Honkai Star Rail 2.0 – release date, Black Swan Banner, and start time

The Honkai Star Rail 2.0 release date has been confirmed by HoYoverse in a new live stream, confirming all the new five-star character banners, events, and other additions coming to the gacha game.

Honkai Star Rail 2.0 will bring a huge expansion to the game in the shape of a brand new world, Penacony, to explore. Alongside Penacony, Star Rail 2.0 will have several new characters to pull for.

If you want to know more about Honkai Star Rail, check out our available Star Rail promo codes and our guide covering the best builds for Kafka. Now, on to the Honkai Star Rail 2.0 release date.

Honkai Star Rail 2.0 release date

Honkai Star Rail 2.0 will release on Tuesday, February 6. The latest update, titled If One Dreams At Midnight, will add the much-anticipated Penacony. Meanwhile, beyond the introduction of new maps, storylines, and companions, patch 2.0 will bring new system optimisations and quality-of-life changes.

This 2.0 release date was confirmed during the latest livestream that showed off the new content coming in Honkai Star Rail version 2.0. Now that we’ve had the Honkai Star Rail 2.0 release confirmed, we can start thinking about who we want to pull for in the 2.0 Banners.

Honkai Star Rail 2.0 Banners – Black Swan, Sparkle, and Misha

The Honkai Star Rail 2.0 Banners will feature Black Swan and Sparkle. HoYoverse has confirmed three new characters that will be released with version 2.0. Black Swan, Sparkle, and Misha are all making their debut in 2.0. These are the three characters confirmed in the Honkai Star Rail 2.0 Banners:

• Black Swan (5*) Nihility
• Sparkle (5*) Harmony
• Misha (4*) Destruction

There will also be re-run Banners in Honkai Star Rail 2.0, featuring Dan Heng • Imbibitor Lunae and Jing Yuan respectively appearing in the first and second phases of Version 2.0’s event warp.

• 2.0 Banner phase one: Black Swan and Dan Heng Imbibitor Lunae – February 6, 2024
• 2.0 Banner phase two: Sparkle and Jing Yuan – February 26, 2024

Black Swan

• Path – Nihility
• Element – Wind
• Rarity – 5*

Black Swan will make her debut in the story of Penacony. A new 5-star character, she is not only an outstanding Nihility character, she also has an element of Wind. As the first Memokeeper to formally appear in the game, Black Swan has a strong desire to explore the memories of others. When Black Swan uses Basic ATKs or Skills to attack enemies in combat, there is a certain probability of applying a special stackable DoT effect called Arcana to the enemies. Under the Arcana state, Black Swan triggers additional effects based on the number of Arcana stacks the target is under. 

Sparkle

• Path – Harmony
• Element – Quantum
• Rarity – 5*

Sparkle is also set to join your team, being the first five-star Quantum character who follows the path of Harmony. In battles, Sparkle’s presence will provide an additional increase to the team’s maximum Skill Point pool. Moreover, her unique Skill not only boosts the CRIT DMG of a designated teammate but also Advance Forwards that teammate’s Action, providing more strategic options in battle. To top it all off, Sparkle’s Ultimate restores several Skill Points for the team after using it. Sparkle not only lets you have more Skill Points, but she can also restore them with ease.

Misha

• Path – Destruction
• Element – Ice
• Rarity – 4*

Misha is also making his debut in patch 2.0. As a 4-star character, Misha works as the doorman at The Reverie and is on the path of Destruction. He has synergy with Sparkle, in that the more Skill Points the team uses in battle, the more DMG Misha’s Ultimate will inflict to the enemy. Additionally, when Misha uses his Ultimate, there is a chance to Freeze the target, making him a reliable companion worth entrusting.

Honkai Star Rail 2.0 start time

Honkai Star Rail 2.0 will start at 4am BST on February 6. This is a day earlier than Honkai updates typically land on, coming out on a Tuesday instead of Wednesday.

Honkai 2.0 will start at 11 pm EDT / 10 pm CDT / 8 pm PDT for those in the US. If everything goes to plan following the typical maintenance schedule, the servers should come back online at this time in the UK. Elsewhere in the world, the Honkai Star Rail start time is:

Due to time differences, Honkai Star Rail 2.0 start times will be different depending on your region. This means some servers, such as Asia, will have access to the new patch first.

Honkai Star Rail 2.0 new features

With patch 2.0, Star Raill will get some nifty new quality-of-life updates to the core systems. Firstly, a new feature called Fate’s Atlas is launched to document the events and plot lines that occur in each world in chronological order, helping you follow the somewhat convoluted narrative and keep track of the various happenings. 

Relic enhancement will also get an update, making it easier to hit each threshold. This is similar to an update Genshin recently received, making the whole levelling experience much more streamlined. This new version also introduces Relic set recommendations tailored for different characters, which basically suggests the best Relic set for each character.

That’s everything we know at the moment about the Honkai Star Rail 2.0 release and banners. The current 1.6 patch is still around for a bit longer, so make sure you get everything you want done before 2.0 launches.