Story & world
A spoiler-light tour of the setting, drawn from the closed beta and the community Fandom wiki. Everything here is pre-release and likely to change. Names link to their own pages. Characters go to the character database, concepts and lore figures to the glossary.
Story spoilers are hidden by default. Use the eye toggle in the top bar to reveal them (and hide them again anytime).
The premise
You play the avatar of a dimensional traveler, newly freed from a long confinement. Your story opens in Iia, a seaside border town on the continent of Lusciell, in the Reality Plane. There you learn to bond with Anima, fight Nexus Battles, and slowly uncover what happened to the world.
In the 2025 beta you create your own protagonist, male or female, and the character creator states you carry the Aspect of Change (the in-world reason you can reshape your look). The opening frees you from the Plane of Illusion after roughly two centuries, with a bread-headed guide. Three Novarchs, Parayaya, Blade and Amorphiron, together the Phoenixbreaker Novarchs. They then hunt you as you flee to the Reality Plane, and why is the game's central mystery.
The central mystery
From the first hour the game poses a question it does not answer for a long time: who were you before your confinement, and why does your escape turn the most powerful figures in the world against you?
Each of the three Phoenixbreaker Novarchs is chasing a thread of their own. Parayaya is hunting the World-Ender who betrayed her. Blade is searching for the missing 11th Sovereign. The 2025 beta keeps their goals deliberately tangled with the protagonist's forgotten past and leaves the full answer for a later chapter. (beta story; from the public playthroughs and the community wiki, and likely to change.)
The Old World, the Nexus, and Aspects
The setting is not one planet but a multiverse of higher-dimensional Planes. In the Old World, the Nexus (the web of bonds) connected all things, and above all it linked paired opposite Aspects: Love & Hate, Light & Dark, Reality & Illusion, Life & Death, Order & Chaos, Change & Stasis.
Each pair was held in balance by a Sovereign who governed both halves at once.
The Sundering
214 years ago a cataclysm tore the Nexus apart: the Sundering, also called the Great Shattering. It is this franchise's shared "Honkai" catastrophe. The figure blamed for it is the World-Ender.
The aftermath shaped the whole game:
- The severed bond-fragments were reborn as the creatures we now call Nexus Anima.
- The world split into 81 Planes, each with its own ecology and a single ruler.
- Damage lingers as Aspect Fractures scattered across the world, cleared with Anima of a matching Aspect.
- Nexus Battles became the accepted way to settle disputes, so the battle system is part of the lore. Each one conjures a temporary Semiplane from the fighters' Aspect energy.
The New World: Planes and Novarchs
After the Sundering, in the New World, each of the 81 Planes is ruled by a Novarch who holds a single Aspect. Some are surviving Sovereigns; others rose afterward. A character can hold a title in both eras.
Where you begin, the Reality Plane, is properly named Material Lip. It is unusual: rather than a fixed ruler, its Novarch is elected from the rulers of its nine continents on rotating five-year terms. That is how Bai Mei, of the continent Fuyu, currently holds the seat.
Many other Planes are now named, each tied to an Aspect and a ruler. Examples include Armand's Plane of Dark (and its fortress, the Murkmarches), Blade's The Peak (Strength), Sir Champion's Plane of Competition, Amorphiron's The Changelands, and the Fleming Collective's home Plane of Prosperity, Aurumidas.
Sovereigns and Novarchs
You will meet many rulers as playable characters. A few of the threads worth knowing:
- Victus, 1st Sovereign of Order & Chaos, later Novarch of Order. Defeated the World-Ender repeatedly and sealed the Aspect of Light.
- Kumyo Kyo, 4th Sovereign of Reality & Illusion. Sealed the World-Ender away long ago, at the request of his sister Darsea.
- Amstradath, 5th Sovereign of Life & Death, who once granted the World-Ender immortality through a "Pact of Rebirth."
- Bashirdo, 7th Sovereign of Change & Stasis, who vanished after the Sundering. His Aspects passed to Amorphiron (Change) and Roslin Greenleaf (Stasis).
