Honkai: Star Rail will soon receive Version 3.8. Many players think the Penacony arc has ended, but Version 3.8 is expected to challenge that. It adds new characters, quests, and events, plus multiple system optimizations, bringing a richer story and new gameplay challenges.
Developed by HoYoverse, HSR is a turn-based gacha RPG praised for high-quality visuals and a unique space-fantasy setting. On release, it topped the App Store free charts in 113+ countries and regions, and as of 2025 it still has a large, highly active global player base.
Learning about Version 3.8 early helps players plan character development and resource use ahead of upcoming banners, reducing losses from impulsive pulls or inefficient materials. Using available information, including details revealed in the December 5, 2025 Special Program, this article highlights Version 3.8 to help Trailblazers prepare before release.
Estimated Global Release Time for Honkai: Star Rail Version 3.8
Based on currently available information, the estimated global release schedule for Honkai: Star Rail (HSR) Version 3.8 is as follows:
| Server | Release Date |
| North America | December 16, 2025 |
| Europe | December 17, 2025 |
| Asia | December 17, 2025 |
The above dates are based on official announcements. Please note that players will only be able to enter the game after server maintenance has been completed and the update officially goes live.
The New Character in HSR 3.8
The Dahlia, a brand-new 5★ character introduced in Version 3.8, is set to make her debut in the upcoming update.
Dahlia’s Background and Character Profile
The Dahlia is a key figure from the Penacony setting. She wields the Fire element and follows the Path of Nihility. Her true name is Constance, and she is known to be a member of the Ever-Flame Mansion / Annihilation Gang, an affiliation that underscores her complex and enigmatic identity.
While HoYoverse has yet to fully reveal her backstory, existing information indicates that The Dahlia has long played a role in maintaining dreamscape order.She is considered one of the core figures responsible for ensuring the stable operation of Penacony’s dream system. She functions like a “tuner” within the world of dreams—preventing suppressed, distorted, or uncontrollable memories from spilling over into reality.
With the arrival of Version 3.8, the narrative will return its focus to the Penacony storyline. The Dahlia’s appearance in the story signals that the mysterious truths surrounding dreams and memories are far from over—and that deeper revelations are yet to come.
Dahlia’s Skills
During the official Special Program on December 5, Dahlia’s core gameplay mechanics were confirmed. She is a Nihility support character focused on Break mechanics, rather than a traditional main damage dealer. Her kit is designed around increasing enemies’ Toughness depletion efficiency, enhancing Break damage, and creating more consistent and reliable Break windows.
In combat, Dahlia accelerates enemies’ entry into the Broken state and boosts total post-Break damage, enabling Break-focused teams to maintain a smoother, more consistent combat rhythm. Her synergy with Firefly is particularly strong, as Firefly’s burst damage relies heavily on Break windows. By providing a stable and sustained setup for these windows, Dahlia makes the duo widely regarded as a core pairing of Version 3.8.
Overall, Dahlia’s abilities emphasize utility and tempo control rather than raw damage output. She is well suited for roles such as accelerating Breaks, weakening enemies, and setting up burst phases, significantly increasing the team’s overall damage efficiency.
Dahlia’s Team Role
In terms of team composition, Dahlia has a clearly defined role. She functions as a core support in Break-focused teams, helping main damage dealers create Break windows and amplifying burst damage after an enemy’s Toughness is depleted. Whether facing high-Toughness enemies in PvE content, challenging dungeon bosses, or stages that require repeated Break cycles, Dahlia can greatly enhance overall team efficiency.
While Dahlia herself is not a primary source of damage, her ability to accelerate Toughness depletion and enhance Break damage allows main DPS characters—particularly those who rely on Break-based burst, such as Firefly—to reach a much higher performance ceiling.
What’s New in Version 3.8?
Version 3.8 significantly expands the game’s overall content. In addition to new characters and story updates, gameplay systems and map content have also been enhanced. With an extended version cycle of approximately eight weeks, players will have more time to explore and develop their characters.
New Exploration Area: Dream of Gnawing Oak
Following the Version 3.8 update, a brand-new dreamscape area added to the Penacony storyline—Dream of Gnawing Oak—will officially become available. This new zone continues Penacony’s signature visual theme of overlapping consciousness and dreams, but presents a darker atmosphere with greater depth and complexity compared to previous areas.
