I gotta tell you, the Honkai: Star Rail (opens in new tab) brain rot is real. I’ve spent a good chunk of time playing it since it came out, and I even downloaded the damn thing on my phone so I could quickly pop in while travelling or in bed. Thankfully, it’s not quite eaten into my day-to-day adult responsibilities yet—but the same can’t be said for pro Valorant team Ghost Commandos.
As reported by GamesRadar (opens in new tab), the team were forced to forfeit a match during the second split of the Challengers League in Taiwan and Hong Kong. The culprit? According to reporter Seulgi (opens in new tab), one of their teammates had apparently failed to install Valorant’s tournament client in time for their game against S2 Esports, all because they were “too busy” playing HoYoverse’s space RPG. Honestly, kind of a mood.
Ghost Commandos came back the next day on May 3 to play against ROA, though they unfortunately lost. Been spending too much time grinding Stellar Jade (opens in new tab) to pull on Honkai’s banners and not enough time in the aim lab, perhaps?
You’d think fans would be mad over such a big blunder from Ghost Commandos, but most seemed to understand and appreciate how tight a grip Honkai: Star Rail has on the masses right now. A reply to Seulgi’s tweet joked that the teammate was “too busy simping on virtual waifus.” Even other Valorant professionals shared their sympathies—former banned (opens in new tab) player Risorah said (opens in new tab) “I don’t blame them,” while player and coach Fayde simply replied (opens in new tab): “Understandable.”
Even if I didn’t feel the Honkai death grip (which I do), there are millions of other players out there who could probably silently nod their heads and go “Yeah, I get it.” The game managed to amass over 20 million downloads (opens in new tab) on its first day, surpassing Genshin Impact’s day one download count by three million. It’s been a fantastic experience so far—from sniffing around trash cans (opens in new tab) and postboxes to absolutely annihilating challenge content with nothing but a girl and her giant robot. Let’s just hope Ghost Commandos shifts its focus back to Valorant for a little bit first, eh?