Honkai: Star Rail doubled its monthly revenue with strong update 2.0
Update 2.0 for Honkai: Star Rail may have been a dramatic roller coaster for players with deaths and betrayals sending them up and down the emotional spectrum, but for HoYoverse the newest version of the anime RPG was simply one thing: a resounding success.
According to GachaRevenue, which bases its stats on data from SensorTower, Honkai: Star Rail essentially doubled its worldwide revenue on iOS and Android in February 2024 compared to the previous month. In China, where HoYoverse makes the majority of its money, it was able to equal Genshin Impact in terms of mobile revenue with the two games sharing first place in the ranking of gacha games.
"Yes, Dawei, I think we'll continue swimming in cash for the time being."
HoYoverse
From a global perspective, Genshin Impact still brought in a bit more revenue, so it was able to retain its place on the gacha kingdom’s throne despite the massive gains its younger sibling was able to make. Together, the two games brought HoYoverse an estimated $175.6 million USD in revenue in February 2024 – which still leaves out whatever money the PC and console versions of the titles made. That’s bound to be another boatload of cash so large that other studios can only dream about it.
Rounding out the podium in February 2024 is a surprise hit called Love and Deepscape, an otome game with a combat system that is primarily targeting women as its player base.
February has been a good month for other well-known gacha titles as well: Arknights and Blue Archive both increased their revenues, while Reverse: 1999 essentially was able to continue its trajectory from the previous month. Among the losers – and I use that word loosely, as they still made millions of dollars – are big names such as Fate/Grand Order and Nikke: Goddess of Victory from the makers of upcoming PS5 game Stellar Blade.
With Honkai: Star Rail having highly anticipated characters like Sparkle and Acheron on offer in the March 2024 period, while Genshin Impact update 4.5 only has a single brand-new character in Chiori to compete, we may be looking at a temporary swap on the throne this coming month. Not that it matters for HoYoverse: The Shanghai-based company will win either way.
