🔖“Honkai 3rd part 2 – Is it a new game or just a new season?” 🤔💭
With such thoughts, I read news about an upcoming update. Should be good for re-engagement of old players, maybe even suitable for attracting new ones…
🔎 Developers announced massive changes with a fresh start on the planet Mars, a new main chars trio, and lots of other stuff in terms of QoL and combat polishing. Also, there is a heavy emphasis on vertical mobility and on the ability to ride a yo-yo as a transport. But most importantly, you don’t need to play or even know the original Honkai 3rd story from years of previous content to play it. Sounds cool? Probably. Or at least it seemed so at the beginning…
🧐 I was interested in researching the split of old and new content: how it will intersect with each other, how it will be scaled from the point of this dramatic update. If the new content is so good, it may cause the previous one to look even more outdated. What will happen with parts of the game, where people already invested a lot of emotions and time?
There indeed a lot of changes:
🔆 More fluid and lively combat, with new mechanics, jumps, and vertical mobility
🔆 New setting, new story, Mars, and no more Valkyries
🔆 New main characters trio, extensively used in the marketing
🔆 Reworked UI: lighter, polished, with modern looks
🔆 QoL’s, including those around gacha pity and crafting systems
🌱 So, what will the new player get in Honkai nowadays? Pretty much the same game, because you need to play up to level 30 to unlock new “part 2” stuff. Which will require around one week of gameplay to reach. Even to get info about it player will need to finish chapter 1 with the final boss fight. I am not gonna lie, some parts of the game are looking gorgeous, but in general, combat feels a bit clunky and not responsive enough. The interface is also quite nice. Stopped after beating chapter one, I hope I will return and do proper research someday.
🖤 On the other hand “Part 2” is an important reason for experienced core players to return to the game. It is a big marketing bit of changes, there was a pre-registration before the release and some hype around it as well. Spikes of returning players are even visible in the Steam charts. I hope this update brings enough “fresh air” not only to return players but to retain them as well. After all, you can even properly jump here now. 🙂
📈 It is safe to say that we have a new trend: some of the successful games focusing on updates, built around a “fresh start”, about revitalizing the current state of the game. The main goal is to allow returning players to enjoy new gameplay immediately, without bothering about old pains and without investing dozens of hours to catch up with everybody else. But maybe it is just wishful thinking…
💡By the way, have you noticed other games with similar updates? Feel free to share if you do! I’m working on a little research about it and it will be most helpful.
