The Aeons of Honkai Star Rail have always been far beyond ordinary mortals. They are conceptual deities whose actions have the potential to reshape entire galaxies–so putting one into a player’s four-person team was always going to be a huge design challenge for the HoYoverse team.
Ahead of the game’s Version 4.7 update, we spoke to lead game designer Chengan An about why Aha, The Aeon of Elation, was chosen as the game’s first playable Aeon. According to Chengan, the decision to bring Aha into the fold came down to their uniquely human disposition, as well as the development team’s unwillingness to break the game’s battle rules. Aha is meant to focus on collaborative synergy rather than racking up extreme damage numbers.
Chengan also noted that Aha’s personality is what makes them the most logical Aeon to bring to the battlefield at this point in the game’s life cycle. “The game’s system is based on the concept of Paths. For Aeons, they are quite abstract concepts for most of the people in the world, but Aha is the most human-like one.”
Chengan continued: “I think our [game’s] battle is way too tiny for Aeons to initiate a war. For Aha, we picked some of the most important factors to bring into the combat design. We certainly don’t want them to destroy the battle with the power of an Aeon, and that kind of design does not fit Aha’s personality as an Aeon of Elation.”
