miHoYo (Chinese: 米哈游 Mǐhāyóu) is a Chinese video game development and publishing studio based in Shanghai, China. The company is the creator of various video games including Honkai: Star Rail. Other popular titles include Honkai Impact 3rd, Genshin Impact, and Zenless Zone Zero.
In addition to games, miHoYo has created a variety of products such as animations, comics, music, novels, and merchandise. The original music for miHoYo's media is produced by its own music studio HOYO-MiX, led by music director Cai "Zoe" Jinhan (蔡近翰).
Since February 2022, miHoYo's subsidiary Cognosphere Pte. Ltd. d/b/a HoYoverse is responsible for all of the company's global operations outside of the Chinese Mainland.
History[]
Something New, Something Exciting, Something Out of Imagination
—miHoYo's R&D Philosophy
miHoYo was founded in 2011[1] by three computer science students from Shanghai Jiao Tong University: Liu Wei (刘伟), also known as Da Wei (大伟哥) or Forrest Liu;[2] Cai Haoyu (蔡浩宇) and Luo Yuhao (罗宇皓). The three shared an interest for technology and ACG (abbreviation of "anime, comics, and games") culture. CiCi as an undergraduate student joined the group and later became the lead artist for Honkai Impact 3rd; Tianwen joined as the company's first programmer.[3]
Timeline[]
- In 2011, miHoYo released their first title FlyMe2theMoon on the iOS platform as an indie developer.
- In 2012, miHoYo Co., Ltd. was registered. The first game released after the company founding was Houkai Gakuen on iOS platform. (Because of its 32-bit kernel, Honkai Gakuen is now hidden on App Store after iOS 12.)
- In 2014, they released Houkai Gakuen 2 (which serves as a replacement of original Houkai Gakuen).
- The project of Honkai Impact 3rd was started in the same year with a 7-person team.[4]
- Since then, they have seen success releasing anime-style games that primarily appealed to mobile gamers. The majority of their early titles were successful within Asia, however they would not reach global success until the release of Honkai Impact 3rd.[5]
- On October 14, 2016, Honkai Impact 3rd was released in China.
- It was the first miHoYo game released worldwide. Other servers were publicly opened months later: February 22, 2017, for Japan; May 18, 2017, for Taiwan; October 17, 2017, for Korea; November 1, 2017, for South East Asia; March 28, 2018, for North America and Europe.
- On May 31, 2019, Cooking with Valkyries, the anime adaption of Honkai Impact 3rd, was announced, and broadcasted starting from June 28, 2019.
- In June 2019, Genshin Impact was announced, and had its first Closed Beta Test on June 21.
- In July 2019, Tears of Themis was announced with its first PV on July 29.
- On December 18, 2019, on the NVIDIA GTC China 2019 conference, Huang Renxun disclosed miHoYo's development of a third-person shooter game code-named "Project X," which will be released in 2021 and supports ray tracing technology.
- On July 30, 2020, Tears of Themis was released.
- On August 4, 2020, N0va Desktop, miHoYo's first dynamic desktop wallpaper software, was released on PC.
- On September 15, 2020, Genshin Impact was released with PC technical open test, and was simultaneously released globally on September 28.
- Genshin Impact is one of their most popular games with 17 million downloads within release week and makes $6 million a day.[6]
- On December 1, 2020, N0va Desktop was released on Android.
- On October 5, 2021, Honkai: Star Rail was announced, and had its first Closed Beta Test on October 27.
- On February 14, 2022, the HoYoverse brand was unveiled as the trade name of Cognosphere and all of miHoYo's operations outside of the Chinese Mainland were moved under this brand, with global-facing mihoyo.com subdomains redirected to hoyoverse.com subdomains (but not the subdomains of the Chinese Mainland).[7]
Games Developed[]
| Year | Title | Genre | Platform | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| English | Chinese | Japanese | |||
| 2011 | FlyMe2theMoon[8] | RPG,
Paid |
iOS | ||
| 2012 | Zombiegal Kawaii | 崩坏学园 Bēnghuài Xuéyuán |
崩壊学園 Houkai Gakuen |
Shooter,
Paid |
iOS |
| 2014 | Houkai Gakuen 2 (Guns Girl Z) |
崩坏学园2 Bēnghuài Xuéyuán 2 |
崩壊学園2 Houkai Gakuen 2 |
Shooter,
Gacha |
iOS, Android |
| 2016 | Honkai Impact 3rd | 崩坏3 Bēnghuài 3 |
崩壊3rd Houkai 3rd |
Hack'n'Slash, Action RPG,
Gacha |
iOS, Android, PC |
| 2020 | Genshin Impact | 原神 Yuánshén |
原神 Genshin |
Action RPG,
Gacha |
iOS, Android, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 |
| 2020 | Tears of Themis | 未定事件簿 Wèidìng Shìjiànbù |
未定事件簿 Mitei Jikenbo |
Adventure,
Gacha |
iOS, Android |
| 2023 | Honkai: Star Rail | 崩坏：星穹铁道 Bēnghuài: Xīngqióng Tiědào |
崩壊：スターレイル Houkai: Sutaa Reiru |
Turn-based Strategy RPG,
Gacha |
iOS, Android, PC, PlayStation 5 |
| 2024 | Zenless Zone Zero | 绝区零 Jué Qū Líng |
ゼンレスゾーンゼロ Zenresu Zoon Zero |
Action RPG,
Rogue-like, Gacha |
iOS, Android,
PC |
Trivia[]
- Liu Wei personally explained the origin of the name miHoYo at the 2019 campus recruitment of Zhejiang University, that:[9]
- H and Y are the initial letters of the names of the co-founders, 蔡浩宇 Cài Hàoyǔ and 罗宇皓 Luó Yǔhào (while Liu Wei himself is the mascot);
- HoYo is because they thought the popular companies' names all have two letter O, e.g., Google, Microsoft, Facebook;
- mi is because that the name HoYo has already been registered by others, and they had to add more letters; they thus borrowed the mi from otaku's favorite — Hatsune Miku, and finally the name became miHoYo.
References[]
- ↑ miHoYo - About Us
- ↑ The Adventure Comes to PlayStation®4 on September 28
- ↑ "Honkai Impact 3rd x Neon Genesis Evangelion" Interview - "Pursuit of Dreams"
- ↑ 每日游戏菌 (September 11, 2018). 崩坏3上线两年 老玩家们的评价集锦. bilibili.
- ↑ Ye, Josh (December 5, 2018). "This hit anime schoolgirl game looks Japanese, but it's from China". South China Morning Post.
- ↑ Chan, Khee Hoon (March 3, 2021). "Mobile games have quietly exploded". Polygon.
- ↑ "Presenting the New Brand HoYoverse: Aiming to Provide Global Players With an Immersive Virtual World Experience". HoYoverse.
- ↑ Who Exactly is Genshin Impact Developer miHoYo?, accessed November 22, 2020.
- ↑ 【米哈游校招2019】大伟哥现场宣讲！杭州浙大校园招聘会. bilibili.