Honkai: Star Rail GDC 2025 Interview: Chengnan An Discusses Creation, Community, and More

Designed to be accessible while also being deeply engaging, HoYoverse’s space RPG Honkai: Star Rail has captivated Trailblazers across the galaxy.

During the recent GDC 2025 event in San Francisco, Gamers Heroes spoke with Honkai: Star Rail’s Lead Game Designer Chengnan An to discuss this title’s creation, its rich community, and other elements.

Honkai: Star Rail GDC 2025 Interview: Mr. Chengnan An Discusses Creation, Community, and More

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Gamers Heroes

Honkai: Star Rail’s Trailblazer has been a trailblazer since launch, with lots of fans! I’m sure this has been a true passion project.

How did Honkai: Star Rail come to be?

Chengnan An

There were a lot of elements that went into the creation of Honkai: Star Rail, with it being a part of the bigger Honkai IP.

When we were creating, working on, and operating Honkai Impact 3rd, we realized that this universe actually holds more possibilities for Honkai: Star Rail.

Our company mostly worked on action games; and just like action games, turn-based games have a rich history. They have been popular for decades with a huge fanbase!

We thought to ourselves that if we were to make a turn-based game, we could attract a lot of new players. 

Gamers Heroes

One of the things I love about Honkai: Star Rail is its all-star voice acting across multiple languages.

What’s it been like working with this voice talent?

Chengnan An

Honkai: Star Rail has a huge emphasis on creating memorable characters. 

In order to do that, we we give them specific background stories that are unique to our own world view. Every character is a critical part of this journey throughout the galaxy. 

We are deeply appreciative for every member who has contributed to the Honkai: Star Rail project. It could be our own development teams, and it could be the partners that we have worked with. 

The sound actors are really important, because they help us find the best voice for our characters and creating this immersive experience for our players. 

Gamers Heroes

Honkai: Star Rail features a riveting turn-based combat system that balances accessibility with depth. 

How did this balance come to be?

Chengnan An

In the past, we found out that for most turn based games, they were not live-service games. 

They have really complicated mechanics that are fit for those games, because those were basically a one-time game. 

However, for our game, which is a live-service game, we always have new content throughout the game’s evolvement. 

We don’t want to over-complicate users with new content; I have always wanted the core of this game to be very simple while leaving room for future expansion. 

Take the Ultimate as an example: There are different ways to build up the energy needed in order to release the Ultimate, and there are other attack possibilities such as the Break Attacks and the follow-up attacks. 

Altogether, we created a game that is very simple to start, while leaving the room for releasing new content in the future.

Gamers Heroes

The space fantasy setting of Honkai: Star Rail features tremendous lore – I’d love to know more about the process of designing its world!

Chengnan An

Every new world we go into serves as a stage for a new storyline to unfold. 

On that note, they have to serve the stories well in order to push progression forward and throughout its evolvement.

The end result for for every story casts certain impacts on on the galaxy itself and throughout the Trailblazers journey: They ran into new characters that shaped the progression of the story as big as the galaxy itself. 

We always want to create a new experience and places for the players. In order to do that, we first come up with keywords and then build out a world surrounding those keywords. 

For example, in the creation of Penacony, we came up with the keywords such as “glamor city” and “dreamscape.” 

There was a lot of comprehensive thinking that went into the creation of the new worlds and the new stories. 

Gamers Heroes

Honkai: Star Rail’s community is rich – with plenty of fans!

What has been some of your favorite moments working with the greater Honkai: Star Rail fandom?

Chengnan An

I’m very appreciative for all of the love that we receive from our players! 

We have young colleagues who keep up with the activities happening in the player community.  We also have people that can’t wait to learn about the players feedback after we release new content or have a new event. 

With the player’s feedback and input, we we can have a better understanding of of what the player wants and the content that they are very happy about.

That helps with our own understanding of the game, and also how we want to develop the game long-term in order to always deliver high quality content for our players.

Gamers Heroes

When developing new characters and their kits, where is the primary focus? Is it with the character first, the other party members, or the enemies? 

Chengnan An

As a turn-based strategy game, we deliver new experiences for our players through the different combinations of our characters. That means we we need to be clear on the skills of a certain character pretty early on. 

At the same time, the characters are critical roles that propel the whole story progression forward.

We put in a lot of effort into creating the background stories and artistic expressions for our characters, so that their combat style is best fit for their own stories and personalities. 

For a lot of the characters that are well-loved across the player community, you see the players love them because you see the different aspects of the character combined really well together.

Gamers Heroes

When it comes to both limited time and permanent events in Honkai: Star Rail, which has been your favoite? 

Chengnan An

We want our players to always have access to the complete experience that Honkai star road has to offer no matter when they first start playing our game. And that’s why for the high quality, limited time events, we make them permanent.

Gamers Heroes 

Finally: If you can narrow down to just one character, which Honkai: Star Rail character is your favorite?

Chengnan An

I will say – right now – it is Firefly!

She has this deep, complicated connection with the main character. 

Even though her appearance on Penacony was relatively short, she cast a very deep impression on us. 

She is very sweet and kind, but she’s very strong at the same time, which is why a lot of people love her. 

Her combat style is maybe the exact opposite of her general vibe, because she operates SAM – this giant humanoid robot.

Gamers Heroes 

I really appreciate your heartfelt answers –  thank you for taking the time to speak today.

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