Highlights
- The upcoming 1.4 update for Honkai: Star Rail will have significantly fewer Star Rail Special Passes, reducing the chances of earning a 5-star character for free-to-play players.
- These special passes are earned through routine content and do not refresh once obtained. Players can estimate the number of passes they can earn during each patch window.
- It takes 90 pulls to guarantee a 5-star character, making the limited number of pulls in 1.4 frustrating for free-to-play players who may miss out on meaningful content.
An early estimate of how many Star Rail Special Passes will be made available in Honkai: Star Rail‘s 1.4 update has some players worried about their chances of earning a 5-star character. Each update for Honkai: Star Rail provides a finite amount of earnable premium Star Rail passes to free-to-play players. Dedicated players can use these passes for a near-guaranteed 5-star pull, but only with intense dedication. That may no longer be the case in Honkai: Star Rail after 1.4, however.
What’s important to understand is that Star Rail Special Passes, which grant players a pull from limited-time banners called Warps, are only available in limited quantity to free-to-play players. They’re earned through routine content like daily training, story content completion, and special events and promotions. If a player misses an opportunity to collect a premium Star Rail Pass, it doesn’t come back. Once a player earns a pass through specific content, it doesn’t refresh. That’s how players are able to measure how many passes they can earn during any given Honkai: Star Rail patch window.
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An analysis of the upcoming 1.4 update for Honkai: Star Rail has concluded that there will be substantially fewer pulls available to players than previous updates. They estimate that just 76 pulls will be available during 1.4. That’s a reduction of over 40 pulls compared to 1.3, largely due to the lack of pulls available through “Permanent Content” or story completion. It’s even lower than patch 1.1, which had a previous low of 93.5 average pulls made available.
What makes the lower number of pulls especially frustrating is that, even in an ideal situation, it takes 90 pulls to get a guaranteed 5-star character through Honkai: Star Rail‘s bad luck protection system. In practice, it often takes much more than that because the system is only triggered after certain circumstances are met. But that just goes to show that 76 pulls mean a lot of free-to-play Honkai: Star Rail players will miss out on some meaningful content.
It’s worth noting that the 1.4 season of Honkai: Star Rail is shorter than usual. On average, players will still receive as many weekly pulls as 1.1 or 1.2. The content will still expire that much earlier, though, so average pulls per week isn’t a particularly productive metric. There’s also a possibility that players will get more pulls than estimated because HoYoVerse could hand out pulls via the mailbox and web events if it wanted to.
Few are going to be surprised that a gacha game developer like HoYoVerse is going to make decisions that push players toward spending money. Even if it isn’t surprising, that doesn’t mean it’s any less frustrating for dedicated players. All anyone can hope is that this isn’t the start of a trend and that 1.5 provides enough opportunities for free pulls so that every Honkai player can get what they’re excited to earn.
Honkai: Star Rail is available now on PC and mobile devices, and launches on PS5 starting October 11.
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