The history of miHoYo, the developer of Genshin Impact

Last Updated on: 25th July 2021, 08:24 pm

Genshin Impact has been performing impressively since it was released, but what do you know about the developer, miHoYo? Where are they from, for example?

What other games have they made? Has anything else happened of note in their history?

Who is the Genshin Impact developer?

The developer of Genshin Impact is a Chinese video game developer and studio called miHoYo based in Shanghai, China. miHoYo both develop and produce Genshin Impact themselves.

Genshin Impact is a wildly successful title for the studio, but what else have they done?

Given this wild success of Genshin Impact – earning over a billion dollars in mobile takings alone so far back in March, and miHoYo’s attempts to bribe some of that player base into at least trying one of their other games via crossover events, it’s no surprise if you’re familiar with them because of Genshin specifically.

So what else have miHoYo made, anyway?

What else have they made?

The first game miHoYo made was known as FlyMe2TheMoon back in 2011. The game is still available on the app store right now for those interested in going back to the developer of Genshin Impacts roots.

According to their own Wikipedia page, from there they made a game called Zombiegal Kawaii in 2012, then Guns Girlz, also known as Houkai Gakuen in 2014. Some confusion does exist here, however, as it seems this page is missing at least one of their games – if the timeline of this fan wiki is to be believed.

This isn’t entirely surprising, given China is a large enough market that a game could launch purely in Chinese and be extremely successful, but information to the outside world about it could be extremely limited at the same time if no translation is made.

After a little bit of looking around, I did find what had happened here. miHoYo underwent a bit of a rename for their more recent titles, appearing under “miHoYo Limited” on the app store.

Their older games, such as the original FlyMe2TheMoon, alongside both Zombiegal Kawaii and one of the two GunGirl Z games, can be found under the name “miHoYo Co., Ltd.” instead.

So why did I say “one of the two GunGirl Z games”, if I only found one, you may be wondering? That would be because it seems that both of them can be found under that second name, “miHoYo Co., Ltd.”, on the Google Play Store.

After these games, we get into miHoYo’s big successes. While the previous games have even more support now in western audiences, the name that started to make cracks into that wider western audience on top of its local Chinese one was Honkai Impact 3rd.

And those cracks were blown wide open with the release of Genshin Impact in September 2020. The success of Genshin has made it so Honkai Impact 3rd doesn’t stand out comparatively, though it is also acting as advertising of sorts for the title, simply due to the sheer volume of Genshin Impact players.

This is likely why miHoYo has been trying to tempt Genshin Impact’s player base over into Honkai Impact over time using promotions featuring popular characters like Fischl and Keqing.

Upcoming game – Tears of Thermis

The folks at miHoYo also have another English version of a game coming, known as tears of Thermis – expected on the 29th of July 2021, just 10 days from the publication of this article.

Let it not be said that the developer of Genshin Impact is ever one to rest, it seems.

The page on the English AppStore for Tears of Thermis is available here, and while it does have a pre-order option, the game is also listed as free, so don’t let that put you off. It is worth noting that the tagline of the game is an “Adventure of Romance and Wits”, which implies that it is perhaps aiming to break into a different market for miHoYo, and while it certainly won’t be for me, more power to them for expanding their audience.

For those interested in the upcoming translation of this title, the official English website for Tears of Thermis can be found here.

What else is there to know about the Genshin Impact developer?

Outside of their game history, the developer of Genshin Impact did also have another interesting bit of history – in April 2021, the local Shanghai police arrested a man who had apparently been planning on assassinating the founders of miHoYo.

That’s a bit of an extreme reaction to event-related changes in Honkai Impact 3rd if you ask me, but that’s entirely another story.

With our look at miHoYo, the developer of Genshin Impact, now complete, you can find more coverage of Genshin Impact available right here on The Click if you’re interested, and you can find more content written by me specifically at the page here.