Welcome! This is my video essay on the psychological phenomenon, fear of missing out (FOMO) in Honkai Star: Rail. While its status as a gacha game inherently utilizes FOMO as a business model, I explore the specific ways Honkai further facilities it through it's game design choices and manipulation of time.
This project was created primarily for Honkai Star: Rail players, so I do not explain the basic mechanics of the game related to summoning, acquiring jades, and how character rarities work. Regardless, I hope the video remains enjoyable and entertaining to those who have never played it.
Below you will find a YouTube link to my video, a works cited page, and a transcript of my video.
I think it’s fairly reasonable to say video gaming as a whole has gotten more expensive in recent years. Playing a game used to be a singular purchase for $50, $60 or even $20, but now even with the $70 increase, it has also turned into a potentially hundred-dollar endeavor. Despite many of these games being free to download, they urge you to spend. They flash in game currencies and beautiful cosmetic skins at you faster than you can comprehend, and it works. Sometimes.
One of the most prevalent free to play game genres right now that can end up costing hundreds are gacha games. What used to be a niche genre of games featuring PNGs of anime waifus set in a simple turn-based system, these games have evolved into full blown mirrors of huge hits like the exploration heavy The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild or the tactical and flashy Persona 5.
I myself play gacha games quite a bit. I started with Genshin back in 2020, and started Honkai in 2023, mainly because of Gallagher. I mean he’s really... just... wow. I wanted to take a closer look at Honkai Star: Rail however, because despite me playing it for three less years, I have probably spent more money on it. I’m probably not the only one in this boat too, Honkai is a gacha game that lands consistently in the top ten or even five of the highest grossing mobile (gacha) games. While it uses the standard gacha formula of rotating banners and limited time characters, HoYoverse has found a very specific way to max out their sales, so lets see how.
Like other gacha games, Honkai Star: Rail primarily relies on FOMO as a business model. FOMO, aka fear of missing out, according to scholars Andy Hakim and Ahmad Salman Farid, is when “individuals experience anxiety over the possibility of missing an exclusive opportunity” and can lead to impulsive buying behavior. The most basic form this FOMO model can be seen in Honkai is the fact that banners are time limited.
Now this isn’t exactly unique to Honkai, but other aspects about the game lead to an increase of impulsive buying behavior out of fear and anxiety. To start, let’s look at the rhythm Honkai releases team archetypes.
Let’s start with The Herta’s team, a queen of AoE DPS and probably the best DPS character right now. The Herta was released on January 15, 2025, and she lacked a “premium team” of characters that fully synergized with her. It’s worth noting that premium in this case, refers to five stars only, and perfectly synergized means the character is tailor made for The Herta. For instance, four-star Herta is not bad with The Herta, but in single target scenarios and with three and under enemies, she’s not the greatest. It is also worth noting that during Herta’s first banner, Lingsha and Jade were running right alongside her, both of them being considered her best teammates at the time.
Ideally, the release of her best in slot teammates should be spaced out enough to give you time to save your jades. I think a good example of proper banner pacing is between Acheron and her best support Jiaoqiu, a whole three versions apart during their first banners, which equates to about four and a half months. But Honkai rarely gives you this luxury of time anymore.
Tribbie, The Herta’s best support, was released on February 26, 2025, only 21 days after the last day of The Hertas banner. And while The Herta herself is fairly F2P friendly, with a kit not eidolon or lightcone dependent, Tribbie, and especially E1 Tribbie, is a huge boost for her damage and a significant upgrade compared to her other supports.
Additionally, if a player had missed out on The Herta’s erudition sub-dps, Jade, they would ideally summon for Anaxa, whose coming out on April 30th. Which in of itself isn’t a terrible thing. It’s a fairly long window of time for players to save up, but enough to guarantee him and maybe his lightcone if they summoned for Tribbie E1? I personally don’t think it’s enough time.
Teams in Honkai are largely dependent on you having all elements to make it work. While there are suitable four-star alternatives, they come rarely and are hardly effective. Many teams in Honkai Star: Rail simply don’t function without certain characters. The Break archetype for instance is reliant on Ruan Mei, Follow Up relies on Robin, and so on.
I think a pretty offensive example of this manipulation of time is when Firefly was released right alongside Ruan Mei.
Firefly, without a doubt, is pretty reliant on Ruan Mei’s buff. She isn’t unusable, but you can definitely feel a significant drop in performance and comfort.
Another pretty good example of this are the banners released in version 2.5, which featured Robin, Feixiao, Kafka, and Black Swan all rerunning at the same time. Kafka without Black Swan and Black Swan without Kafka is like an Oreo without cream. Kafka cookies are pretty good, but she’s missing her other half.
And this is all purposeful of course. By HoYoverse stringing these characters dependent on each other so close together, “The presence of a ticking clock reinforces the idea that hesitation leads to loss, prompting consumers to prioritize speed over rational decision-making.”
Loss in this case referring to having an incomplete team, and the dissatisfaction that comes along with it. And rational decision-making being not swiping, simply because it’s not a necessity. This banner was also released during a time when Feixiao was easily able to clear MoC, further incentivizing you to pull for her, especially if you were struggling with clearing at the time.
And of course, the endgame modes themselves are FOMO. While the rewards aren’t super substantive, it does feel pretty terrible if you’re not able to clear within the time allotted. Because you need every little jade you can scrape up for a new character, the game creates a sense of ”perceived urgency rather than necessity.”
And even with Acheron and Jiaoqiu having had a reasonable gap back during their first runs, in version 3.2, they are both running at the same time, alongside what many consider to be the games biggest star right now, Castorice.
Speaking of Castorice, let's look at how the animation quality for certain characters leads to further FOMO. I’ve decided to compare Acheron and Castorice, since they both transform the battlefield and were released exactly one year apart from each other.
Yeah, crazy difference. Castorice is currently the only character in the entire game with a special battle entrance screen, and her spectacle blows most other characters out of the water.
And while they both do transform the battlefield, Acheron’s only lasts until the end of her ultimate, while Castorice persists during the duration of the dragon being summoned.
And of course I had to mention Castorices global revive. A account wide mechanic that basically just revives any dead party member regardless if she’s in your team or not. No other character right now has a global buff, so this is a huge contributor to the FOMO that Castorice facilitates.
But, what is the point to all of this? Well, despite me knowing how Honkai facilitates FOMO, it still works on me. I literally pulled Castorice. I don’t spend an astronomical amount of money on Honkai, but $20 – $25 a month for a free to play game is a bit much. The random nature of summoning and its similarities to loot boxes and other forms of gambling can lead to extremely harmful practices for some.
Scholar Daniel L. King and Paul H. Delfrabbro asserts that “Predatory monetization schemes typically involve in-game purchasing systems that disguise or withhold the true long-term cost of the activity until players are already financially and psychologically committed.”
This psychological commitment and “entrapment” are why me and other players may find it so difficult to quit, even if the game is harming our wallets. With the increasingly flashier and more overpowered characters coming out with personalities we love, “spending more and more money on loot boxes may have a ‘sunk cost’ effect that serves to justify continued expenditure.”
While I do love the game, I am overly cautious of how HoYoverse continues to utilize greedy business practices. But at the end of the day, if the endgame modes become impossible to clear with only old characters, at least I’ll still have Gallagher.