’s current state could not exist without the enormous popularity of Genshin Impact. In spite of the renaming, Genshin Impact and other video game properties like Tears of Themis are expected to benefit from the company’s expansion, and it will be fascinating to watch how this will affect gameplay.