Story & world

A spoiler-light overview of the setting, drawn from the closed beta and leaks. Provisional and likely to change. Underlined names link to their own pages.

The premise

You play the avatar of a dimensional traveler, recently freed from a long confinement. Your adventure begins in Iya — an ordinary seaside border town in the Reality Plane that quietly hides "principle fractures." You learn to bond with Anima, compete in bond duels, and start to uncover what really happened to the world. There's a hint (not yet confirmed in story) that your character is touched by a forgotten Aspect — written out of the world's logic, which is why your memory is gone.

In the 2025 closed beta, you create your own protagonist — male or female — and the character creator states you carry the Aspect of Change (the in-game reason you can freely reshape your look). You allocate Strength / Charisma / Intelligence, which open different dialogue choices. The opening frees you from the Plane of Illusion after roughly two centuries, with a bread-headed guide; three Novarchs — Parayaya, Blade and Amorphiron — then hunt you as you escape to the Reality Plane. (All from the beta build; the final story may change.)

The Sundering

The world is a multiverse of higher-dimensional Planes, not a single planet. Long ago, the Nexus — the web of bonds — connected all things, especially linking paired opposite Aspects: Love and Hate, Light and Dark, Reality and Illusion, Life and Death, Order and Chaos.

About 200 years ago a cataclysm tore the Nexus apart. Its name in the wider franchise is "Honkai", localized here as the Sundering. The severed bond-fragments were reborn as the creatures we now call Nexus Anima, and the world shattered into 81 Planes, each with its own ecology and ruler.

Sovereigns and Novarchs

The world's rulers form a chain of titles:

• Sovereigns ruled the Old World. Each governed a pair of opposing Aspects and held them in balance. Roughly 39 are thought to have existed.
• Novarchs rule the New World after the Sundering. Each governs a single Aspect and presides over one of the 81 Planes — so there are 81 Novarchs. Some are former Sovereigns who survived; others are newly risen. A named sub-group, the Phoenixbreakers, includes Blade and Parayaya.

A character can hold both titles across the two eras. You'll meet many of them as playable characters.

Iya and its factions

Your home base is the town of Iya in the Reality Plane. Named places and groups include:

• The Nexus Association — a public-welfare body whose Bond Hall shelters Anima.
• The True Nexus Syndicate — a powerful organization; Olympia runs its Iia branch.
• The Committee for a Joyful Iia — the town's governing body.
• The Amphitheater — the competition hub tied to Sir Champion, the Novarch of Competition.

A recurring antagonist, the World-Ender, is woven through many of the Sovereigns' backstories.

How it connects to other Honkai games

This is billed as the fifth Honkai title, and it borrows characters: Kiana (from Honkai Impact 3rd) and Blade (from Honkai: Star Rail) are both fully playable here, reworked to fit this game. Otto is a returning Honkai name appearing as a native character, and Kafka shows up in lore only.

For the full breakdown — confirmed crossovers, shared concepts, and whether it's the same universe — see Connections with other games.