In the entire Honkai: Star Rail character roster, there is no one more intriguing than Welt Yang. Having traveled across dimensions from the world of Honkai Impact 3rd, I believe any future crossover rests on his shoulders.
My train of thought kicked off earlier today as I was perusing the Star Rail subreddit. Stumbling across a thread created by user Keydown_605 on Oct. 23, it was surprising to find out just how many people still hadn’t connected the dots regarding Mr. Yang. To make a very long story short, this man is actually from the universe of another game created by miHoYo—Impact 3rd.
There, he is known as Joachim Nokianvirtanen and is practically the most important driving force in that timeline. We won’t go into too many spoilers here should you wish to discover the story of Impact 3rd for yourself, but some reactions to the Reddit discussion will give you a good idea as to how popular he is.
“I played HI3 for three years,” ComeHereToBrazil said, “I still find it hard to believe that this badass as F**K man is just a cool grandpa in HSR.” This should give you some insight into Welt’s life now compared to where he was before. He’s hardly a bit player, heavily involved in everything regarding the Luofu Act. Yet, in a world currently beset with less peril, he commands authority through total calm.
Taking a gander at secondary reading material, we come to understand that Welt is on the Astral Express of his own volition. He arrives in the Star Rail universe through unknown means, joined by the ulterior Void Archives. Strange name, I know, but it makes a little more sense when you understand that he is an AI inhabiting a body. A body that looks eerily like another Star Rail alumni, Luocha. More on that later.
It is implied that, eventually, Welt would love to return home. With the recent unveiling of Honkai Impact 3rd Part 2, we may just see this event unfold in an incredible crossover. As we reported on last month, Part 2 will be a complete overhaul of the Impact 3rd experience; bringing its combat mechanics more in line with Genshin Impact. It is also set to be a re-introduction of the game to Western audiences, who can jump straight into a story set years after the retroactively named first part.
For this huge undertaking to be successful, miHoYo’s writing staff need to have everything in order. We’re not anywhere close to a point where it would make sense for Welt to be written out of Star Rail, but it could happen within the next two years. If the theories of Luocha and Void Archives being one and the same are true, then we will surely need to have the pair meet again.
As of writing, Luocha is on his way to the Xuling—another of the Xianzhou’s flagships. Welt is soon to be on his way to Penacony with the Astral Express. We’re going to need some solid leaps to find these two in a room together again.
Another issue to tackle would be the underlying animosity some Star Rail players have for the Impact 3rd community. Some of this was on display in Keydown’s thread which, given the topic of discussion, was always going to happen. “I understand that a lot of people here play HI3,” CelestialDrive said, “but the amount of HI3 derailing on every single HSR thread is really f*****g disheartening.” Though an exaggeration, it is fair to say that Celestial’s frustrations (and others that share their view) will only be heightened should a more concrete link be established between the two Hoyoverse games.
The developers could go about a crossover by only focusing on Impact 3rd, with Star Rail not receiving any special banners or events. This would surely be a mistake. At the end of the day, miHoYo wants everybody to play both of these great games and ultimately spend money on them. With a whole contingent of Star Rail players not having touched its spiritual prequel, I see this as the best way to generate interest outside of their regular marketing material.
Welt would be front and center of this hypothetical campaign. Whether it happens or not is something we’ll all find out together.
