Honkai Impact 3rd

Honkai Impact 3rd is an action role-playing game where players control a team of up to three characters, known as Valkyries (previously localized as Valkyrjur), in real-time battles. The combat follows a rock-paper-scissors-style system in which the game's three main combat types, Biologic, Psychic, and Mecha, are each effective against one of the other two, while two further types, Quantum and Imaginary, are largely unaffected by the rest. Players can swap characters mid-battle to chain attacks for greater effect, and can dodge incoming attacks by timing an evade button press, with a perfectly timed dodge briefly freezing time to allow a powerful counterattack.

Valkyries gain new skills as they level up, primarily through completing story quests, and can be further strengthened with weapons and Stigmata. Stigmata are equippable items represented as non-playable characters that grant buffs, such as attack or health. Equipping a matching set of two or three Stigmata grants additional bonuses, though a higher individual star rating is generally considered more valuable than completing a set. New Valkyries, weapons, and Stigmata are primarily obtained through Supply, the game's gacha system.

Honkai Impact 3rd is set in an alternate version of Earth plagued by catastrophes caused by the Honkai. The Honkai is generally depicted as a destructive force associated with a mysterious being known as the Will of Honkai. The Honkai can corrupt humans, create various monsters, and grant certain individuals powerful abilities known as Authorities, turning them into Herrschers. Previous Era humans crafted weapons known as Divine Keys from Herrscher cores, allowing their users to access a portion of a Herrscher's power to fight the Honkai.

The emergence of a Herrscher can cause a major Honkai disaster known as an Eruption. The Honkai is a cyclical phenomenon that repeatedly threatens civilizations as they develop.

The production team for Honkai Impact 3rd grew from a 7-person start to employing over 200 employees in 2018. miHoYo offers small amounts of in-game currency to users that fill out surveys about their experience in the game, allowing the game's developers to adjust future events and tweak the game. As a result, Honkai Impact 3rd is under a continuous-update system, patching bug fixes and changing or adding content multiple times per year. The game has had many significant changes since launch, including rewriting the entire first two chapters of the story in a December 2018 update.

The developers stated that their decision to make Honkai Impact 3rd be in the free-to-play monetization system (rather than a premium, or paid, game) with the purpose of making the game more available to players. Devil May Cry and Bayonetta significantly affected the game makers' ideas for the fight system of Honkai Impact 3rd.