Planarcadia is the next main world in Honkai: Star Rail, and it marks the start of the 4.0 era. It is framed as the playground of Aha, the Aeon of Elation, and as the place where the Astral Express gets pulled into a literal “game” with god‑level stakes.
Planarcadia release window and where it fits in the story
Planarcadia arrives as the core setting of Version 4.0, directly after the Amphoreus storyline. The 4.0 patch is scheduled to begin on February 12, 2026 for North America (UTC‑5), with European and Asia servers rolling over on February 13.
In the Trailblaze timeline, Planarcadia becomes the sixth explorable world after:
- Herta Space Station
- Jarilo‑VI
- The Xianzhou Luofu
- Penacony
- Amphoreus
By the time the Express reaches Planarcadia, the overarching “threat of Destruction” has already forced the cosmos to start aligning around or against the Aeon of Destruction. Planarcadia is positioned as the next escalation point in that conflict, but approached through the lens of Elation rather than outright apocalyptic dread.
What Planarcadia is, in lore terms
Planarcadia is a full world connected to the Path of Elation and presided over by Aha. The Astral Express canonically has history there: it once crashed into Planarcadia, then left, which implies a prior off‑screen encounter. That previous visit is now coming back around as the crew returns under very different circumstances.
The core setup is simple and deliberately absurd. Aha offers the “pursuers of Elation” a reward: join THEIR game and become an “Aeon” for a minute. It is exactly the kind of over‑the‑top premise you would expect from a being whose Path is about manic joy, pranks, and pushing experiences to the point where they stop being comfortable.
Several things follow from that premise:
- Planarcadia is less a stable society and more an ongoing performance where Aha’s followers compete, improvise, and one‑up each other.
- The Express crew is not neutral observers; they are dragged in as players in Aha’s game, with rules defined by an Aeon who treats reality as material for jokes.
- Elation‑aligned factions, especially the Masked Fools and the Mourning Actors, are expected to be deeply embedded in how the world runs.
On the systems side, Planarcadia is also where the game finally leans into Elation as a front‑and‑center combat fantasy, after spending earlier versions defining it in lore and side modes like Simulated Universe.
Aha, Elation, and why this world looks like a funhouse
Aha is one of the few Aeons explicitly described as taking on human form and directly interacting with followers. That already sets expectations: Planarcadia is not a distant shrine to a silent god; it is a stage where the god walks around and laughs at you.
Elation as a Path is about ecstasy, games, jokes, and the joy of subverting expectations. That informs the visual and structural choices for Planarcadia.
- Environments are theatrical and overstated rather than grounded. Preview art shows oversized props, parade floats, and city blocks that look like cardboard cutouts of places the Express has already visited.
- Reality itself is suspect. Earlier worlds like Penacony (dreams) and Amphoreus (mythic reconstruction) already played with “real, but not real” spaces. Planarcadia looks positioned to push that further: a planet that knowingly imitates other planets, almost like a pop‑up book or theme park dedicated to the Trailblazers’ own journey.
- The idea of “becoming an Aeon for a minute” hints at temporary, extreme power spikes or perspective shifts for the player, framed as part of Aha’s prank rather than as a solemn ascension.
In short, Elation’s first major world is deliberately unstable. It is designed to feel entertaining and slightly unhinged, with Aha treating the main cast as both audience and actors.
Planarcadia’s amusement‑park layout and the Belobog connection
The early environment previews make one thing clear: Planarcadia is built like a theme park. You see:
- Large parade balloons and floats, including one clearly styled after Cocolia and the Engine of Creation from Jarilo‑VI.
- Street facades that echo Belobog’s architecture without being real city blocks, as if they were stage sets or cardboard standees.
- Other zones that channel Penacony’s glitzy neon and carnival vibes, but transplanted into daylight.
That visual recycling is not random; it is part of the premise. Within the fiction, Planarcadia seems to contain an amusement park that riffs on the Astral Express’ previous stops. It looks like someone — very likely Masked Fools such as Sparkle and Sampo, and creative types like Giovanni — has been studying the crew’s adventures and building attractions around them.
From a story perspective, this does a few useful things:
- It lets Elation cultists turn the Trailblazer’s past traumas into rides and games, which is exactly the kind of bleak joke Aha would enjoy.
- It puts the Trailblazer into a position where they are effectively walking through parodies of their own memories, an easy setup for commentary on fame, spectacle, and voyeurism.
- It neatly justifies why Belobog, Penacony and other locations seem to “reappear” here without actually revisiting those worlds.
Community speculation has already circled around the idea that specific zones in Planarcadia might be purpose‑built tributes for the Express crew. The Belobog square with a Cocolia balloon, for example, reads as a fan‑made exhibit as much as a tourist trap.
Planarcadia as the first full Elation playground
Up to Amphoreus, every main world has focused on Paths that already had playable rosters: Destruction, Preservation, Harmony, Nihility, Abundance, Erudition, Hunt, and, most recently Remembrance. Elation has been present in flavor text and Simulated Universe, but not as a world‑defining framework.
