What Genshin Impact could learn from Honkai Star Rail (and vice versa)

Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail are like twins, connected at the hip. Both are gacha games from HoYoverse, with a heavy anime-inspired artstyle, and they both share numerous systems.

With similar monetization, down to the prices and premium currency you can buy, and nearly identical interfaces in which you’ll explore the game, comparisons between the two games are inevitable. But with comparison comes competition, and the community of both games can’t help but look at the other game through a different lens.

It’s true that both games are deeply connected, and Honkai Star Rail has definitely taken some inspiration from Genshin Impact’s successful model. In a way, Honkai Star Rail has implemented some improvements that Genshin Impact to this day still doesn’t have. And while Genshin Impact has slowly added quality-of-life updates over the years, Honkai Star Rail leads in that regard. But Genshin Impact is the original success story, and Honkai Star Rail still could learn a thing or two from the game that boosted HoYoverse’s widespread success.

For both games to flourish, here are some things that Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail can learn from each other.

Genshin Impact still needs a faster daily quest system

Let’s talk about a big appeal of the gacha game: it’s casual by nature. While you can pour hundreds of hours into Genshin Impact (I know I have), there are aspects of a gacha game that will always feel like a chore. Doing daily quests to reliably earn Primogems is a huge part of Genshin Impact, but because of the open-world nature of Genshin Impact and how long the quests can take, this can be a very cumbersome and tedious process.

Genshin Impact has taken a note from Honkai Star Rail already, actually, by introducing a new system where you can earn Encounter Points, which effectively takes the spot of a Daily Quest. You can earn these points by participating in events or finding certain objects in the open world. While this is nice, eventually, you will run out of Encounter Points to earn unless an event is up, and Honkai Star Rail still has a faster system, as mundane tasks can count as daily quests and earn you Stellar Jades.

Honkai Star Rail relic farming is a pain compared to Genshin Impact

In Honkai Star Rail, the main way to make your characters stronger is by farming “relics,” pieces of gear that can directly raise the stats of your characters. Unfortunately, relic farming is a huge pain in the ass in Honkai Star Rail, especially when compared to Genshin Impact. Relic farming is very strict in Honkai Star Rail, and you need to earn two specific sets of relics, regular relics you can earn from farming Cavern of Corrosion and Planar Ornaments you can earn from the Simulated Universe.

Genshin Impact not only requires you to farm less gear pieces, with only five pieces instead of six, but is also much more energy efficient. You’ll need to spend energy for both the Simulated Universe and Cavern of Corrosion in Honkai Star Rail, while you can just focus one artifact domain in Genshin Impact. Not to mention, Genshin Impact also allows you to hold one “off-piece,” meaning you can use one piece that is not part of a 4-set to complete your character’s gear.

Genshin Impact could use better rewards

Genshin Impact is notably stingy with its rewards. While I’m not trying to get everything for free in this free-to-play game, Honkai Star Rail has a superior rewards system that incentivizes players to log on everyday. Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail shares the same daily rewards, but Honkai Star Rail also provides more Stellar Jade in the form of Simulated Universe, better enhancement materials, and even character talent materials. Honkai Star Rail also holds more frequent login events, giving free pulls, while Genshin does not.

Again, I’m not advocating for Genshin Impact to start handing out free rewards like candy. But I do think Honkai Star Rail’s free rewards week-by-week are adequate, and helps incentivize me to come back to the game. Genshin Impact could modernize its rewards output by matching Honkai Star Rail’s level. Considering Genshin Impact takes more energy to play, as it’s an open world game as opposed to turn-based, this would help reduce burnout as well.

Honkai Star Rail could use more substantial updates

Honkai Star Rail, is by nature, a more casual game than Genshin Impact. There is less to explore, as Honkai Star Rail’s areas are more linear and smaller by nature. Meanwhile, Genshin Impact is an open world game. Additionally, aside from Genshin Impact’s open world, the game also features an in-depth housing system, a trading card game, hangout quests, and co-op. By nature, Genshin Impact simply has more to do, which can be a blessing and a curse depending on who you are.

Personally, I log onto Honkai for less than ten minutes a day in a typical day, save for a few days where there is new story content or when I’m doing the Memory of Chaos. The new Simulated Universe: Swarm Disaster is a good start to providing optional content that players can play, but Honkai Star Rail still needs a bit more to do for players willing to spend more time on the game.

Genshin Impact could use more automation

Genshin Impact at its core is a gacha game, meaning there are plenty of mobile gamers out there, or simply people who do not have much time to spend on the game. Because of how dailies and weeklies are done in Genshin Impact, it can take a fair amount of time to clear dailies. And with how developed teams are, it would be nice to see Genshin Impact implement some form of auto-battle into the game.

Honkai Star Rail features auto battle which is helpful in saving time for players, or even allowing players to multitask while working on other tasks. Genshin Impact likely cannot utilize auto battle in Spiral Abyss or overworld battles, but it would be nice to allow players to automatically clear a domain after defeating it a number of times, for example.

Honkai Star Rail needs co-op

Clearing weeklies with friends on Genshin Impact is a fun way to bring interaction in the game. Knowing co-op was a fair success for Genshin Impact, it was strange to see Honkai Star Rail not implement any co-op capabilities aside from borrowing a partner character and chatting with friends. It would be nice to see a form of co-op in the game, perhaps not through exploration, or through raid battles or perhaps even some form of PvP.

Other ways Honkai Star Rail could implement co-op is through guilds or weekly battles with friends. Allowing this level of interaction would help improve the livelihood of the game.

Those are some of the top things Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail can learn from each other. Check out or Genshin Impact guides here. Check out our Honkai Star Rail guides here.