Players will be able to freely switch between the original and enhanced versions of the buffed characters.

Honkai: Star Rail developer HoYoverse has confirmed that Version 1.x 5-star characters Kafka, Blade, Silver Wolf, and Jingliu will be getting buffed through an upcoming “Enhanced Mode” with the release of the game's upcoming Version 3.4 update in early July. The developer revealed the upcoming character buffs, as well as a handful of other quality-of-life changes, in an official Developer Radio blog post on Monday (16 June).

HoYoverse first revealed that they were working on buffing some of the older 5-star characters back in February in order to make them more competitive with their more modern counterparts. While the developer did not say much on the matter back then, HoYoverse has finally confirmed that Kafka, Blade, Silver Wolf, and Jingliu will be the characters getting buffed.

Those buffs will come in the form of an Enhanced Mode, which includes adjustments to those characters' abilities, Traces, and eidolons. 

The blog post revealed three changes to Silver Wolf's abilities as an example. First, her ultimate has been changed from a single-target attack into an area-of-effect ability. Second, her skill has been made to prioritise implanting the target enemy with an elemental weakness corresponding to the first character in a player's party lineup, instead of being a random selection. Finally, one of Silver Wolf's major Traces has apparently been changed to make her regenerate energy at the start of battle and her every turn. 

HoYoverse did not reveal the buffs for the other characters in the blog post, but did say that more details will be made known in the Version 3.4 preview livestream on Friday (20 June).

In addition, the Enhanced Modes for Kafka, Blade, Silver Wolf, and Jingliu were also revealed to be toggleable. Enhanced Mode for those characters will be toggled on by default starting in Version 3.4, and players can then toggle it off in order to restore their abilities to their original state.

Honkai: Star Rail to get Skip Dialogue, Story Summary and Recap features

Aside from those long-awaited character buffs, Honkai: Star Rail Version 3.4 will also feature quality-of-life changes that aims to give players more freedom in how they want to experience the game's story. Starting in Version 3.4, Skip Dialogue, Story Summary, and Story Recap features will be available for players.

The Skip Dialogue feature will allow players to skip story conversations, which have been broken into segments skippable by paragraph. When skipping, players will be shown a quick summary of key events and characters featured in the segment they want to skip, so they still know what's going on even if they don't want to read or listen to game's (at times admittedly long-winded) character dialogue.

The Skip Dialogue feature will apply to in Trailblaze Missions, Trailblaze Continuances, Companion Missions, and Adventure Missions, but will not apply to cutscenes or exploration. Story Summaries for skipped dialogues will be available in the applicable instances for the worlds of Amphoreus, Jarilo-VI, and the Herta Space Station in Version 3.4. The rest will then be added later in Version 3.6.

Finally, the Story Recap feature will allow players to re-experience completed Trailblaze Missions, Trailblaze Continuances, and Companion Missions in order to view specific cutscenes or cinematics.

The Story Recap function will also allow players to experience different dialogue choices from their original playthroughs, or have the dialogue options be freely chosen for them. The combat and exploration segments of past missions cannot be replayed, however.

With the announcement of the upcoming character buffs and quality-of-life changes, Honkai: Star Rail Version 3.4 is looking to be one of the game's biggest updates in its Version 3.x cycle. Version 3.4 will see Phainon become available as a playable character, finally letting players add the most prominent figure in Amphoreus' story so far to their rosters.

In addition, the Honkai: Star Rail x Fate stay/night collaboration event will also take place during Version 3.4. The collab event will go live on 11 July, featuring two crossover 5-star characters in Saber and Archer, as well as a Fate/stay night in-game event that will see the Holy Grail War expand into a new battlefield in Penacony. Players can claim Archer for free, while Saber will be available to pull in a Special Collaboration Warp during the event.

Honkai: Star Rail Version 3.4 is expected to release on 2 July, and will run until August.