History VideoGame / HonkaiStarRail

** The element every playable character is designated in gameplay is sometimes not accurate to their actual powers and abilities, whether visually or story-wise. For example, Blade and Black Swan are designated as Wind characters in gameplay, but their red colored slashes and purple colored magic, respectively, does not resemble Wind elemental attacks in any way.

** The game's answer to character classes are "Paths", which currently number seven and correspond to an Aeon's philosophy and a particular playstyle.

* BigFishInABiggerOcean: Welt Yang came from the world of ''Videogame/HonkaiImpact3rd''. He was one of the "Herrschers", the "harbingers of Honkai" who are meant to be {{Apocalypse Maiden}}s but managed to conquer the Honkai influence and use his power to protect humanity; specifically, his power as "Herrscher of Reason" is to [[ImaginationBasedSuperpower recreate anything he can understand with his mind]]. Back in his homeworld, he was hailed as one of its greatest and most experienced heroes; however, in the setting of ''Star Rail'', the cosmology steps up to cover more worlds, as well as the universe-level powers such as the "Aeons". While Welt is still quite powerful, he's no longer unique or exceptional compared to the many other beings in the universe.

* GlobalCurrency: [[PlayingWithATrope Played with.]] Credits are the galactic standard and used for just about anything, but each planet/spaceship has their own unique local currency, like Hertareum for the Herta Space Station, Shields for Jarilo-VI, and Strale for the Xianzhou Luofu, which can be spent on valuable items from their local shops.

* TrailersAlwaysSpoil: The "WHITE NIGHT" trailer promoting Penacony features a shot where [[spoiler:Aventurine wears a battlesuit for an apparent boss fight]]. It also depicts the duel between [[spoiler:Acheron and Sam]].

* FantasyCounterpartCulture: Jarilo-VI, specifically Belobog, bears a strong industrialization-era Russian cultural aesthetic, while the Xianzhou Alliance can best be described as "Space Imperial China". Penacony takes heavily from the US during TheRoaring20s in terms of aesthetic and music.

* FissionMailed: The Laurel Crown of Planar Shifts is a special Curio in the Simulated Universe that only triggers if you lose to any non-boss battle. Upon activation it will not kick you out of Simulated Universe and the battle will instead be counted as a win, with all of your characters being revived and healed to full HP. The Curio can only be activated once before breaking.

* ElementalPowers: Apart from Paths, all playable characters fall under one of seven damage types: Physical, [[PlayingWithFire Fire]], [[AnIcePerson Ice]], [[BlowYouAway Wind]], [[ShockAndAwe Lightning]], Quantum, and Imaginary.

* ElementalPowers: Apart from Paths, all playable characters fall under one of seven damage types: [[NonElemental Physical]], [[PlayingWithFire Fire]], [[AnIcePerson Ice]], [[BlowYouAway Wind]], [[ShockAndAwe Lightning]], Quantum, and Imaginary.

* TheGreatOffscreenWar: According to the game's backstory, there have no less than four devastating wars across the galaxy. Two of them have ended, while the other two are still ongoing.
** The Mecha Wars and the Swarm Disaster were two of the wars that had ended many Amber Eons ago. The Mecha Wars came to an end when Rupert had died of unknown circumstances, while the Swarm Disaster came to an end when the Aeon of the Propagation, Tayzzyronth, was killed by the other Aeons.
** The war between the IPC and the Antimatter Legion, as well as the war between the Abominations of the Abundance and the Xianzhou Alliance are the wars that are still ongoing during the Trailblazer's journey. Both wars are due to how the Aeon that the four factions follow oppose one another, though the latter is more one sided, as it is unknown if Yoashi is aware of Lan's hunt for them.

* EasterEgg: Staying on the character select screen for the Trailblazer at the start of the game for an excessive amount of time will cue additional voice lines of Silver Wolf nagging Kafka to hurry up and pick one.

** Ruan Mei's trailer features a light jade logo with added ''sakura'' petals.

* ContinuityLockout: While for the most part this is {{averted|trope}}, as many of the references to Videogame/HonkaiImpact3rd are either kept as [[MythologyGag Mythology Gags]] or are explained within the game like the Imaginary Tree, there are some of instances in which previous knowledge of that game can be necessary to understand what's happening.
** First of all is Welt's immediate distrust of Luocha in his Character Mission, which requires knowledge about Otto Apocalypse, one of the main villains of "Honkai Impact 3rd", and of Void Archives, who appears in the fast flashback when Welt looks at Luocha's picture.
** On the other hand there's Acheron, whose backstory is implied to have been a combination of the events of the Previous and Current Era of Honkai Impact 3rd's Earth as shown in her trailer "Kyoden: A Cleave Across the Transient World", with her being an explicit AlternateSelf to that game's Raiden Mei unlike the Raiden Shogun of Videogame/GenshinImpact. [[spoiler:Then there's the implict mention of Kevin Kaslana by Welt during the mission "Cat Among Pigeons", who Acheron acknowledges as a similar person to Hakuhatsu Ki, the man that speaks in her trailer and who she killed on her own.]]