Planarcadia changes that. It is explicitly tied to Aha and the Path of Elation and is being set up as the moment where Elation becomes a playable fantasy in its own right rather than just a lore curiosity.
That expectation sits in the background of several current debates in the community:
- Whether Elation should become a fully playable Path with its own Light Cones and roster, similar to what happened when Remembrance was introduced.
- How the designers will avoid Remembrance’s early teething problems, where many units revolved around summons but lacked flexible 4‑star Light Cone options.
- How quickly it is wise to add an entirely new Path, given that Remembrance itself still has room to grow with more units and Light Cones.
The only thing that is certain is that Elation’s mechanics and aesthetics are going to be more central than before, and that Planarcadia is the narrative vehicle chosen to do that work.
The six silhouetted Planarcadia characters
Alongside the 3.8 delay compensation announcement, HoYoverse dropped an image of six silhouettes against a Planarcadia backdrop. The shapes line up cleanly with a mixture of existing characters and long‑rumored newcomers tied to 4.0 and beyond.
From left to right, the silhouettes most likely represent:
- Sparkle (new form) – The outline matches Sparkle’s distinctive twin‑pigtail hair and posture, but with a new costume. She is heavily rumored to appear in 4.0 as the first major Elation unit, repositioned as a main DPS instead of the pure Harmony support her original version represents. Current expectations point to a Fire element kit that burns through Skill Points to deliver large bursts, synergizing with Elation‑themed supports.
- Pearl or Yaoguang – The second silhouette wears a long, elegant dress and reads as a refined, possibly high‑status figure. Two names come up repeatedly for this slot: Pearl, who is associated with the IPC project that turned Benzaitengoku into a “reborn” world, and Yaoguang, one of the Xianzhou generals. Both have links that could plausibly draw them into an Elation storyline. The stronger current guess is Pearl, simply because the silhouette leans into luxury rather than martial gear.
- Blade (new version) – The third silhouette is unmistakably Blade: tall, coat flowing, sword at the ready. Rumors point to a 4.x appearance for a new Blade variant, distinct from the current Destruction version. No firm path or element details are attached to this form yet, only that it likely continues his narrative arc in a new role.
- La Mancha – On the right half, the first tall male silhouette strongly resembles Boothill’s gunslinger stance and hat, but with notable differences. That has led to the conclusion that this is La Mancha, the current leader of the Galaxy Rangers. The Rangers already have two break‑oriented members in Boothill and Rappa, so La Mancha is widely expected to be another high‑impact, break‑focused damage dealer, potentially arriving around 4.1.
- Silver Wolf (new form) – The fifth silhouette has Silver Wolf’s hair shape and pose almost one‑to‑one. This lines up with long‑standing leaks suggesting an Erudition‑path Silver Wolf variant is in development as a sub‑DPS, designed to pair especially well with late‑game hypercarries.
- Yae Sakura EXPY – The final silhouette is the easiest to call for anyone familiar with Honkai Impact 3rd: it has Yae Sakura’s fox‑ear hair silhouette and katana. Within Star Rail, she is treated as an “EXPY” (a transplanted version) rather than a direct continuation of the HI3 character. She is expected to be the anniversary‑anchor DPS for the Planarcadia cycle, Ice‑element and Elation‑aligned, with a kit that revolves around chaining multiple turns and stacking self‑buffs.
The spread here is deliberate. Planarcadia is being used not only to debut pure Elation units but also to recontextualize popular existing characters through new forms and to bring in a marquee crossover‑style character in the Yae Sakura EXPY.
What to expect from Planarcadia’s story tone
The last two worlds pushed hard into heavy themes: Penacony dissected dreams, control, and trauma; Amphoreus staged a cosmic myth about cycles of war, prophecy, and remembrance. Planarcadia does not abandon that ambition, but it reframes it as farce.
Some patterns are already clear:
- Meta commentary. By recreating Belobog, Penacony, and likely other worlds as attractions, Planarcadia invites commentary on how the Trailblazer’s journey is being consumed as entertainment inside the universe itself.
- Possession and identity games. The idea that Aha can make someone an “Aeon” temporarily opens obvious doors for segments where the Trailblazer or other cast members act under Aha’s influence, treating their own allies as toys.
- Masked Fools as co‑authors. Characters like Sparkle and Sampo have been explicitly positioned as playwrights and con artists. Planarcadia gives them a full planet’s worth of stage to work with, and Sparkle has already teased that the Trailblazer will be the star of her “next play.”
Players hoping for a breather after Amphoreus’ weighty arcs are likely to get at least some of that: on the surface, Planarcadia is bright, playful, and more obviously comedic. Underneath, it still sits at the heart of the Aeon conflict, and Aha’s sense of humor tends to be cruel as often as it is fun.
For now, Planarcadia is framed as an Aeon‑run amusement park built on top of the Trailblazer’s greatest hits, with Aha inviting everyone to risk becoming a god for a minute. Exactly how that plays mechanically and narratively will only become clear once Version 4.0 lands and the Express doors slide open on the planet of Elation.
