Can we give the story writing back to the HI3 team?
‼️ IT INCLUDES SPOILERS FROM THE AQ ‼️
I’m not someone who complains about gameplay, gacha rates, or meta. It’s the first time I share my thoughts (or complain) about the game. I play GI only for the lore and the main story. That’s why I find the recent direction of the narrative genuinely disappointing.
There was a rumor back when Sumeru released that its entire AQ had been written by the Honkai Impact 3rd writers. I don’t know if it was ever officially confirmed, but honestly? We can tell. Sumeru remains one of the most well-written arcs in the game: coherent themes, meaningful dialogue, strong pacing, solid plot twists, and a narrative that actually holds together from beginning to end. Fontaine also maintained a good level of quality, especially in terms of atmosphere and emotional weight.
Natlan, however, felt rushed and poorly handled from start to finish. It genuinely feels like the story was rewritten midway, and the result is a fragmented, shallow narrative. The official teaser promised secrets, war, and major revelations, yet what we got was a very generic conflict with no real emotional stakes. “Nation of war” was repeated endlessly, but without depth. There was no meaningful buildup, no attachment to the characters, no compelling motivations, and no conflict (even between characters) that truly mattered. Nothing landed.
As for Nod-Krai, it honestly feels unnecessary. It wasn’t even present in the official teaser. I think its inclusion is an attempt to postpone Snezhnaya and to adding more characters for monetization purposes. And there is nothing wrong with that. But why do it in such a careless way? Why release a whole patch centered on the idea that Columbina becoming a moon goddess? That could have worked perfectly as an interlude quest… And honestly it would have been better.
And once again, everything leads back to Dottore. Dottore is responsible for nearly every major thing and catastrophe in the game. Diluc? Dottore. Collei? Dottore. The dragon attacking Mondstadt (forgot its name)? Dottore. Artificial god? Dottore. Another artificial god? Also Dottore. Is he the devil himself oooorrrr??? Because this level of narrative centralization kills intrigue. There is nothing wrong with introducing other antagonists. In fact, it’s necessary. When everything traces back to a single character, the story feels small and predictable.
On top of that, watching a high-ranking Fatui Harbinger get defeated by the power of friendship and emotional awakening is not compelling storytelling. It’s lazy. These characters are meant to be terrifying, ideological, dangerous. Their defeats should be complex, morally challenging, or at least logically earned. Not resolved through vague emotional climmax and team up of some characters. Like, I personally can’t imagine Zhongli getting killed by some random people teaming up their powers? So why was Dottore who canonlly is as powerful as gods, and maybe even more in the AQ was defeated that easily?
And then there’s the Traveler.
The Traveler has zero character development since the beginning of the game, and it’s annoying. Every major character around him grows, changes, evolves, but the traveler remains static. Worse, he often behave like a teenager. Isn’t he canonically over 500 years old? Who has traveled across worlds, witnessed civilizations rise and fall, experienced loss, war, and betrayal? And yet he speaks and react like someone who was born yesterday who knows nothing about nothing.
It completely breaks immersion. A character with that much experience should speak with maturity, restraint, and depth. Instead, we get shallow dialogue and emotional responses that feel wildly disconnected from their supposed history.
The characters are no longer as interesting or layered as they once were. The world feels less alive. The intrigue is gone. The main story feels like it’s being dragged forward without passion or vision.
If the current team is out of ideas, then honestly hand the narrative back to the Honkai writers, or at least to the teams who worked on the other nations (except natlan)...
I’m not someone who complains about gameplay, gacha rates, or meta. It’s the first time I share my thoughts (or complain) about the game. I play GI only for the lore and the main story. That’s why I find the recent direction of the narrative genuinely disappointing.
There was a rumor back when Sumeru released that its entire AQ had been written by the Honkai Impact 3rd writers. I don’t know if it was ever officially confirmed, but honestly? We can tell. Sumeru remains one of the most well-written arcs in the game: coherent themes, meaningful dialogue, strong pacing, solid plot twists, and a narrative that actually holds together from beginning to end. Fontaine also maintained a good level of quality, especially in terms of atmosphere and emotional weight.
Natlan, however, felt rushed and poorly handled from start to finish. It genuinely feels like the story was rewritten midway, and the result is a fragmented, shallow narrative. The official teaser promised secrets, war, and major revelations, yet what we got was a very generic conflict with no real emotional stakes. “Nation of war” was repeated endlessly, but without depth. There was no meaningful buildup, no attachment to the characters, no compelling motivations, and no conflict (even between characters) that truly mattered. Nothing landed.
As for Nod-Krai, it honestly feels unnecessary. It wasn’t even present in the official teaser. I think its inclusion is an attempt to postpone Snezhnaya and to adding more characters for monetization purposes. And there is nothing wrong with that. But why do it in such a careless way? Why release a whole patch centered on the idea that Columbina becoming a moon goddess? That could have worked perfectly as an interlude quest… And honestly it would have been better.
And once again, everything leads back to Dottore. Dottore is responsible for nearly every major thing and catastrophe in the game. Diluc? Dottore. Collei? Dottore. The dragon attacking Mondstadt (forgot its name)? Dottore. Artificial god? Dottore. Another artificial god? Also Dottore. Is he the devil himself oooorrrr??? Because this level of narrative centralization kills intrigue. There is nothing wrong with introducing other antagonists. In fact, it’s necessary. When everything traces back to a single character, the story feels small and predictable.