- Armand, 8th Sovereign of Light & Dark, now Novarch of Dark.
- Parayaya, 14th Sovereign of Love & Hate, betrayed by the World-Ender and now a Phoenixbreaker.
- Apeiron, Sovereign/Novarch of Infinity.
- Prabhas, Novarch of Light, currently imprisoned by Armand.
Other rulers known only from lore so far include Lucian Valentine (Courage), Vowbinder Crone (Beauty & Ugliness), Kafka (Strength & Weakness), Jude (Chaos), Malheur (Misfortune), Qing Gang (Good & Evil), Lestrange (Joy & Sorrow) and Big Boss Daddy (Profit & Loss).
Iia and its three factions
Your home base is Iia. Three powers share the town, and they differ above all in how they treat Anima:
- The Nexus Association is a non-profit that shelters and rescues Anima and favours peaceful coexistence. Its Bond Hall, run by Herocrates, is your entry point into the story.
- The True Nexus Syndicate, nicknamed the "True Nexus mafia," holds that Anima are "the bounty of nature," to be used for humanity's benefit. Olympia runs its Iia branch.
- The Fleming Collective is a multiplanar finance house from Aurumidas that sees everything through the lens of capital. Its Fleming Tower is the tallest building in town.
The town is governed day-to-day by the Committee for a Joyful Iia, and the Amphitheater hosts bond duels under Sir Champion, whose Grand Championship crowns a winner every four years.
Threads to watch
- Light vs Dark. Before the Sundering, Lucian Valentine wounded Armand, letting Victus seal the Aspect of Light. Today Armand keeps the Light Novarch Prabhas imprisoned in the Murkmarches.
- Blade's search. Blade, now Novarch of Strength, is hunting the missing 11th Sovereign Kafka, whose power once rivalled Amstradath's.
- The memory plague. After Darsea (Sovereign of Memory & Oblivion) died, the disease Obliviosis emerged. Otto researches a cure, a thread that rhymes with your own lost memory.
How it connects to other Honkai games
This is billed as the latest 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. Otto and Kafka are returning Honkai names: Otto as a native character, Kafka in lore only.
For the full breakdown of confirmed crossovers, shared concepts, and whether it's the same universe, see Connections with other games.
Official: A Traveler’s Guide to the Planes
HoYoverse’s own worldbuilding infographics, summarized in plain English. Open any graphic to read the full official version.
Aspects, Sovereigns & Novarchs
The official primer on the world's foundations. A cataclysm called the Sundering severed the Aspects and shattered the world into 81 independent universes, the “Planes.” Aspects are the philosophical and scientific concepts the world is built on: Old-World ones came in pairs (Light/Dark, Life/Death), New-World ones stand alone. Their owners are the Sovereigns (Old World) and the Novarchs (New World, one ruling each Plane — Bai Mei is the Novarch of Reality).
The Nexus, and what Anima are
“Nexus” is the web of connections that once linked all things, its links called Nexus threads. The Sundering broke it, and the scattered, frayed pieces took shape as creatures of Aspect energy — the Nexus Anima. Animasters pit Anima against one another in Nexus Battles, which became the accepted way to settle disputes across the Planes.
Anima Evolution
Anima can evolve into stronger forms, better able to protect the ones they bonded with. The official example follows the line Inkifoal → Inkicorn → Atragasus.
Iia, the starting town
A tour of Iia, the town where the story opens, on the continent of Lucielf in the Plane of Reality. It covers the Nexus Hall shelter, Montemar Academy, the Romanesque Hall arena that hosts the Grand Championship Qualifiers, Fleming Tower in the New Quarter, and more local spots.
Factions active in Iia
The three powers around Iia and how each views Anima: the Nexus Association (Herocrates' nonprofit rescue org, which treats humans and Anima as equals), the True Nexus Syndicate (the “True Nexus mafia,” led locally by Olympia, which sees Anima as a resource for humanity), and the Fleming Collective (a capital-chasing trade group from Aurumidas, behind Fleming Tower).
