Honkai

Honkai is a fictional cosmic force in the HoYoverse multimedia franchise. It is depicted as a destructive energy that drives entropy and causes catastrophic events across civilizations. Its manifestations include Honkai Beasts, outbreaks that threaten cities, and powerful beings called Herrschers, who merge with Honkai energy to gain immense power. In the lore, Honkai is not a single entity but a pervasive phenomenon linked to cosmic instability and often associated with negative human emotions.

The central conflict centers on countermeasures by organizations and individuals who study, harness, or resist Honkai. In Honkai Impact 3rd, organizations such as Schicksal deploy Valkyries—combatants who channel Honkai-derived power using equipment like Stigmata to oppose Honkai threats. The series presents multiple timelines and parallel developments as it expands the scope of Honkai across games and media.

Honkai serves as the core premise of Honkai Impact 3rd, a mobile action game released by HoYoverse (formerly miHoYo), and remains a key concept in Honkai: Star Rail, a separate title that broadens the universe with spacefaring adventures and interconnected lore. Across titles, new factions, technologies, and narrative layers are introduced, while the central idea remains the struggle against a ubiquitous energy that drives catastrophe.