On top of that, watching a high-ranking Fatui Harbinger get defeated by the power of friendship and emotional awakening is not compelling storytelling. It’s lazy. These characters are meant to be terrifying, ideological, dangerous. Their defeats should be complex, morally challenging, or at least logically earned. Not resolved through vague emotional climmax and team up of some characters. Like, I personally can’t imagine Zhongli getting killed by some random people teaming up their powers? So why was Dottore who canonlly is as powerful as gods, and maybe even more in the AQ was defeated that easily?
And then there’s the Traveler.
The Traveler has zero character development since the beginning of the game, and it’s annoying. Every major character around him grows, changes, evolves, but the traveler remains static. Worse, he often behave like a teenager. Isn’t he canonically over 500 years old? Who has traveled across worlds, witnessed civilizations rise and fall, experienced loss, war, and betrayal? And yet he speaks and react like someone who was born yesterday who knows nothing about nothing.
It completely breaks immersion. A character with that much experience should speak with maturity, restraint, and depth. Instead, we get shallow dialogue and emotional responses that feel wildly disconnected from their supposed history.
The characters are no longer as interesting or layered as they once were. The world feels less alive. The intrigue is gone. The main story feels like it’s being dragged forward without passion or vision.
If the current team is out of ideas, then honestly hand the narrative back to the Honkai writers, or at least to the teams who worked on the other nations (except natlan)...
Commentaires
Reset the clock.
Natlan definitely didn't feel rushed or rewritten to me. That's just your opinion. There was definitely a lot of war and emotional weight in the story, but Natlan was more about how people live despite war.
Nod-Krai wasn't in the official teaser but was always likely meant to be a part of the game, as a part of Snezhnaya. They just decided to make it longer around Sumeru's release, because they realised there were a lot more loose ends that needed tying up than they'd anticipated.
The Doctor was always meant to become a false god. He was always meant to be a heretic, since that's what Zandik literally means.
Meticulous planning = the power of friendship?? The power of friendship is when the villain is defeated impossibly because of a joint effort. That's not what happened. It was thanks to Sandrone's World-Formula and the resurrection of Columbina. The friendship thing served as an antithesis to Dottore's ideology.
The Traveler has character development, though? What are you talking about. The Traveler said in the Archon Quest that Teyvat is home to them now, and they love their friends. They never would have said that back in Inazuma.
All of your criticisms seem more based on vibes than logic.
Not really. the 4th Natlan archon quest was the only “war” fought. Granted it was pretty good, but there should’ve been more from the beginning. The entire storyline for natlan has many plot holes while most of the cast lacks depth and feel flat. There really wasn’t much emotional weight.
Do us all a favor and keep that emotional and biased opinion of yours to yourself
There was no ass pulling here. Sandrome outsmarted the doc at the cost of her own body, and he was cooked the moment full powered Columbina returns cuz she is a real goddess.
Power of friendship would be situations where a character gets a mysterious power up after some monologue about friends believing in them or some shit, but that was def not what happened here.
He’s far from responsible for every single bad thing that’s happened despite how you’re trying to frame it as. He had no involvement in the events of Liyue, Inazuma or Fontaine. He’s presented as someone who seeks knowledge almost to a fanatical degree and even early on is mentioned to have a desire towards godlike powers. We only learn more in Nodkrai more of his motivations. Granted they’re self serving and born more from narcissism, but they’re there.
> On top of that, watching a high-ranking Fatui Harbinger get defeated by the power of friendship and emotional awakening is not compelling storytelling. It’s lazy. These characters are meant to be terrifying, ideological, dangerous. Their defeats should be complex, morally challenging, or at least logically earned. Not resolved through vague emotional climmax and team up of some characters. Like, I personally can’t imagine Zhongli getting killed by some random people teaming up their powers? So why was Dottore who canonlly is as powerful as gods, and maybe even more in the AQ was defeated that easily?
He WASN’T defeated easily. He was leading everyone around by the nose the entire time because he was so far above them in powers and abilities. He was literally fucking around during the battle because he believed he couldn’t lose, that he knew every possible plan they had (and he wasn’t exactly wrong, he even correctly deduced their goal to bring back Columbina despite never being around to hear their conversations on the matter).
He ultimately was defeated, not because of “the power of friendship” like you’re whining about, but because Sandrone had managed to fool Dottore who believed she was who had the formula and was completing it (having managed to hide the fact that Pulonia had the formula and was completing most of it). At the cost of her life, she stalled Dottore long enough to allow the formula to reach the key point where Varka and Arlechinno could finish the rest and open the way for Columbina to return.
Columbina isn’t representing power of friendship. There’s no unearned gain of power through emotions or some speech. She is a literal goddess herself, and gained more power from her sisters before returning to Teyvat. She was at that moment on par, if not stronger than Dottore.
> Who has traveled across worlds, witnessed civilizations rise and fall, experienced loss, war, and betrayal? And yet he speaks and react like someone who was born yesterday who knows nothing about nothing.
Did you forget the Traveler lost portions of their memory? Not insignificant portions?
LMAO, Temu Arrancar def ain't all that.
He is been "alive" for over five thousand years, and we know he can live as long as Citlali (because they say so), but they spent of of their time in cryogenic stasis. Even humans would "live" thousands of years in a suspended state.
The sibling is over 500 years old, but there is a theory that the sibling isn't even real.