Honkai: Star Rail’s 5.x era is still months away, but leakers are already sketching out what could be its first five patches. A wave of rumors, anchored by a leak attributed to the source known as Full Stop Chan and echoed by several other community trackers, points toward a heavy focus on special-form characters, a long-rumored new Path, and a few fresh faces from the Ten Stonehearts. Before getting into names, one big caveat: none of this is official, and the sources don’t fully agree with each other. Treat everything below as speculation until HoYoverse says otherwise.
What’s Consistent Across The Leaks
When you compare the different roadmaps circulating online, a handful of ideas show up again and again, and those are the ones worth paying the most attention to.
Special-form (SP) characters are the main theme. Rather than only adding brand-new faces, the 5.x cycle is rumored to lean on alternate versions of existing fan favorites, continuing a trend the game has been building toward over the last few patches. Kafka, Dan Heng, Firefly, and Asta all appear in various versions of the leak, usually in a new element or Path from their original kits.
A new Path called Finality. This is the most talked-about rumor of the bunch. Finality already exists in the game’s lore, tied to Elio and the Stellaron Hunters and linked to the concept of time, so making it playable would fit the story neatly. If it launches alongside version 5.0, it would repeat a pattern the game has already run twice: Remembrance arrived during the 3.x cycle, and Elation during 4.x, each time with a new Path debuting at the start of a new major version.
Members of the Ten Stonehearts keep arriving. Several members of that group are already playable, and the leaks suggest at least one more, an individual named Obsidian, is next in line. The reasoning is simple: once a few members of a story faction join the roster, the rest tend to follow.
The Rumored Version-By-Version Roadmap
Here’s how the most-cited roadmaps lay out the first few patches. Again, the specifics differ depending on who you ask, so I’ve flagged where sources conflict.
Version 5.0. This is where the leaks disagree the most. One roadmap lists a special-form Firefly and an alternate, younger-looking version of the character Misha as the headline additions. Another places a special-form Asta on the 5.0 banner and suggests the Trailblazer will get a Physical Finality form in the same patch, unlocked through story progression rather than a limited banner, the same way the Trailblazer’s earlier Paths arrived. The common thread between both versions is that 5.0 is expected to be the launch window for the Finality Path.
Version 5.1. Here the leaks line up fairly well. The character mentioned is Polka Kakamond, and at the moment there’s no clear leak about a matching event or storyline for the patch.
Version 5.2. Two names appear: a special-form Kafka in the Lightning element, and Obsidian from the Ten Stonehearts. Some trackers add a rumor that Obsidian could lean toward a damage-over-time playstyle, though that part is far less firm than the character’s mere inclusion.
Version 5.3. Special-form Dan Heng is the character most trackers agree on for this slot, sometimes described as his third alternate version.
Version 5.4. The least certain of the five. One banner tracker lists a special-form Acheron as the headline, while others don’t have a confident name at all. Treat this one as an open question.
Other Names Floating Around
Beyond the version-by-version lists, a handful of characters keep appearing in the “later 5.x and beyond” leaks, usually without a specific patch attached. Some of the names that have circulated include Fanghu Xuanquan, described as the Arbitrator General and a Vidyadhara; Stephen Lloyd, the 84th member of the Society of Geniuses; a stranger-maid from the Galaxy Rangers; a detective named Kutiba; special-form Xueyi; a previous Arbiter General called Teng Xiao; and a character named Antares. A collaboration character from a Fate/stay night crossover, Sakura, has also been mentioned, as has a possible crossover with Zenless Zone Zero featuring Astra Yao and Ellen Joe. These are long shots until HoYoverse confirms something.
Why So Many Special Forms?
The heavy emphasis on SP versions isn’t random. Special forms let HoYoverse bring back beloved characters with fresh gameplay without needing to invent an entire new character, story, and design from scratch. For players, that’s a mixed bag. On one hand, fans who loved a character’s personality get a new way to play them. On the other, it can feel like the roster is circling back to familiar faces instead of expanding, especially if you’ve already invested heavily in the original version. The leaked 5.x lineup leans noticeably toward the former approach, which might explain why discussion around it has been so divided.
How Reliable Are These Leaks?
Honest answer: partially. The source credited in the original report, Full Stop Chan, has a track record that community members generally consider decent, but even reliable leakers get details wrong, especially for versions this far out. The inconsistencies between roadmaps, like whether 5.0 features Firefly, Asta, or both, are a good reminder of that. Dates attached to these leaks also vary widely, with some trackers placing the 5.0 banner in February 2027 and others giving no date at all.
A few practical rules of thumb help here:
- Characters mentioned by multiple independent sources (like Kafka SP and Polka Kakamond) are more likely to be accurate than ones that appear in only a single roadmap.
- Patch-specific placements, especially for later versions like 5.3 and 5.4, are the first things to change.
- Ideas tied to a Path, like Finality, tend to be more stable than individual character placements, because they depend on a long-running story thread rather than a single release decision.
What To Do With This Information
If you’re planning your pulls, the safest approach is to ignore the exact patch assignments and focus on the broader themes. If you’ve been holding off on pulling for Kafka, Firefly, Dan Heng, or Acheron because you suspected a special form might arrive, the leaks give you a reason to keep your resources flexible. If you’re a newer player who wants to build around a specific Path, the rumored Finality addition could be worth waiting on, though it’s not yet something to commit your Stellar Jades to.
Above all, remember that HoYoverse typically confirms upcoming characters through official livestreams and trailers closer to each version’s launch. Until then, everything here is a map drawn in pencil, not ink. The safest assumption for now is that 5.x will be the “Finality era,” packed with special forms and a few new Stonehearts, with the exact order still very much up for debate. We’ll update this page as new leaks and official announcements land.