Key Features of the New Exploration Area:
- Multi-layered Spatial Structure: The map consists of multiple spatial layers formed by different states of consciousness. These layers are interconnected through mechanisms or dream passages, allowing players to transition between them.
- Enhanced Interactivity: The new area offers a higher degree of environmental interaction. Players must carefully observe their surroundings and progress by operating mechanisms or triggering events, rather than simply following a linear path.
- Rich Side Events: This is not a one-time quest location. While exploring, players will encounter intermittent narrative interactions, including short dream vignettes and hidden events that can be triggered along the way, resulting in a denser and more engaging exploration pace.
Overall, the new map experience leans more toward puzzle-solving and light exploration. While the difficulty remains moderate, the level of detail and content density is noticeably higher than in previous versions.
New Boss: Harbinger of Death：Swarm Nightmare
The new boss introduced in Version 3.8, Harbinger of Death: Swarm Nightmare, is a high-difficulty enemy designed around the concept of dreamscape disorder. Serving as the primary mid-version challenge in Version 3.8, its core mechanics emphasize suppression, Toughness depletion, and tempo control, requiring strong survivability and well-managed team rotations.
Boss Mechanics Overview:
- High Toughness Value: The boss possesses exceptionally high Toughness, significantly increasing the demand for Toughness depletion and encouraging the use of Break-focused team compositions.
- Phase-Based Strategy Shifts: The boss changes its attack patterns across different phases, incorporating mechanics such as summoned reinforcements, area suppression effects, and persistent Damage over Time (DoT).
- Dream Suppression Field: During specific turns, the boss may enhance its own resistances or weaken player attributes, requiring careful timing and output planning to maintain combat momentum.
Break-oriented teams gain a clear advantage in this encounter, while compositions that rely on long charge times or sustained damage must plan their rotations and pacing with greater precision.
New Gameplay Features
While Version 3.8 does not introduce major changes to the core gameplay framework, it significantly reduces repetitive actions when players participate in events or repeatedly challenge the same modes.
- Team Configuration Optimization: After the update, players can more easily save and manage different Path setups within the team interface. When switching characters or team compositions, players no longer need to repeatedly reconfigure their setups, making event farming and high-difficulty content more streamlined and less demanding.
- New Mechanics in Divergent Universe: The Divergent Universe mode introduces new enemy types, random events, and special combat rules, including HP Overload and Back Row Enemies. These additions enhance replayability and bring greater variety to repeated runs.
These improvements are most apparent during actual gameplay, allowing players to earn materials more efficiently with less effort, resulting in a more relaxed overall experience.
Beyond new content, Version 3.8 brings several quality-of-life upgrades. Improved UI and event guidance now feature clearer task prompts, event access, and reward displays, reducing time spent searching for information. The version cycle has also been extended to about eight weeks, giving players more flexibility in events, quests, and Warp planning, while allowing ample time to fully experience the new content.
Version 3.8 Event Overview
New Main Story Quest: Finality Mission
Version 3.8 introduces a new main story chapter centered on the truth behind Penacony’s dream system. This chapter leads players through an entirely new questline that delves deep into the system’s hidden structure, resolving previously unexplained narrative threads！It stands as the most pivotal story content of Version 3.8, inviting players to reexamine the core theme of memory and truth.
In Finality Mission, players will enter a more unstable and distorted dreamscape, experiencing scene transitions shaped by multiple overlapping layers of consciousness, and confronting enemies and mechanisms formed from fragmented memories, emotional projections, and mental corruption.
In addition, exploration content related to the new area Dream of Gnawing Oak will be unlocked alongside the main story. For players who are highly interested in the game’s lore and narrative, Finality Mission is without question one of the most anticipated highlights of Version 3.8.
More Limited-Time Gameplay Events
Following this update, more resource-focused events will be introduced, making character development more convenient for players.
- Treasure Hunt: A limited-time event with a strong emphasis on exploration. Gameplay includes navigating dream fragments, triggering minor events, and light puzzle-solving elements. Completing exploration objectives rewards Stellar Jades, EXP materials, and select event-exclusive items. The overall difficulty is moderate, but the sense of exploration is more pronounced.
- Garden of Plenty: The classic resource event returns. During the event, drop rates for character upgrade materials and Relic materials are increased, making it a reliable option for steady team progression and resource replenishment.
