Genshin and Honkai Star Rail need more four-stars to give my wallet a break

Welcome, one and all, it’s time for another look at Hoyoverse’s gacha games and another clear divide – where are all the four-star characters? The recent releases in Genshin Impact, Zenless Zone Zero, and especially Honkai Star Rail have all been high rarity, and we’re wondering why.

Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail had 14 and 13 four-star characters available at launch respectively, but new additions have dwindled since then, to the point where Star Rail only released three new four-stars in the entire 2.x patch run, and Genshin has just two Natlan options so far.

As Honkai Star Rail now enters its third version, it’s still coming up very short on four-star options. We know of several new characters coming to the 3.0 and 3.1 Honkai Star Rail banners, and they’re all five-star rarity. Considering there’s a new summon mechanic, this is kind of wild – sure, we get the Trailblazer’s summon-centric path for free, but surely a four-star option instead of just the five-star Honkai Star Rail Aglaea would be wise for the free-to-play-ers? Especially as she’s in the second half.

Every new region in Genshin Impact, for instance, gives away a four-star unit to showcase the area’s mechanics. Fontaine gave us Lynette, Natlan gave us Kachina, and Sumeru gave us Collei. But Honkai said no, deal with it, you want summons? Pull the five-star. Little do they know that my crack team of Jing Yuan and Sunday will pull me through without needing Aglaea.

Within the 1.x patches of Hoyoverse’s two biggest gacha games, the company gave us at least four extra four stars in each. Zenless Zone Zero, on the other hand, gave us… one. Please Hoyo, I’ve more than MC6’d all of my A-Ranks and it’s getting really boring having the same few on repeat on all the ZZZ banners.

There have been back-to-back patches with double S-rank agent releases. That’s ten new S-ranks, with two more coming, and one singular A-rank in the mix – good old ZZZ Seth is holding up the fort alongside the nine A-ranks that debuted at the game’s release.

Here’s a handy table to show the amounts of four stars at release, and in subsequent versions of the Hoyo games for my fellow visual learners:

It’s not like people don’t pull for four stars. Honkai Star Rail’s Moze has a lot of fans, and I’m guilty of paying [redacted] GBP to get just one copy of Genshin Impact’s Candace when she debuted on Cyno’s banner early in the Sumeru updates. What did I get? About 700 Kuki Shinobu’s, three Cyno’s, and one copy of Candace five minutes before the banner ended. I paid far too much, but I’d do it again for another four-star I like. Perhaps Genshin Impact’s Ifa when he hopefully releases soon.

Need I mention Genshin Impact’s Kaveh? One of the best-designed four-star characters across all of Hoyo’s games, with an entire event dedicated to him? Sadly, his kit didn’t live up to my own expectations, but I still pulled to try and C6 him as the man’s personality, style, and story relevance were way above the four-star mark. Everyone I know who plays the game pulled just for him.

This proves that Hoyoverse can absolutely cook up excellent four stars alongside what are considered middle-of-the-rad characters like Genshin Impact’s Sethos, the 500th electro DPS. But, for players who don’t want to spend a lot on a five-star, he’s probably their saving grace.

I’m going to unleash the salt here for a second – there are certain characters like Genshin Impact’s Sigewinne or Emilie and – dare I say it – Honkai Star Rail’s Topaz, Bailu, or Yanqing should have, perhaps, been four stars instead of five. Though two of these are standard banner five-stars in Honkai, there still could have been some four-stars instead of only five for a long time.

On the flip side, there are definitely some four-stars that should have been five-stars like Genshin Impact’s Xiangling and Ororon thanks to their kit and story relevance respectively, but we really don’t need any more higher rarities right now.

Now, I’m not saying companies should flood the roster with second-rate four-stars. I’m also not saying they should flood the roster with Xiangling-level four-stars, either – but just a couple more options would be nice, especially in Zenless Zone Zero. It’s probably difficult to come up with and balance kits that are useful or inventive without being on par or better than the limited five stars, but there’s definitely room for some more sub-DPS or decent support characters, even if they’re situational. Will we get an A-rank healer for those who don’t go for Astra Yao in ZZZ? When will we get a four-star in HSR to provide us with a summon?

It just seems like the amount of four-star releases is continuing to go down, and I’m not sure why, even when thinking of profit-chasing – as mentioned above, it’s not like people don’t pull specifically for four-stars, and they’re often harder to get than five-stars due to a lack of a guarantee. Sure, five stars are great, but having a roster that’s 50/50 or even more than half-full of them seems a little unfair. Plus, a couple of four-stars now and then could truly help the five-stars feel more special. Please, won’t somebody think of our wallets?

Either way, as we impatiently await the next A-rank, don’t forget to grab the new Zenless Zone Zero codes, Genshin Impact codes, and Honkai Star Rail codes to add some more pulls to your stash.