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And all the Honkai Games do not share the same game genre as well.
The original GGZ is a shooting game. HI3rd here is a brawler game hybrid with rpg and visual novel (with a bunch of all other game genres in their events and side stories). And HSR is turn based RPG.
Although i wanted to say they do not relate to each other and is basically an alternative parallel world... the dev do somehow connect the stories to make them looks as if it's carried over from the previous series. Eg. Honkai Impact 3rd is released after Honkai Gakuen, and HI3rd started with story talking about "past school life" which gives the mis-interpretation that HI3rd is connected to HG. But it's not. HI3rd end its main story with Kiana riding a train to the moon in another dimension, and HSR starts with a story about railways. So they do relate in someway, but it's not something you need to pursue as a new player, you can 100% enjoy the game without knowing the previous series. The gimmick is just there to help existing players migrate from one game to another.
What you really need to worry about playing Honkai Series games is that their stories will not be 100% in-game, you will need to read stories in either their manga station or play some other visual novel games to get more into the lore. HSR is new and doesn't have much of these side-tracks yet, but it's a pattern to all their games (including Genshin).
If you are not interested in the story at all and are only into the turn based rpg game and simply like the turn based battle as a grind, there might be other mobile based games that fits your criteria more. Like Alchemia Story or Another Eden.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2208530/Alchemia_Story/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1252600/ANOTHER_EDEN/
But other than that any other familiar faces are just alternate universe analogs. (ie Himeko, Bronya, Seele, and, to an extent, Silver Wolf)
you are wrong, i do not know if you are playing HI3 or not but we defeated void archive in POST HONKAI ODDYSEY. So i can say void archive is already sealed. the one named luchoa is just another parallel universe character that looks like OTTO just like SILVER WOLF, BRONYA...ETC. Welt yang is the same character of HI3 that go through HSR world by accident not because he has intention to travel to another parallel universe..
The fun "setting" about the Honkaiverse is all the worlds are part of the "branch" of the tree of imaginary... so they should be all linked together through that... and in HI3rd, characters are capable of travelling in between these worlds and climb back in time using the branches. That's how Otto splits a new world by creating a new branch that he saved Kallen. And there's also the bubble worlds that's not connected to the tree... In short, there's already a ton of worlds linked to HI3rd which hinted they "may" ended up in another existing Honkai world... Also, HI3rd itself repeats a lot of the stories told in Honkai Gakuen but modified them to fit the HI3rd universe. They also do cross-game collaboration and having Genshin's character exist on HI3rd... So it's not a surprise that they reuse some of the stories or characters from HI3rd in HSR, and whether or not they are linked together isn't really important as long as you can enjoy the story imo.
Here's some repeated stories example: (Spoiler Alert!)
Although both HG and HI3rd starts with Kiana as the protagonist, Kiana turned up to be the Antogonist, Herrscher of End (The Last Boss) and Honkai God (Will of Honkai) in Honkai Gakuen, while HI3rd followed most of the Honkai-Herrscher story of Gakuen, they changed the ending and Herrscher of End to Herrscher of Finality while Kiana ended with god-like power but didn't really become a god herself. And they also showed the ex-HoFinality as a statue in HI3rd which looks very much like the HoE in Gakuen... Which gives a misinterpretation that the "Pre-Era" might have something to do with Gakuen, but then a lot of the modified stories doesn't match up, showing HI3rd is indeed a standalone universe of its own... There's also the sudden switch of story, where they used to talk about the "will of Honkai" but in the later HI3rd story only call Honkai as pure energy source that they can extract and use or seal away. Which left a cliff hanger of the sudden change in the interpretation of what is Honkai itself... So something like this isn't new in the Honkai Project, and there may be more similar pattern coming soon in the near future. They mislead you to think it's "something that's related", then betray your expectation and say "no, this is how it turns out" in later part of the game story and some are forcefully done without much consideration on what they said in the past. It's a world that "anything" could happen. So the story creator can do as he please without much hold back. "Ooh I said that? No this is what i meant to say..."
Kallen, Sakura and Kasumi's story too, even within HI3rd itself, it has since been counted as a "parallel" none canon story... even when it fits perfectly into the Kallen-Otto story... and the Events each have their own parallel world story to tell too... as well as the Captainverse story which actually tells a story of the player's character, the captain that travels between time and parallel worlds. So... it's messy even within HI3rd itself...
All we can say is HSR breaks most of the previous format/story pattern cycle from the past series. We no longer start the game as Kiana, and we get to pick the character's gender and give him/her a name of our own choice. Though it does looks like Kiana and Kelvin in the design... At least there's a small improvement on the "role playing" part. Though we still can't do full character creation like most modern RPG... it's better than them forcing another Kiana on us...
From Himeko Character Story Part 3: "She remembers her awkward chit-chats with Pom-Pom, and how the first two passengers aboard the Express were Welt and his BLOND FRIEND." In Himeko Character Story 2 it mentions said blond man left the train and states in a manner that implies a disdain for him. Also in the background of Welt's Star Rail art you can see a man with long blond hair in a white suit very similar to what you see Void Archives was wearing in the Alien Space manga.
