Castorice is a 5-star Quantum unit following the Path of Remembrance that was introduced in Honkai: Star Rail on April 9, 2025, with the version 3.2 update. She’s a unique character who stirred waves amongst the community and became the reason for a lot of people to set down Honkai: Star Rail for good.
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What Did Castorice Do?
Castorice is a 5-star unit that was released with the Version 3.2 update to Honkai: Star Rail. Following her initial release, there was not much going around about her. Yes, she looked amazing and was generally well-received by the community. However, as more leaks began circulating in the community, people’s perception of Castorice began to shift. This was mainly due to the unique [Global Passive] that was included in her kit.
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What are Global Passives?
A global passive is a new mechanic introduced in Honkai: Star Rail Version 3.2. Global passives are a unique effect that is active on your whole account, regardless of whether the character with the global passive is on your team or not. In short, it’s an account-wide buff that can only be activated if you have the character with the global passive on your roster. Currently, the only unit with a global passive is Castorice, and while Castorice’s global passive is nothing game-breaking, it is the fact that it was introduced in the first place that is troublesome.
Why are Global Passives Scary?
Global passives are a way of boosting the strength of your entire account. This by itself should convey how strong they are and how game-breaking they can be depending on the global passive’s effect. The scary thing with global passives is not that they can break the game; it is that they are tied to a premium 5-star unit, for which you either have to spend premium resources or real-life money to get. It is not an effect you can get by simply playing the game, and it is an effect that is given to every player for just beating a mission. No, they are an account boost that can only be obtained if you pull for a unit. This created a lot of unrest in the community, as now you were basically forced to pull for units with global passives, or you wouldn’t get this account-wide buff.
While the current global passive attached to Castorice is nothing major, the prospect of having other units in the future that may boost your account’s CRIT DMG, CRIT Rate, or other stats was what pushed the community over the edge. You could no longer just pull for the units you liked, regardless of meta. The idea of having 5-10 global passives in the future makes it so that you are indirectly forced to pull for the units with these passives, or your account will go down the drain if you don’t.
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Why Did People Begin to Quit?
Day one players of Star Rail began to quit, mainly due to the prospect of what global passives could do to the game in the long term. With Castorice’s inclusion, no longer were they free to pull for units they liked. Now they were indirectly forced to pull for this unit with a global passive, or their account would become obsolete in the future. This taking away of choice left a sour taste in a lot of players’ mouths, therefore causing them to bench the game.
Can This Be Fixed?
It’s unclear if Honkai: Star Rail can undo the damage they’ve done with Castorice. One way would be to accept that global passives were a mistake and not create any new characters with them in the future. Given that they’ve already released Castorice, they can’t remove the global passive from her, as some players have already paid money. However, they can prevent this from occurring in the future, and just take it as a loss and move forward. That being said, whether HoYo will take this route is still nothing more than a guess, and we’ll just have to wait and see what their stance is on the whole matter.
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