Honkai: Star Rail

Honkai: Star Rail switched from Genshin Impact's action combat to a classic turn-based RPG and sent players aboard the interstellar train Astral Express, which travels between worlds plagued by forces called Stellarons. The turn-based system leaves room to think through turn order, enemy elemental weaknesses, and synergies between characters instead of reflexes, which brought the game closer to Japanese classics like Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest than to the action-driven mobile hits players are otherwise used to. On mobile, controls are stripped-down and clear – menu, target selection, confirm – so the touch interface works here without compromise, unlike titles dependent on precise aiming or fast gestures.

The game was created at HoYoverse as a spiritual successor to the Honkai Impact series, and its world is built on traveling between planets each with its own culture, architecture, and combat rules, which gradually expands with new regions to include further mechanics such as battles against giant bosses or puzzle sections outside of combat. Characters are divided into so-called Paths (Destruction, Nihility, Harmony, and others), which determines their role in the team, and the game emphasizes assembling synergistic quartets more than individual overpowered heroes who could carry a team alone.

Monetization follows the parent company's proven model: characters and weapons, here called light cones, are obtained through drawing with in-game currency that can also be purchased, and the rarest characters have a low single-digit percentage chance of being pulled. The game itself is free to download and play without spending, and the main story is fully accessible without any investment.

Why play it: For players who wanted the depth of Genshin Impact but prefer thoughtful turn-based combat over real-time action.