A man is in police custody after a failed assassination attempt on Genshin Impact studio executives. Bunny costume DLC is cited as the motive.
On the 24th of April, Shanghai police took custody of a young man after he was found in the head office of Genshin Impact developer miHoYo Studios wielding a knife. It is believed the man’s intentions were to murder studio executives Liu Wei and Cai Haoyu in retaliation to recent changes to Honkai Impact 3rd.
Thankfully no one was harmed during the altercation. Launched in 2016, Honkai Impact 3rd is a 3D action RPG released some time before miHoYo’s biggest success story, Genshin Impact.
Details are still emerging as to why this has happened, however, sources say that the main motive was over an upcoming content drop. Honkai Impact 3rd pushed out an almost global server event to celebrate their anniversary, which included cosmetic skin updates for several of the playable characters within the game.
I say “almost global” as the Chinese game studio decided to exclude their home turf from the launch, however after severe backlash, reverted this decision. One of the cosmetic skins that were being released with this event was a bunny costume for the character Yae Sakura, and this is what the attacker took great offence to.
Daniel Ahmad, a senior games analyst at Niko Partners, reports that the reason for the attack was not only because of the Chinese player’s exclusion from the event but also because they deemed the skins offensive to the character Yae Sakura.
Thankfully no one was hurt.
A recent update to some character skins Honkai Impact 3rd's global server prompted backlash from some users in China. They cited 2 reasons:
1) It was disrespectful to the character / China. 2) It was only in the global server, playing into point 1.
— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) April 26, 2021
Chinese news outlets Baidu and Sohu report that the uproar began after the Genshin Impact developers posted a video showing Yae Sakura and others dancing in a burlesque fashion in the controversial bunny costumes.
Other users speculate that the hardcore fan didn’t take kindly to his precious ‘waifu’ being improperly dressed in front of a western audience. Official reports say that the assailant planned to murder the executives using two 9cm blade knives he had bought online before taking his own life.
According to latest reports, the assailant is in police custody.
Yes they literally got mad that Mihoyo made a short video of them in bunny suits to celebrate GLB’s anniversary. Said they made them into prostitutes which is absurd because Honkai is filled with fan service and holds no punches in appealing to Otaku culture. pic.twitter.com/Y9etRYODcg
— kyuubi (@kyuubi5995) April 26, 2021
MiHoYo officials have since issued an apology stating they will take greater care with future content drops, plus revert the changes and offer in-game compensation to fans who are LvL 9 or greater.
Official Statement pic.twitter.com/AsAnabEJGm
— Honkai Impact 3rd (@HonkaiImpact3rd) April 22, 2021
