HoYoverse Café is a textbook example of IP transcending its origins

The duet of strings and trio of singers outside of the main entrance gave the opening ceremony of HoYoverse Café something of a sacred feeling — it felt almost like a baptism. For passersby and neighbors, the strange melodies must have merely been a welcome surprise to brighten up their day, but for fans familiar with Genshin Impact, the iconic main theme was more like a call from home. Whatever the significance of the tunes might have been for each individual they reached, they made one simple declaration: Genshin Impact has arrived in the heart of Berlin, Germany’s capital, and it’s here to stay.

There have been pop-up events featuring the studio’s games before, drawing an audience in search of rare merchandise and a real-life experience that brings it closer to the characters and worlds it loves so much. But HoYoverse Café isn’t going to close shop after a couple of days.

It’s a bold experiment by the developer to bring a themed café to Europe, where such things are still rare compared to Asia, but it’s a strong litmus test for the popularity of its IP. Berlin doesn’t lack coffee shops, especially in the center of the city, nestled between the government district, museum island, and the TV tower. The bet, of course, is that people won’t only queue up for a cup of coffee and some desserts — and the shop’s layout very much resembles that idea with about a third of the space given over to a merchandise area.

But that’s not all: HoYoverse is applying one of the great strengths of its games – the unfailing update cycle – to this new venture. The café will run time-limited events and promotions that’ll be themed around what’s currently happening in its games, including exclusive menu items to complement the standard offers.

Skirk and Tartaglia, the master and apprentice duo, inspired the opening week’s specials. They don’t need to hide from the competition when it comes to taste and presentation either. Skirk’s drink is light blue, cold and sweet, and somehow has both the freshness of carbonated soda and a creamy, milky aftertaste — it’s kind of what I always imagined the blue milk aunt Beru serves to Luke Skywalker in A New Hope to taste like. Tartaglia’s signature drink has a darker, brown and orange color reflecting its taste: Iced coffee laced with sweet orange, a contrast that satisfies two cravings at once without being too overbearing.

Orange Bavarois, a sweet cream dessert with rasps of orange, and coffee bean cookies join the special menu, complementing it in looks, taste, and theme — a mix of bitter and sweet, just like the stories featuring the two characters.

HoYoverse Café is a dive into the unknown for the company and so it’s no surprise that there are no concrete plans for expansion or franchising at this point. In the first place, the company hopes to keep the shop running in the long term, learn, evaluate, and then decide on what to make of these lessons. It's the same studied approach that has made its games such powerhouses.

Going by the crowd queuing up for entry on opening day, at least, HoYoverse shouldn’t have issues with finding customers. A sizable crowd had already gathered to watch the little music and dance acts for the opening ceremony, but the queue had grown even longer by the time I left the café just before noon.

Whenever you read financial reports these days, companies always emphasize the value of IP and how it could be used to branch out and diversify the revenue stream — and this seems to be a textbook example of that. Genshin Impact remains enormously popular around the world and the rise of otaku culture continues unabated. Berlin is a multicultural city and a big tourism spot. HoYoverse may be experimenting here, but it chose the time and place to do so with a lot of care, it seems to me.

If HoYoverse Café is a success, it could well mark the dawn of a new era for the company. It already has its fingers in many pots, from music to animation, but all of these pots are closely related to its core business and flow into it — its animation studio produces trailers, its music studio produces soundtracks. A coffee shop, though, doesn’t fit the same bill. This is not only what branching out looks like, but also what happens when an IP has become strong enough to transcend its origins.

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