Speaking of which: in the Alien Space manga they have a scene where Welt confronts Void Archives about a piece of data he sees on a screen of a version of Himeko, that Void later says is a version of from another universe, asking for help with dealing with some Sky People. A thing that Void Archives is initially hesitant to help with but during his conversation about it he convinces himself that maybe they SHOULD help deal with it.
So yes, Void Archives is at least briefly in the Honkai Star Rail universe at some point. Whether or not he still IS is debatable. But here we have a character with long blond hair as a major character in the story that is voiced by the same exact voice actor in a a universe that it is established in canon that he has been in for a stint of time.
All we can say is since the start of the Honkai series, the devs have been heavily copying the stories of Evagelion. And they've been copying a lot of character settings and designs from Blazblue. The invasion of Herrschers is copied from the invasion of Angels in Eva. The "Idea" (Spelled Yidia) system of the Stigmata project is a copy of the Idea Engine from Blazblue merged with the "Human Instrumentality Project" from Evagelion. Seele got her name directly from Seele in Evagelion. Even Ai Hyperion Lambda is inspired by the supercomputer "Magi" from Evagelion in design and Blazblue (on her name). Sakura, one of the oldest character in Honkai series, is a direct copy-paste of Nine the Phantom. Kiana/Theresa/Amber cloned from Kallen are inspired by Mu/Nu/Lambda cloned from Saya in Blazblue, especially the look of Nu-13. Mobius heavily inspired by Terumi. Mu-12 or rather, Noel Vermillion also inspired the creation of Durandal... Rita used the same "Ragna" design set to be her teacher in the game, which, is also inspired by the Ragna in Blazblue, and her Rosemary battlesuit uses the same battle effect skills of Ragna in Blazblue... etc etc...
So there's quite a lot of copy cat stuffs in the past Honkaiverse, and HSR tries to break free from that image but still retained a lot of the characters and their personality settings. Although we as the audience might want to mystified everything and think everything has a heavy plot behind... it actually boils down to a very simple reason for the reuse of characters, the same reason in the past animes of the 90s where it effected the devs of these games most. And that reason is, to save time on re-creating a new character and especially on game, scenery are reused, character 3D models are reused, they just change a bit of here and there and the outfit and everything includes the skeleton and animations are reuse-able which save a lot of cost and work. So trying to think too "deep" doesn't help at all, especially when the dev can do what they like when they like on the story. A small discussion on what may happen or what may have happened isn't bad for the game's community, but getting heat up over it isn't a smart choice imo. Especially when dealing with devs with a Chinese motto of "船到桥头自然直" which means, "The boat will straighten itself when passing under the bridge". Meaning everything will fall in place when the time comes. They only think about what to do when they reach that part of the story, if the forum and community lean towards an expectation too much, the dev can easily pick the opposite to surprise the audience, they act on demand or against demand as they see fit and even then, they are able to change the past with some flimsy explanation or set a bunch of non canon story to confuse everyone. So just sit back and enjoy the story when it reaches that point, there's no real point arguing before because it's not "set" yet, even after it "settled" it can still be changed in the dev's eye. So don't be too serious about it.
It took HI3rd here nearly 7 years to get to the ending of the Honkai Part. And it just started part 2 where the post Honkai stories begin... The Captain's story is yet to see an ending too as he haven't met up with A-872 yet and haven't even remembered their promises, the side effect of his mind mapping, he mistook Kong Ming for A-872 and made another promise that took him a long time to fulfill and we are yet to see the happy ending of the Captain and A-872's love story.
HI3rd has a faster and shorter update frequency compared to Genshin, which is only a spin-off of the Honkaiverse, so the Honkai main games still gets the love and attention of the devs more imo.
There's actually 2 companies involved here. miHoYo (Located in Shanghai China) is the one that made FlyMe2theMoon (The game they made as a hobby circle, "doujin" work, before they set up the company miHoYo) > Guns Girl Z/Honkai Gakuen 2 > Honkai Gakuen/Zombiegal Kawaii > Honkai Impact 3rd > Genshin Impact(Spin-Off of the Honkaiverse).... After that, they let Cognosphere (Located in Singapore) publish their games in the global market and miHoYo settled to only publish games to Japan, China and here on Steam (HI3rd Only).
https://store.steampowered.com/search/?developer=miHoYo%20Limited
Cognosphere on the other hand now acts as the Global HQ of Hoyoverse and they are the one running the current global community center HoyoLab. And the game Honkai Star Rail, the newest series of the Honkaiverse is developed by them. There's also ZZZ and Tears of Thermis which is none related to the "Honkaiverse" at all but considered part of the "Hoyoverse"... as well as the application N0va Desktop, which is the one and only app Cognosphere published here on Steam.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1833000/N0va_Desktop/
If you talking about the Honkai series in turn of release, then its:
FlyMe2theMoon >> Zombiegal Kawaii (Honkai Gakuen) > Guns Girl Z (Honkai Gakuen 2) > Honkai Impact 3rd >> Honkai Star Rail
Respectively known in the Chinese as:
私奔到月球 >> 崩坏学园 > 崩坏学园2 > 崩坏3 >> 崩坏：星穹铁道
Genshin Impact is the Spin-Off of Honkai Impact 3rd and not really considered part of the main Honkai franchise. Also, they didn't really label a 4 on HSR in their Chinese title which hinted that it might not be part of the main series. So theoretically HI3rd is still the current active main series of Honkai(?). Also note that Kiana is the protagonist of all the Honkai games except HSR.
