At twelve o'clock sharp, the official Honkai: Star Rail account released its latest video.
"Honkai: Star Rail" Wende Character PV — "Samsara"
[I really love a certain phrase used by Star Rail players.]
[You truly are free.]
[WENDE! WENDE! WENDE!]
[It's starting, it's starting!]
Wende, dressed in an ink-wash style robe, gently caressed an unknown statue before him, muttering to himself.
"Universe... Aeons... Paths... Finality!"
With Wende's final, sharp cry, the unknown statue in front of him crumbled to dust. A star reignited, bringing life back to a planetary system that had been robbed of its light.
"Yin-Yang Transformation!"
Amidst a symphony of guzheng and flute, a Taijitu symbol of Yin and Yang materialized in the cosmos. As stars flowed and black holes converged, Wende slowly opened his eyes. Simultaneously, a colossal eye, as vast as a galaxy, appeared behind him.
"ROAR!!!"
The scene shifted. The camera swept rapidly across a ruined land, across a frozen snowfield, across a bustling Xianzhou market, and across a futuristic city brimming with technological fantasy...
The Antimatter Legion's Voidrangers, the Fragmentum's creations, the Mara-struck abominations, machines and humans...
They all came howling towards Wende, who stood at the farthest point of the shot!
Shing...
Wende slowly drew the snow-white blade from his waist. Then! The four background scenes flashed behind him one by one, accompanied by the gleam of his sword!
A soaring suona, accompanied by an explosive electric guitar riff and backed by the melodious strains of a violin, instantly ignited the DNA of the audience!
[WTF!!!! I CAN'T TAKE IT!!! I'M ASCENDING!!!]
[This crescendo is way too high! I can't! I'm gonna explode!!]
[This BGM... MY SKULL IS FLYING OFFFFFF!]
[My mom asked me why I'm crawling on the ceiling.]
[Did you get bitten by a pig?]
[You can always trust miHuyou's music!]
White flames turned the Voidrangers to ash; black flames froze the Fragmentum's monsters into ice; a dazzling sword light severed the immortality of the abominations; an inky,幽光-like light erased "them" one by one...
"Answer me. Do you choose to become '', or do you choose ''..."
A dreamlike voice questioned Wende.
"Heh..."
Looking up at the god above, Wende opened his mouth and silently mouthed four words.
[NICE! This... I didn't understand a single thing, but it feels so epic!]
[Too much information, I have no idea what version this is even for...]
[Is this... 9.1?]
[Something's not right. Ninety percent of this feels ten percent wrong!]
[This PV... aside from the enemies Wende is fighting, why can't I understand anything else?!]
[Actually, there's one enemy I don't recognize either... could it be a new map?!]
[Very likely! That would explain it!]
This PV had very little dialogue; most of the storytelling was done through cinematography to describe Wende's abilities. But even so, most people were left completely bewildered. While many were praising the music and thirsting over Wende's body, they were also tagging their most trusted "moms" in the official comment section.
[@Yue Ma, come analyze this!]
[@Kakaya, have you finished calculating the data yet?!]
[@Sister Guoguo, you there? Go feral for us!]
[@Haihai, you there? What... what is it you do again? Just cry for us then!]
The players were discussing the plot with great enthusiasm, constantly speculating and sharing their wild theories.
Meanwhile, the guide makers and lore analysts were staring with bloodshot eyes, endlessly calculating Wende's data or analyzing his background. They went in and out of the Star Rail databank so many times, they practically turned the Simulated Universe upside down.
The readership of the Star Rail Wiki instantly multiplied several times over, but only Wende's page remained incomplete.
The reason was simple...
When the lucky few who had pulled Wende excitedly leveled him up to 80, they intended to open his character story and read through it, only to be left dumbfounded.
Have you ever seen a character story that was entirely composed of "?????"?
Wende's was...
Among all these content creators, the one in the most pain was undoubtedly Kakaya. He had finally figured it out. Wende was his dad! His biological dad!!! Because no one who wasn't your biological dad would torture you like this!
What kind of decent person is labeled [Destruction] but does the job of an all-rounder?!
You call this [Destruction]? Your stats are this balanced, your abilities are this balanced, why don't you just call yourself [Equilibrium]?!
Seriously, it was sheer torture!
Kakaya collapsed back into his gaming chair in a breakdown, tears of humiliation streaming from the corners of his eyes.
"Yifu! Why must you torment me!!!"
The workload for calculating just Wende alone was comparable to that of seven other characters! And he had to account for various scenarios with different Light Cones, as well as the different applications and combinations of Relic sets. He had already identified eight viable Relic sets for him! Eight sets!! You bastard!
And don't even get him started on team compositions. Just look! With the current character roles in the game, you could comfortably slot Wende into any single one of them. He was the definition of an all-powerful, invincible unit! Although his stats were very average, even less specialized than some 4-star characters, he could do everything!
So, the despairing Kakaya chose not to include team recommendations. His video on Wende alone was already approaching an hour long!
Thankfully, the one silver lining was that Wende could only equip [Destruction] Light Cones. If he could equip others, Kakaya would have thrown in the towel and quit right then and there.
At the same time, Fangege, who was searching for any information related to Wende's PV, was at his wit's end. He had practically memorized the databank and rewatched Wende's previous CGs. While he could glean some useful information and connect it to Wende's story progression and his Eidolons, the statue in the PV and that final voice... he didn't have a single clue!!
Finally, out of options, he could only offer some of his own theories, organize Wende's timeline with the existing information, and present his speculations in the video...
"Is this really a character for Version 1.2? This feels like they just dropped the grand finale of Honkai Star Rail on us! Could this be the newest form of miHoYo-style scam!??"
Fangege scratched his head in confusion, feeling like his brain could no longer keep up with this game company's thought process.