Honkai Impact 3rd

Honkai Impact 3rd is the anime action game miHoYo made its name with years before Genshin Impact. You run a squad of three Valkyries in real time: dodges that slow the clock, long combo chains, and an elemental advantage system that decides who belongs in which fight.

The content splits between the campaign, the solo challenge modes Abyss and Elysian Realm, and co-op missions. Characters come as battlesuits, combat outfits that set both element and playstyle, and they come out of gacha banners, so the squad you end up with depends on your pulls.

Since February 2024 the game has run its Part 2, a second storyline set on Mars with new leads, a rebuilt engine and UI, and open zones instead of a chain of missions. It works as an entry point for anyone who would rather skip seven years of earlier plot, though you still have to clear the base game's opening chapters to get there.

The current version is 8.9, Salvation of Falling Feathers, released on June 26, 2026, with chapter 13 of the Part 2 story and an S-rank Seele battlesuit. Recent major updates have landed two to three months apart. HoYoverse has already shown the trailer for 9.0, the version that closes Part 2's main story, and has not dated it.

The game is free on Steam and through HoYoverse's own launcher, and the revenue comes entirely from gacha. Pulls use Crystals, either earned in-game or bought. The main banner, Battlesuit Supply, costs 280 Crystals per pull with a flat 1.5% rate and a hard guarantee at 90 pulls that hands over the featured battlesuit, with no 50/50 like Genshin or Star Rail.

Around it sit separate banners for signature weapons and stigmata, for older S-rank battlesuits at a lower price, and for the ELF companions, each with its own guarantee count. The best-value Crystal pack runs $99.99 for about 23 pulls, and the first purchase of each pack doubles what you get. Part 2 arrived with its own banners for the Mars cast, so a collection built in Part 1 buys you little there.

It suits anyone after action that demands timing and who doesn't mind a roster gated behind gacha. It runs on PC, Android and iOS with shared progress and no console version. Part 2 split players more than the first did: English Steam reviews sit at 74% positive and the Metacritic user score hovers around 7.5. HoYoverse publishes no active-player figures for this title.