- Planar Fissure: A focused drop-rate boost event for Planar Ornaments. With increased drop chances, it is ideal for optimizing main DPS builds, completing Best-in-Slot setups, or refining existing configurations.
- Realm of the Strange: This event improves farming efficiency for basic materials obtained from enemy encounters. It is especially friendly for players who have just acquired new characters or are preparing to build returning ones.
Character Reruns
In Version 3.8, character reruns are divided into three phases, each featuring a different lineup. Together, they span the entire eight-week version cycle.
Swipe to view more 👉️
Rerun Phase | Character | Path / Element | Role & Gameplay Overview |
Phase I (Early) | Firefly | Destruction / Fire | A primary DPS focused on post-Break burst damage, relying on Break windows to deal massive damage and excelling in high-Toughness combat scenarios. |
Phase II (Mid) | Fugue | Harmony / Imaginary | A support character focused on team-wide buffs and tempo enhancement, improving overall damage stability and rotation efficiency. |
Lingsha | Abundance / Wind | Specializes in sustained healing and survivability, well suited for high-pressure content and extended battles. | |
Phase III (Late) | Aglaea | The Hunt / Lightning | A single-target burst-oriented main DPS, excelling at quickly eliminating elite enemies and priority targets. |
Sunday | Preservation / Ice | Provides shields and damage mitigation, enhancing overall team survivability and fault tolerance, ideal for high-difficulty stages. |
All rerun Warp banners in this cycle will also feature synchronized reruns of the corresponding signature Light Cones. As these characters are considered strong, high-utility units, this rerun lineup presents an excellent opportunity for newer players to fill critical gaps in their team compositions.
How to Prepare for Version 3.8
Before entering the next dream chapter, it’s essential to get ready for the upcoming challenges.
- Resource Planning: Version 3.8 will feature both new characters and rerun banners. To avoid wasting resources, all players—whether free-to-play or paying—should plan their Warp priorities in advance and begin stockpiling Stellar Jades and Oneiric Shards to prepare for the upcoming banners.
- Spend Limited-Time Currencies: After the update, limited-time events from Version 3.7, As Tomorrow Became Yesterday, will come to an end, and their corresponding event token shops will close as well. Players should make sure to spend any remaining event currencies before the update goes live.
- Team and Progression Preparation: Version 3.8 places greater emphasis on Break timing during combat. It is recommended to review the progression levels and Relic setups of your main teams in advance, avoiding inefficient last-minute adjustments that could slow down post-update progression.
If your current resources are insufficient to pull on the upcoming banners but you still want The Dahlia to join your team, topping up can help you acquire the necessary resources in a short period of time. In such cases, many players also pay close attention to price differences across various platforms.
Maximize Your Progress with GamsGo
Version 3.8 continues the dream arc, unveils more of Penacony’s secrets, and introduces Dahlia, a new area, story expansions, boss mechanic updates, and multi-phase reruns, comprehensively improving gameplay and progression—making early resource planning and team building key to maximizing efficiency.
To gain an early edge, replenishing Stellar Jades, Warp resources, or progression materials is often necessary. GamsGo provides a fast, simple top-up with instant delivery, minimizing preparation time and effort and helping you stay ahead in Version 3.8 as resource and combat demands rise. Recharge via GamsGo and maximize your Honkai: Star Rail progression with ease.
More Questions About Honkai: Star Rail Version 3.8
What’s the Chance of Getting a 5-Star in HSR?
In HSR, the base chance of pulling a 5-star character or Light Cone is 0.6% per pull. The game uses a pity system that guarantees a 5-star within 90 pulls, with the probability gradually increasing after around 75 pulls, making late pulls much more likely to succeed.
What Are the Next Banners for HSR 3.8?
Version 3.8 features three banner phases. Phase 1 adds the new 5-star The Dahlia, along with a Firefly rerun. Phase 2 reruns Fugue and Lingsha, while Phase 3 brings back Aglaea and Sunday, each phase paired with matching Light Cone banners.
How Long Is HSR 3.8?
HSR Version 3.8 runs for approximately six weeks, or around 42 days. During this period, the update is split into multiple banner phases released sequentially, featuring different character and Light Cone warps, along with events, story content, and gameplay updates.
