Genshin Impact Movie Receives a Shocking Update, But What Does it Really Mean?

Summary The highly successful game developer HoYoverse plans to produce its own anime adaptations of Genshin Impact and other games, potentially excluding the previously announced collaboration with ufotable.

With experience in multimedia promotion and government support, HoYoverse aims to turn Shanghai into a hub for film production, signaling a future of Chinese-made adaptations for Genshin and Honkai.

While details are still unclear, HoYoverse has the means and motivation to create feature films based on its popular game properties, potentially reshaping the landscape of anime adaptations in the industry.

Despite earlier promises that anime studio ufotable would adapt the immensely popular video game Genshin Impact, reports about China's film aspirations show that game's developer, HoYoverse, intends to do in-house production for Genshin and its other games. This casts an air of doubt about whether the collaboration will happen at all. Nonetheless, it is natural, perhaps even expected, that China's entertainment juggernaut would handle its own anime.

According to a post on X relaying Chinese news, HoYoverse, formerly miHoYo, expressed strong interest in making animations based on its properties to boost Shanghai's movie industry. While nothing concrete has been announced, it is definitely within the Chinese company's means, as it possesses both experience and funds to make this happen.

If fans see a Genshin movie in the future, it will likely be Chinese-made, and not be handled by a Japanese animation studio such as ufotable.

Related Do You Need to Watch Spy x Family Before Watching Code White? Everything You Need to Know Spy X Family's anime has two seasons out, but new fans should be relieved to hear how much they need to know before seeing the Code: White movie.

The Rise Of HoYoverse And The ufotable Project

Genshin's overwhelming success made funding possible

Close

HoYoverse began operations as the game development company miHoYo in 2011. While it has produced various games, its most successful properties are games in the Genshin and Honkai franchise, such as Genshin Impact, Honkai Impact 3rd, and Honkai: Star Rail. All three games have attained international success and a strong fanbase. Genshin, in particular, a live-service open-world game, massively boosted the company's profits and widespread appeal, and is likely its most popular property. Given its presence in the anime and gaming spheres, it seemed natural for HoYoverse to look into creating an adaptation.

In 2022, HoYoverse announced that ufotable would be adapting Genshin, and revealed an animated trailer depicting scenes from the original game. The studio, famous for producing high-quality adaptations of both Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba and various Fate works, seemed like a match made in heaven. However, both parties have been silent about the project's current progress. Then, compounding the collaboration's uncertainty came a post by "Windvally" (@windwally_quark) a self-described "gamer and Chinese news editor" on X. It alleges to repeat news originally posted on China's WeChat, describing plans to turn Shanghai into a modern hub for film making.

According to Windvally, Shanghai's governmental Film Department spoke with multiple entertainment and gaming businesses, including HoYoverse. The company expressed a desire to "promote the transformation of the company's two original hot-selling game IPs, Genshin Impact and Honkai into films", while the Film Department pledged to "help HoYoverse better participate in making Shanghai into a hub for film creation". In Windvally's words,

"HoYoverse has Shanghai city and Party's backing to develop both Genshin and Honkai into animated films, maybe even several films, in the future."

The reveal of HoYoverse's intent to self-produce anime casts doubt on the older plan involving ufotable. All things considered, it is within HoYoverse's rights and ability to handle its properties. It would be a motivating point of pride for the Chinese company to improve the local industry, and Shanghai would reap the rewards as well - a win-win situation.

While there has been no official confirmation as to what has become of the ufotable collaboration, it wouldn't make sense to split Genshin up into a Japanese anime and Chinese movies. One implication of the radio silence is that HoYoverse is trying to quietly back out of the project in order to announce brand-new movies down the road.

HoYoverse Is More Than Able To Make Films

The company has an experienced and highly effective media department

Close

HoYoverse isn't entering the film business completely blind, either. If anything, it's a logical progression of its business. Though its primary products are games, its live-service models mean all Genshin and Honkai properties are supported by a massive multimedia system designed to promote them. HoYoverse has already dabbled in anime for Honkai Impact 3rd, producing Cooking with Valkyries, a series of comedic shorts. Meanwhile, Genshin's official YouTube channel recently uploaded the short animated film The Song Burning in the Embers, purely dedicated to promoting its next upcoming character. The only step the company has yet taken is full-scale anime production.

That being said, the ufotable adaptation is still possible until an official announcement comes. While it makes logistical sense for HoYoverse to handle a Genshin anime from beginning to end, and therefore cancel an old project and prevent a conflict of interest, nothing is off the table for now. Alternately, while HoYoverse has the means to create feature movies, it is still highly ambitious and still in the stages of study.

These hypothetical movies would presumably follow the game's various arcs. As an open-world game, Genshin is littered with narrative-led quests, though its most important ones are the "Archon Quests", which are major isolated storylines tied to the seven nations of the fictional world of Teyvat. One movie could therefore align with one nation, with a 2-3 hour runtime likely to be sufficient to summarize the quests' events. HoYoverse's other properties, Honkai: Star Rail and Honkai Impact, are also easily translatable to film, as they also have a series of interlinked yet self-contained stories.

​​​​​​​

Whatever final form these game adaptations will take is still up in the air. But what is without doubt is that the company wants movies based on either Genshin and Honkai to happen. Starting with its elaborate in-game cutscenes for Honkai Impact 3rd, before trying its basic but functional comedy spin-off, the original ufotable announcement in 2022 and now the recently released full-fledged short movie, HoYoverse has been toying with the idea for a long time. Only this time, it is receiving governmental backing to make something happen.

Shanghai calls its film project a "three-year plan", meaning there might be quite some time before production begins for even the first movie, and long after the game's seven-nation storyline concludes. But whether it will become a Japanese or Chinese-led production, it seems to be only a matter of time before the extremely well-monied and experienced HoYoverse finally makes its dream Genshin Impact project come true.

Source: Windvally (X account)