HoYoverse Sues Participant for $150,000 Over Honkai: Star Rail Character Leak Players Area

Honkai: Star Rail writer HoYoverse is reportedly suing a participant for $150,000 after they streamed unreleased gameplay that includes Castorice, a brand new character that will be launched later in replace Model 3.2. The footage was allegedly broadcast on Discord in entrance of an viewers of round 12,000 viewers, effectively forward of the official launch date.

The authorized motion, revealed in a June 16 report by Sport File, claims the participant violated copyright legislation by sharing pre-release materials. Courtroom paperwork present the lawsuit was filed on June 6 in the US District Courtroom for the Central District of California.

Based on HoYoverse, the participant in query live-streamed an early construct of Honkai: Star Rail that featured Castorice, a 5-star Quantum-element character who had already been introduced however was not but launched on the time of the stream.

Though Castorice had been teased throughout The Sport Awards 2024, her in-game debut solely got here with the Model 3.2 replace on April 8, 2025. HoYoverse argues that the participant’s actions violated copyright and broke the confidentiality agreements usually in place for beta builds or early entry content material.

Earlier Authorized Motion

This isn’t the primary time HoYoverse has pursued authorized motion towards leakers. In September 2024, the corporate demanded that Twitter (now X) reveal the identities behind three Genshin Influence leak accounts. A decide sided with miHoYo, forcing the social media big to disclose the identities behind the leak accounts. On the time, X argued it violated the corporate’s free speech rights, though the California District Courtroom finally dominated towards them.

The Genshin Influence accounts that have been concerned within the lawsuit have since been suspended. Whereas the brand new June 6 lawsuit centered across the early stream of Castorice is unrelated, it reveals the lengths HoYoverse is prepared to go to stamp out any leaks of fabric from their video games.

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