Honkai Star Rail is just getting its first big update and leakers already claim to have found over 20 unannounced characters

The Honkai Star Rail 1.1 update time is fast approaching, yet the self-proclaimed leakers and insiders poking around the game are already looking months if not years ahead as they fill out a lineup of over 20 unannounced characters.

Like Genshin Impact, developer Hoyoverse's biggest game, Honkai Star Rail operates on a six-week update schedule, and official channels generally only seed information about the next update or two ahead of time. But also like Genshin, the game's already seen some remarkably far-reaching, albeit unverified, leaks covering playable characters.

One fan-made leak aggregate – which I won't link to directly for obvious reasons – has collated a sheet of 32 characters, backing up older claims that content up until update 2.5 has already been found. For clarity, only seven of these characters have been made official at the time of writing. Assuming these characters are legitimate and the game maintains its pace of adding two or three characters every six weeks, these leaks could cover the next eight to 12 updates, which is over a year of content.

The Honkai Star Rail banner schedule confirms that, after Silver Wolf, Luocha, and Yukong in the impending update, we're due for Kafka and Blade in 1.2 with Luka as a new-four star. The Hoyolab character tracker also shows that Fu Xuan will be a playable Quantum Preservation character, presumably coming in update 1.3 although her status is still "to be confirmed."

That's where the official roster ends, but leaked files, models, and stat sheets, when compared against known NPCs as well as characters seen in Light Cone art or mentioned in Simulated Universe lore, seem to reveal dozens of newcomers.

Of course, even if these sources are accurate, it's too early to say how these characters may look or play if and when they do come to Honkai Star Rail given how dramatically designs can change during development. Even so, the sheer scope of Honkai Star Rail leaks is staggering given how new the game is, even compared to Genshin's famously leaky history.

Hoyoverse has repeatedly cracked down on Genshin Impact leaks in the past, even subpoenaing the identity of leakers.

Austin has been a game journalist for 12 years, having freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree. He's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize his position is a cover for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a lot of news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.