The hype around the so-called ‘metaverse’ continues to consume the daily news cycle, with everyone from Microsoft to Epic wanting to bring the masses into a virtual reality world. With the overwhelming popularity of Genshin Impact, it only seemed like a matter of time before Chinese developer MiHoYo decided to throw its hat in the ring. The company has announced the creation of a new brand, HoYoverse, with an official statement providing some information as to what the team hopes to achieve with this new venture.
“The brand aims to create and deliver an immersive virtual world experience to players worldwide through a variety of entertainment services,” the statement reads. “Our mission in establishing HoYoverse is to create a vast and content-driven virtual world that integrates games, anime, and other diverse types of entertainment, which will provide players with a high level of freedom and immersion. We will continue to focus on long-term operation strategies, consistent technical research, and innovation in a variety of fields, including artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and pipeline construction, to ensure that sufficient content is created to meet the expectations of players worldwide for a virtual world experience.”
HoYoVerse will also be expanding its content production, publishing, and technology research through offices in Montreal, Los Angeles, Singapore, Tokyo, and Seoul. It seems that while the company will continue to be called MiHoYo in China, HoYoVerse is already being used internationally. This goes for the official Genshin Impact website.
The Genshin Impact 2.5 update is expected to release this Wednesday. The patch will add the new character Yae Miko, while Kokomi and Raiden will be the featured characters on their Banner reruns this time around.
Those familiar with MiHoYo will already know that Genshin Impact is available to play on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and mobile devices. The game was incredibly popular in 2021, with the Genshin subreddit becoming the most viewed gaming board for the year. Genshin Impact was also the most discussed game on Twitter in 2021. Despite the continued hype and financial success of their main title, it’s unclear whether the Chinese company’s venture into the metaverse will be at all fruitful.