Today Honkai: Star Rail developer HoYoverse has released a new trailer focusing on the ultra-popular free-to-play RPG, and this one is special.
We get a full-fledged anime short produced by the developer's own anime production studio miHoYo Anime with the help of Fantasier Animation and Studio ppuri, focusing on the story of General Jing Yuan and his retainer Yanqing.
Yanqing is already a playable ice-element five-star character in the game, while Jing Yuan is expected to be at the center of the next banner in a few days. He's a lightning-element five-star character voiced by Alejandro Saab in English and the massively popular Daisuke Ono in Japanese. If you're not familiar with him, he lends his voice to Van Arkride in the latest Trails games, Snow Villiers in the Final Fantasy XIII series, Jotaro Kujo in the JoJo series, and many more roles.
Yanqin is voiced by Amber May in English and Marina Inoue in Japanese, whom you may know for playing Alicia Melchiott in Valkyria Chronicles, the female heroine in Persona 3 Portable, and more.
You can watch the video in English below and in Japanese on the official channel if you prefer to hear Ono-san and Inoue-san.
"Year 7380 Star Calendar, Jingliu, the mara-stricken swordmaster of the Luofu, slashed her way out of Starskiff Haven, cutting through the Cloud Knights tasked to subdue her before vanishing in the mist of history. Year 8096 Star Calendar, a young soldier named Yanqing rose to fame from the tournament hosted by the Seat of Divine Foresight, and was conferred the rank of Cloud Knight Lieutenant.
"The years pass in a flash, cups of wine the only solace." A fleeting flash — thus is the speed of swift blades as the master and her student spar, and thus is the passage of the unceasing torrent of time. Just how long has it been? His duel with his master, centuries ago, still rippled like a memory from yesterday. But the few years between now and when he took in the boy as his student felt like a lifetime. Time gallops, swift as a stallion, sudden as a lightning strike, agonizing as a blade that runs him through. And yet, it feels like everything has always been the same."
Honkai: Star Rail is a turn-based RPG that can be played for free in single-player mode. It's available for PC through a standalone client and the Epic Games Store, as well as on iOS and Android devices. Although the developers have announced that they are working on ports for PlayStation platforms, they are not yet available. While the developers have mentioned that these ports will be released soon, no specific release date has been announced yet.
If you'd like to see more, you can check out the character trailers revealed in the past few weeks including Yanquing himself, Bailu, Himeko, and Gepard.
