Honkai: Star Rail Plays Their Hand in Revealing 1.6 Upcoming Character Banners From Genius Society

Fans didn’t need to wait for the Honkai: Star Rail livestream for the drip marketing to begin for the 1.6 update. Now, we’ve got the next few characters slated for the banners in the future patch, so who are we looking at, and who do you need?

Honkai: Star Rail – Upcoming Character Banners in the 1.6 Update

First up looks to be Ruan Mei, a member of the Genius Society and a name you may be quite familiar with already if you’ve invested time aplenty in the Simulated Universe. Alongside Herta, Screwllum, and Stephen, Ruan Mei is one of the contributors to the expansion and experimentation of the Simulated Universe as we know it today. Gifted with one of the best Blessings in the Simulated Universe, Ruan Mei’s Occurrence Card, World’s Slice, will gift players with a full branch of Blessings from one of the Paths offered by Ruan Mei. 

Gameplay-wise, we can look forward to her kit being an Ice Harmony character. So in the future, she may just have good synergy with your DPS characters by providing energy and some sort of damage boost. Not yet is much confirmed about the details of her kit in battle, but we’re just one member away from having the full team behind Simulated Universe. Unless Honkai: Star Rail decides to make Stephen playable or something—

Honkai: Star Rail has dropped quite a few names in the last few patches, so who is expected to be in the second phase of the 1.6 update? None other than a man called Dr. Ratio who has been name-dropped a few times in documents found throughout the game, but now we finally have a face to the name. Seemingly to be a co-worker of Ruan Mei, Dr. Ratio belongs to a faction called the Intelligentsia Guild, a group of researchers much like the Genius Society. However, the group is separate and considered to be lesser than the Genius Society since their studies and recruitment vary in diversity rather than the exclusivity of the Genius Society. 1.6 so far looks to be a battle of the wits when it comes around. Perhaps there will even be an event centered around the dispute between the character’s interactions but time will have yet to tell. 

Dr. Ratio will be an Imaginary character who follows the Path of the Hunt. While there are no details about what his kit will look like, we do know that characters of the Hunt excel as single-target damage. The Imaginary pool of characters grows and now the availability of characters no longer seems to be as secluded or rare for any element. 

Not to be forgotten, we have a Four-Star character who will likely be debuting alongside Dr. Ratio in the second half of the banner as per tradition. 1.6 will finally be featuring Xueyi, one of the Ten-Lords Commission and someone we’ve seen quite a bit in the story thus far. Not only did the Trailblazer come across her initially in the first arc of the Xianzhou Luofu, but she has made recurring appearances in later Companion Quests. As one of the Lords who overlooks Detention, Xueyi’s job is to target and capture criminals aboard the Luofu and bring them in to be charged. 

Although a young woman in appearance, Xueyi is a puppet made by the Ten-Lords Commission to carry out the duties in her branch, but not much is known about where the inspirations behind her image came from. However, there are quite a few haunting Light Cones in Honkai: Star Rail that elude to a dark and tragic past. If you’re curious, be sure to check out Under the Blue Sky (Destruction) and Return to Darkness (The Hunt). As excited as her appearance on the banner will be, Xueyi will also be a Quantum Destruction character, further adding to a rare pool of characters and now with a wider range of diversity between Five-stars and Four-Stars. Lynx and Qingque will no longer be alone, you may even be able to put together a Free-to-Play Mono team if you have even one Quantum Five-Star.

1.6 is already shaping up to be an exciting patch for Honkai: Star Rail, but before you get ahead of yourself, don’t forget the characters that will be debuting in 1.5. Hopefully, the game gives us plenty of rewards because it’s getting harder and harder to choose who to pull for!