HoYoverse announces new endgame mode for HSR

Honkai: Star Rail players in need of tougher combat challenges can look forward to Version 3.6 of the game. HoYoverse announced that HSR 3.6 will feature a “permanent high-difficulty mode” called Anomaly Arbitration.

Anomaly Arbitration will be unlocked for players once they’ve managed to clear the other three endgame modes – Memory of Chaos, Pure Fiction, and Apocalyptic Shadow – with perfect, full star ratings at least once. This requirement doesn’t have to be met in the same update, so as long as you’ve got all stars in a mode at some point it will count towards this unlock condition.

You will face three combat stages in Anomaly Arbitration, for which you’ll need to build three separate teams, so deep rosters will be key to challenging the mode. After clearing this level trio, the fourth, ultimate combat challenge will open its gates. To take on this battle, you can freely build a team from all your characters, no matter if you’ve used them to clear one of the preceding stages.

It looks like the developers are not putting Stellar Jade up as rewards for this mode, anticipating that gating currency behind an extremely difficult challenge would lead to controversy. Instead, “leveling items, limited-time avatar frames, redeemable outfits, and more” will be available to reward players for their efforts.

Genshin Impact’s recently added Stygian Onslaught mode appears to be a natural comparison point to Anomaly Arbitration and its introduction to the open-world RPG caused quite a stir, as more casual players found themselves unable to clear the mode — naturally, since it had been explicitly advertised as a very challenging mode for hardcore players, similar to what Anomaly Arbitration appears to be.

HSR 3.6 is expected to arrive on PC, PS5, iOS, and Android in Fall 2025. More information on the preceding update will become available at this weekend’s HSR 3.5 livestream.

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