Genshin Impact devs recruiting for new Pokémon-like game

Genshin Impact’s developer, Hoyoverse, is back in the kitchen cooking up a new game, and it looks like it takes some inspiration from Pokémon. The project is part of Hoyoverse’s growing Honkai IP and is hiring across a range of development and testing roles.

The fan translation of the as-yet-unnamed Honkai IP’s job listing describes collecting, training, and evolving “Destined Spirits” in a “tranquil seaside town,” which, at first glance, sounds a lot like Pokémon. However, the battle system is where this concept differs, referencing “auto chess battles.” If you’re unfamiliar with the genre, think of Hearthstone’s Battlegrounds or Riot’s Teamfight Tactics League of Legends game.

This isn’t the first time that Hoyoverse has toyed with monster battling in various forms across its existing games. We’ve seen beetle battling and trading card games in Genshin Impact, Aetherium Wars in Honkai Star Rail, and at the time of writing, a TFT-style minigame is live in Honkai Impact 3rd. It’s clear that the project is still in early development, as the post advertises roles in character concept design, rigging, mission and level planning, and more.

Even though there’s a slight overlap in the cozy, creature-based theme of this new project and Petit Planet, Hoyoverse’s upcoming Animal Crossing-like game, the Reddit OP chibi0108 assures readers that this post is for an entirely new game. You can also see the Chinese characters for Honkai, 崩坏, in the image at the very top, and nothing we’ve seen so far about Petit Planet links back to the Honkai series.

While a Honkai Pokémon-like game sounds intriguing, we hope it’s legally distinct enough that Hoyoverse doesn’t face the legal wrath of Game Freak. And don’t worry, this doesn’t mean that Honkai Star Rail is dying – there are still plenty of Honkai Star Rail events to enjoy during our trip to Amphoreus.