Next HoYoverse game may be called Astaweave Haven

According to a newly filed trademark
HoYoverse

HoYoverse sure knows how to keep them coming: It celebrated a massive success with Honkai: Star Rail in 2023 and is about to launch another highly-anticipated title with Zenless Zone Zero – but in the background, the gears are grinding and preparations are already being made for what’s next.

What is next for HoYoverse? Well, apparently it’s a game called Astaweave Haven. That much, at least, is suggested by a trademark published on July 1, 2024, by a company called Cognosphere sitting in Singapore (thanks to Reddit user MintyMelon0001 for spotting this) – and if you’ve ever made a payment to HoYoverse through one of its titles, you’ll probably recognize the name Cognosphere from the bill: It’s the company’s international subsidiary and listed as a co-publisher for its games.

The trademark for Astaweave Haven checks all the boxes for a video game title with its four primary classes, covering electronic publications, game software, mobile apps, games, entertainment services provided in virtual environments, computer software design, and so forth.

Now, here’s the big question: What kind of game might Astaweave Haven be? Well, there have been rather persistent rumors online about HoYoverse working on a title somewhat inspired by Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley for quite a while now. Initially, people believed that this was merely a test project created during a game jam session for new hires, but with how enduring these rumors have been, there may well be more to them.

It seems quite likely that Astaweave Haven is the English name for the original Chinese title “星布谷地”, which was trademarked earlier this year by HoYoverse in its home country and could roughly be translated as “Starry Sky Valley” – which is close enough to the English title and more than on the nose in regards to one of its potential inspirations.

Some alleged test footage of this project even leaked online a few weeks ago, but it’s impossible to verify its authenticity.

It’s unlikely that Astaweave Haven is one of the two games HoYoverse is currently recruiting for – they are both way too fresh for that and one of them is an entry into the Honkai series, so that’s not in the consideration anyways because Astaweave Haven is missing the crucial word in the title.

For now, it’s best to treat this all with a grain of salt. But with a trademark having been filed, we are bound to hear something more substantial about this project sooner than later.


Published |Modified
Marco Wutz
MARCO WUTZ

Marco Wutz is a writer from Parkstetten, Germany. He has a degree in Ancient History and a particular love for real-time and turn-based strategy games like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Total War, Age of Wonders, Crusader Kings, and Civilization as well as a soft spot for Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. He began covering StarCraft 2 as a writer in 2011 for the largest German community around the game and hosted a live tournament on a stage at gamescom 2014 before he went on to work for Bonjwa, one of the country's biggest Twitch channels. He branched out to write in English in 2015 by joining tl.net, the global center of the StarCraft scene run by Team Liquid, which was nominated as the Best Coverage Website of the Year at the Esports Industry Awards in 2017. He worked as a translator on The Crusader Stands Watch, a biography in memory of Dennis "INTERNETHULK" Hawelka, and provided live coverage of many StarCraft 2 events on the social channels of tl.net as well as DreamHack, the world's largest gaming festival. From there, he transitioned into writing about the games industry in general after his graduation, joining GLHF, a content agency specializing in video games coverage for media partners across the globe, in 2021. He has also written for NGL.ONE, kicker, ComputerBild, USA Today's ForTheWin, The Sun, Men's Journal, and Parade. Email: marco.wutz@glhf.gg