When Honkai Impact 3rd launched its open beta—
So did Penguin Games.
It really was quite the coincidence: they also released their new mobile game, Desert Showdown, on the same day.
And naturally, with money to burn, Penguin invited a slew of well-known streamers across major platforms to promote Desert Showdown.
For a time, Desert Showdown's hype completely drowned out Honkai Impact 3rd.
Just one hour after launch, downloads for the game hit 500,000!
And the number was still climbing rapidly.
The general manager, with his hands clasped behind his back, walked out to see the beaming faces of the staff. Feigning seriousness, he asked, "How's the situation?"
An employee refreshing the charts turned his screen to show the manager.
"Since most of the earlier-launching games came from smaller companies, even though our game's only just gone live, it's already broken into the top ten of the popularity rankings."
The general manager's face immediately lit up. But still trying to keep up appearances, he held back his smile and offered a 'humble' reply:
"Top ten isn't worth getting excited over. Our goal is number one—this year's best domestic title."
"You're right, sir. We need to aim higher."
The employee refreshed the page again and saw Desert Showdown had climbed yet another rank.
"Oh, right," the general manager paused as he recalled a recent buzz in the industry. "What about that Honkai Impact 3rd? How's it doing?"
He hesitated for a moment. "Probably not too bad either, right? They were making some noise on pilipili."
"Let me check."
The employee scrolled down and found Honkai Impact 3rd sitting at 21st place.
He promptly reported, "Ranked twenty-first—not bad for a small studio. But that whole 3D real-time battle thing… even if it's real, it's probably riddled with bugs. Not even in the same league as us."
The general manager nodded in agreement but felt an odd sense of unease. After thinking for a moment, he added, "Refresh it again. Just in case."
Naturally, the employee complied and refreshed the page.
Sure enough—
Honkai Impact 3rd had vanished from 21st place.
"Wait, really?"
The employee started scrolling down right in front of the general manager, searching for the Honkai Impact 3rd icon.
He scrolled all the way to 50th… still nothing.
He couldn't help but swallow nervously as an absurd thought popped into his mind.
He scrolled back to the top—
And went down the list one by one.
There it was, in 13th place.
"How is this possible?! Already at thirteenth? Did the rankings bug out?!"
The general manager's brows furrowed, his eyes flickering. After a brief pause, he ordered again: "Refresh one more time."
"Again?"
The employee instinctively clicked refresh—and was instantly dumbfounded, eyes wide:
"Holy crap… it's 10th now!"
Meanwhile, Desert Showdown had only reached 9th.
At this rate, Honkai Impact 3rd was going to overtake it in no time.
"This game is insane!"
"Everyone, download Honkai Impact 3rd, right now!"
The general manager's order rippled across the entire office.
"What about our new game?!"
"Screw the new game!"
...
...
Honkai Impact 3rd's meteoric rise on the popularity chart didn't just unsettle Penguin Games—it rattled countless industry veterans.
A rep from the studio previously sitting at 10th tried to keep a brave face and joked to a friend, "Did you see that? A game just whooshed right past me."
Friend: "..."
He had no words, so he simply accompanied the rep to try Honkai Impact 3rd for themselves.
The result? They got hooked. Spent multiple rounds of ¥648. Pulled like crazy in the gacha.
"Lightning Empress—finally pulled her."
The rep paused his spending frenzy. "Watch me tear these Honkai Beasts apart."
"Come on now, you're getting addicted?"
"What, you think Honkai Impact 3rd isn't fun?"
His friend glanced down at his freshly pulled Lightning Empress and Moonbeam Armor and sighed deeply, "It's fun. It's just… a little too fun."
Even these industry veterans—who'd sampled countless games over the years—had fallen under Honkai Impact 3rd's spell.
As for the regular players already tired of monotonous, low-effort games?
They'd be even less able to resist the pull of Honkai Impact 3rd.
"Damn, this game… Honkai Impact 3rd earns my full respect."
After playing it, the two were truly and utterly convinced. They deeply felt that a monstrous new force had emerged in the industry.
And they weren't the only ones. Everyone who'd just watched Honkai Impact 3rd trample over them on the rankings felt exactly the same.
Shortly after—
Others in the gaming world began wondering the same thing:
"Is Honkai Impact 3rd really that good?"
No way, right?
No way... right?
The only thing between skepticism and belief was logging in and trying it.
Call it dimensional suppression—
But Honkai Impact 3rd really felt like it existed on an entirely different plane than other mobile games.
Anyone with real insight could see it clearly—Honkai Impact 3rd was about to steamroll everything in its path.
The entire industry was stunned.
Most found it hard to believe.
They had considered Penguin Games to be unshakable. They had imagined other big studios possibly surpassing Penguin.
But no one—not even the media—had paid any attention to a studio like miHoYo.
Now, here was miHoYo, surging into the top ranks of the charts with almost zero effort.
And at this pace, they were projected to take the top spot in just a day or two, triggering a siphon effect.
If that happened—if the rest of the top 10 couldn't match the player count of the #1 title combined—it'd be a joke.
But still… why miHoYo?
Not that Honkai Impact 3rd wasn't great—but why was miHoYo able to create a game this outstanding?
To outsiders, it might seem miHoYo simply had the technical skill and got lucky with a sudden breakthrough.
But to the insiders, that was nearly impossible.
That's like graduating middle school and skipping straight to college—acing exams better than the professors.
If miHoYo had such a genius, why had they been struggling for so many years?
The real reason wasn't hard to guess.
One man—Hokuto—who had taken out a loan to invest in miHoYo, now entered their radar.
"Joined with funding and creative input? What kind of precision poverty relief is this?"
Those who figured out the truth were all floored.
Single-handedly reversing miHoYo's fate, investing both time and effort to carry a collapsing studio to the top.
In that light…
Hokuto was practically miHoYo's sugar daddy!