Video Games

Genshin Impact 5.1: Kachina and Kinich are silent in the English dub

Ongoing VA strike leads to missing voice lines

Marco Wutz

HoYoverse

Update 5.1 for Genshin Impact is now available on PC, PS4, PS5, iOS, and Android, continuing the fiery story arc set in Natlan. However, two of the community’s favorite characters introduced in the previous version of the game will remain silent throughout the new story, despite having a role to play: The English voice lines for Kachina and Kinich (as well as his companion, Ajaw) are missing.

This is not a bug, as the patch notes for the update confirms. “Due to recording arrangements, some content in Version 5.1 does not have English voice-overs. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused,” the change log states.

This is the first instance of Genshin Impact’s live version – and the main story arc at that – being affected by the ongoing SAG-AFTRA voice actors strike. Fans already felt the effect of the strike while watching the Genshin Impact 5.1 livestream, which didn’t have the usual contingent of VAs hosting it, instead being led by two members of HoYoverse’s localization team.

Marketing for Honkai: Star Rail has been affected by the strike as well with recent trailers missing their English dubs, though the game itself has been fine so far. Of HoYoverse’s three big titles, only Zenless Zone Zero has remained unaffected up to this point.

This can be explained by the fact that all three games have their English voice work managed by different external studios – HoYoverse itself does not control this part of the production.

Most of Genshin Impact’s voice-overs are handled by Formosa, which was in the news last year due to holding back the payments for Paimon’s VA and is one of the primary targets of the strike. VAs are currently fighting for better protections against having their work used to train AI without their consent.

If you want to enjoy the current Archon Quest to its fullest, it’s advisable to hold off and play it at a later date, when the missing voice lines have been patched in. Unfortunately, that means you will miss out on the time-limited rewards for playing through the story in the current update.

Published
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

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