FlyMe2theMoon is made before the company miHoYo is setup, more like a doujin hobbyist game but it's the origin of the Honkai series. But there isn't any "Honkai" in FM2tM, the player simply fly Kiana to the moon to clear each stages, the play style is very similar to those rocket/jetpack maneuver platform games out there. HG/ZGK is still considered very rough in work and look more like a doujin game than professional game. HG2/GGZ is a remastered version of HG/ZGK and they started to put more work on the story telling and lore, it's miHoYo 1st game that actually make them money, enough to fund the later HI3rd. And HI3rd is their 1st game with professional design with lots of staffs involved and well... it used to be one of the best looking game on the mobile back when it released but didn't get much of the attention like Genshin due to it's considered a copy-cat of KanKoRe (Kantai Collection) and even now with 7 years of updates, it's still consider inferior to KanKoRe ( https://www.dmm.com/netgame/feature/kancolle.html When it comes to online "Waifu Collection" games, DMM beats them all in the Japanese market, especially when you can play with only the browser and downloading isn't required), it's one of the reason why HI3rd Japan never made it to the PC. Genshin Impact is their 1st global hit game on the mobile market, the one that made them famous, being release at the right timing with the newest engine and great graphic put an awe on the mobile gamer's face, but as quick as they gain attention, the game's retaining power isn't really as high as HI3rd, meaning there's a lot of players signing up, but not many stick with the game to the end. In short, it's just another typical MMORPG that used to look best on the mobile platform, but one can easily find better replacement on the PC or console platforms. And you can find a lot of ex-genshin players now playing HI3rd or HSR.
Also Note that the Global versions of GGZ or HG2 are no longer in service. They shut down the game awhile back. So the only Global Honkai games in service now are HI3rd and HSR. FlyMe2theMoon can still be played but since it never gets updated, it now only works on really old devices, meaning it's defunct in modern phone.
But miHoYo has passed most of the game's IP to Cognosphere after they moved the servers from Shanghai to Singapore so at least China isn't going to be a problem to them anymore.
Cognosphere is expanding its staffs to make AAA title games. So there will be more to come. Especially off-line titles. So they will not be solely relying for sales on gambling stuffs which means they can move into a more "legal" business without the worry about bans.
But still, for HI3rd and other existing games, if your country decided to ban gacha or gambling games, there is a high chance you will not be able to play them anymore once that happened. Unless the game company come up with an alternative in-game economy system to replace gacha.
Quite the opposite, the more "Order" your country is, the more likely it will ban Gacha games. The more "Chaotic", the less likely it will ban "Gacha", "Loot Box" or other "Skill Games".
USA has a whole city built with Casinos. Singapore and other SEA countries also have "legal" Licensed Casinos. So they are less likely to go against gambling. That's one reason why miHoYo set their new HQ Cognosphere in Singapore. They'd have picked USA for their new HQ if it wasn't for the China-USA tension, USA is known to issue money trading license to individual companies, which makes "Online Money Exchange" possible in a legal way. Tilia, the payment behind the game "Second Life" is a good example. Where players can earn REAL MONEY inside the game. The in-game currency is legally licensed to be Exchanged[community.secondlife.com] for real life's money. So you can actually do real jobs and earn a living inside the virtual world. Valve (Steam) is yet another good example where they use similar license to let players exchange in game loots for real money. https://steamcommunity.com/market/ But unlike Tilia, here on Steam players can not "cash out" the cash they earned, they are locked to their Steam Wallet. So "earning a living" isn't easy here (but possible in "some" way).
Countries like Japan who have banned real money gambling but kept a loop hole for gacha/pachinko/slot machines (which used the same gamble's gaming method "AKA Skill Games" but didn't reward the players with real money to enter the "loop hole" of the law) are more likely to update their law to ban or enforce the rules in the future. Infact, Japan already have a law for gacha that if a player needs to complete a series of gacha item in order to get their final reward, it's considered illegal. Only gacha with direct payout is allowed. Which puts a lot of the miHoYo games in that category's gray zone. If their law wish to go strict on them, especially on the part where players need to complete a numbers of fragments to get the final upgraded valkyrie/weapons, then miHoYo may get in trouble with Japan's law. In the new HSR that require players to collect items from gacha to unlock new jobs is also considered under that "gray zone".
Similar stuffs are being banned in other countries as well. And some Western Countries do not call it "Gacha" but calling it "Loot Box" instead. Valve here is involved in some of the ban too, that's why they now have variety of versions of their games for different countries where some versions do not contain loot boxes. For those who didn't know, you can earn real money from playing some of Valve's games, by getting the drops and selling them in the Steam's Community Market.