HoYoverse or known as MiHoYo in the Chinese market is a video game and publishing company that started, and is still based in Shanghai, China where the main headquarters is located at. The company started with making animated series, novels, comics, music, and merchandise before expanding the content production, technology research, and publications globally. And in this process of becoming global, MiHoYo made a name easier for the global market, ‘HoYoverse’. In total, the company has 5,000 employees across all their Shanghai and global locations. In all, HoYoverse has made 9 games in total since the starting of 2010 but only 5 games topped the charts for their top games of the year are ‘Tears of Themis’(ToT), ‘Honkai Impact 3rd’, ‘Zenless Zone Zero’(ZZZ), ‘Honkai: Star Rail’, and ‘Genshin Impact’.
Tears of Themis, or ToT for short, is ranked number 5 in rankings for popular HoYoverse games. The game is a fantasy romance novel otome game that is set in the near future and is about a rookie attorney trying to uncover a conspiracy along with 4 love interests. The game is only single player mode since there are things called ‘debates’ that are considered combat in the game with the use of cards of the 4 love interests. In these debates, players could use cards to help buff combat skills. These cards are obtained from banners where the player has to pull in, in order to get the cards of the 4 love interests, in other words, this is called a gacha system where the player needs to build pity in order to get the limited time card or stranded card. Along with these game features, Tears of Themis holds limited time events in the game for in-game rewards for players for materials to level up cards and in-game currency called ‘S chips’ to pull for cards.
Honkai Impact 3rd is ranked number 4 in rankings for popular HoYoverse games. Honkai Impact 3rd was the first big hit for the company which made all other games after it popular. The game was known for 3D cell-shaded graphics compared to HoYoverse earlier games and with more intense combat action that were melee and ranged with special attacks. Unlike Tears of Themis, Honkai Impact 3rd is multiplayer friendly or co-op friendly for players on any device. This game tells the story about Kiana Kaslana, the main character or the player, going on a mission to save the world. Like Tears of Themis and the rest of the games after, this game also includes a gacha system to pull for characters, and weapons for the characters instead of cards of said characters. Though this is an older game of the company, it still ranked 4th place in popularity and was the main inspiration for games following, like Honkai: Star Rail and Genshin Impact.
Zenless Zone Zero or ZZZ for short is the company’s newest game which ranked in 3rd place for popularity, since similar combat skills came back from Honkai Impact 3rd. The game is about the last surviving human city in New Eridu as of right now. Following the same scenario as Honkai Impact 3rd and Tears of Themis, this game also offers the gacha system for the players in order to get characters and weapons. The game mainly focuses on the fluid animation during combat and the triggering skills each character does to the enemies. Zenless Zone Zero can be multiplayer, but only in events, meaning players can not just co-op in each other’s worlds.
Honkai: Star Rail is ranked 2nd for popular HoYoverse games. This game follows a turn-based RPG gameplay that includes real-time melee combat. The game story follows an attack where the player goes on an adventure through space with meeting other characters along the way. The game is not co-op friendly, but it makes sense since the game is a turn-based RPG combat. The game also follows a gacha system for getting characters and weapons alike but the difference this game puts from the other is that Honkai: Star Rail offers artifacts which are things that help buff a character for their combat skill which is similar to Genshin Impact, but unlike it being random, players can choose the main buff or stat for the artifact. The main advantage to this game is that, though the combat takes a bit longer than other games, the game offers an auto mechanic for the combat which can help players with fighting enemies.
Lastly, the most popular game from HoYoverse is Genshin Impact with 1st place as its ranking. This game is an action RPG game with real-time ranged and melee combat with a gacha system, like all the other HoYoverse games, which helped the game go mainstream into the media. The game story is about two traveler siblings being separated and one of the twins, either Lumine or Aether depending on what the player chooses, needs to find their twin sibling. Out of all the games, this game is the most open world since players have the choice to either build characters with artifacts, like Honkai: Star Rail, and weapons to fight bosses and enemies or find chests around the big world of Teyvat across the seven nations. This game is very co-op friendly with the ability to join other players’ worlds to help fight bosses or in domains or finding chests or helping each other out with queues.