Highlights
- HoYoverse shares old concept art of Welt Yang, revealing the character's evolution from Honkai Impact 3rd to Honkai: Star Rail.
- Mr. Welt's appearance has gone through four different renditions, with the final design showcasing his pragmatism and casual style.
- Honkai: Star Rail gives Welt more screen time and enhanced capabilities, making teams featuring him some of the best-rounded squads in the game.
HoYoverse has recently taken online to share some old concept art of Welt Yang, showcasing the gradual evolution of the popular character from Honkai Impact 3rd. The final Welt Yang design was later reused for Honkai: Star Rail, the newest installment in the Chinese developer's Honkai series which hit the market back in April.
Honkai Impact 3rd is the third-ever game from Genshin Impact developer HoYoverse, formerly known as miHoYo, releasing in China in late 2016 before making its way to the West 18 months later. Honkai Impact 3rd shares some characters with Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, HoYoverse's latest game.
One of those recurring faces belongs to Welt Yang, also known as Mr. Welt, who appears in both Honkai Impact 3rd and Honkai: Star Rail. In a recent blog post, HoYoverse revealed how Mr. Welt's current appearance is actually his fourth rendition to date, while also sharing the previous three iterations of the character. The studio's initial take on Welt was primarily geared toward highlighting his maturity and cool-headedness, which resulted in a predominantly black attire that's significantly darker compared to his final rendition.
HoYoverse's first Welt revision was aiming to highlight his elegance, which is why the company's designers introduced some color variety to his outfit and gave him a longer, more formal jacket. The following redesign made his coat darker, in addition to pairing it with a gray scarf. The latter accessory ended up in the final design, which saw HoYoverse once again replace Welt's jacket, this time with a sleek gray coat. The Genshin Impact developer said that it ultimately realized it also wanted to convey the character's pragmatism through some casual pieces of clothing instead of going all-in on formal attire signifying his maturity.
While Welt's backstory was thoroughly explored in the Honkai Impact 3rd manga, he doesn't appear in the RPG itself until mid-game. Whether due to the character's popularity or some other reason, HoYoverse opted to provide Welt with more screen time in its latest game, in addition to boosting his overall capabilities. As a result, Honkai: Star Rail teams featuring Welt happen to be some of the best-rounded squads that players can currently put together.
While playing Honkai Impact 3rd will help players catch many callbacks in Honkai: Star Rail, doing so is far from a requirement for enjoying HoYoverse's latest game. Not only is Honkai: Star Rail not a direct sequel, but it also scraps the ARPG gameplay loop of its predecessor in favor of turn-based combat, thus offering a significantly different experience.
Honkai Impact 3rd and Honkai: Star Rail are available now on PC and mobile devices.
Source: HoYoLab