Honkai: Star Rail - Guide To Divergent Universe (2024)

Ever since the release of Honkai: Star Rail, HoYoverse has made constant additions to Simulated Universe, sometimes in the form of new Worlds, while other times in the form of an entirely new game mode like the Swarm Disaster. However, nothing has been quite as big as the Divergent Universe released in the Version 2.3 update.

Apart from featuring a remarkably different play style, this mode also solves the issue of having to go through a 15-minute run just to get a few Planar Ornaments. However, if you want to beat this game mode, you'll have to understand its mechanics.

How To Unlock Divergent Universe

If you want to take part in the Divergent Universe, there are essentially two requirements, but only one of them is necessary. The requirement that you absolutely have to fulfill is the one where you have to beat the third world of the Simulated Universe on any difficulty. This will unlock an event featuring the Divergent Universe.

However, this game mode is located at an area in Penacony that only unlocks during the Farewell, Penacony quest, which is the Prologue of the area. If you're fairly new to the game, this can take you quite a while to reach. Thankfully, there's a way for you to go around it using the Finality's Vision mechanic.

You also don't get spoiled about a ton of things when you use this for Divergent Universe since the only thing you'll see is a small part of the area where the game mode is situated.

Divergent Universe General Walkthrough

As mentioned above, the Divergent Universe features the perfect blend of normal Simulated Universe and specific game modeslike Gold And Gears. If you've taken part in these game modes, the gameplay loop will feel similar. Much like the higher worlds of Simulated Universe, you have to beat 13 different rooms to get past one run in the Divergent Universe.

However, similar to Gold And Gears, you have to go through three planes, with the first and third plane being four floors and the middle one being five. At the end of each plane, which is on floors four, nine, and 13, you'll have to fight and defeat a main boss to get to the next plane and continue the run.

After defeating the first two bosses on the fourth and ninth floors, a mechanic called Excessive Conversion triggers. In this part of the battle, two Elite enemies spawn, and you can get points of Conversion Data whenever you deal damage to them. You'll get an extra chest after the battle for reaching 1,500, 4,000, and 10,000 Conversion Data respectively.

However, you can only reach 10,000 points by defeating both enemies, and you have limited turns to do that. This is just a bonus battle, so your characters regenerate all their HP after it, and even if you get defeated in it, the game considers it a victory and you get to move forward in the run.

As you might notice, the game won't ask you to select a specific path while entering the Divergent Universe. This system has been replaced by Equations, where two paths can be combined to form a special effect (more on this below). Since the main system is replaced, you also get a new set of Blessings, Occurrence, Curios, and Weighted Curios in the Divergent Universe.

Some of them are the same as the Simulated Universe while others feature special effects involving the Equations. When you're choosing blessings after a battle or an Occurrence in this game mode, you will sometimes see a special green-colored sign when a blessing can contribute to your Equation.

Most of the rooms during a Divergent Universe run will be familiar, but some of them will have a little difference. For example, the Occurrence, Reward, and Encounter domains will now permanently feature two Occurrences, and you have to take both of them. Moreover, you can sometimes get three choices for the next room instead of the regular two.

You'll also sometimes find Divergent Universe-exclusive domains like Wealth and Escapade. These rooms feature the Penacony gacha feature where you can try your luck at getting various rewards using Cosmic Fragments. The Wealth domain will also give you a bunch of Cosmic Fragments for free, and you can always ignore the gacha machines if you want.

You'll also regularly encounter a new interactable NPC in the Divergent Universe called the Workbench of Creation. Using this, you can have a chance to do three things:

• Choose one of your current Equations and replace it to get a choice between three random Equations.
• Choose one of your Blessings and replace it to get a choice between three random Blessings.
• Use a special Heat currency to upgrade some of your Blessings. Each Workbench contains four Heat and you'll have to use three to enhance a golden blessing, two for blue, and one for white.

Equations, Explained

If you want to have a chance at beating the different difficulties of the Divergent Universe, you'll need to understand how Equations work. Essentially, instead of asking you to choose one path for the entire run, Equations lets you make a combination of multiple paths by using small abilities from each of them.

Each Equation consists of two paths, and it requires a certain number of Blessings from both these paths to be activated. However, you can have multiple Equations in the same run, allowing you to create a unique effect for each one. You get to choose one Equation at the start of a normal run, while getting others as you progress.

The game also upgrades all your characters and gives them recommended Relics and Light Cones when they're not fully upgraded only for Divergent Universe. This makes it the perfect place to test out characters before you commit resources to upgrade them.

Ordinary And Cyclical Extrapolation, Explained

When you press the Start Game button in Divergent Extrapolation, you can choose from two different modes: Ordinary and Cyclical Extrapolation. These are mostly the same with a few differences:

When you're entering Cyclical Extrapolation, it's recommended to click on the enemy as you can see the recommended Weaknesses here. You can also check the initial Equations before entering the run, which gives you an idea of the team you're supposed to use. For example, the first Cyclical Extrapolation was completely based on Break Effect due to Firefly's release.

Inspiration Circuit Guide

If you've played the multiple Simulated Universe game modes, you're probably already used to seeing an ability tree that slowly gives you permanent boosts to make these Roguelike modes a little easier. The Inspiration Circuit is the ability tree for Divergent Universe, and you can get Inspiration after finishing a run, which can be spent here.

The smaller nodes in the circuit give you various permanent boosts like ATK, Crit Rate, Crit DMG, Break Effect, and many more. On the other hand, the bigger nodes contain special abilities that can make your runs a lot easier, especially on higher difficulties.

Divergent Universe Rewards

Once you fully beat the Divergent Universe, you can get a whopping 3,000 Stellar Jades among many other rewards. However, these rewards are divided into multiple mechanics:

After getting Herta: Collector's Edition in Stable Computing Array or Road of the Mundanite in Synchronicity rewards, you'll unlock the Probability Museum where you can put various items on display to get special buffs in the Divergent Universe.

Planar Ornament Extraction

Finally, the best feature in the Divergent Universe is the Planar Ornament Extraction, which you can find on the bottom-left of your screen after clicking on Start Game. In this screen, you'll see the final bosses of each Simulated Universe world along with the boss in the Divergent Universe with two Ornament sets.

Whenever you successfully beat a run in the Divergent Universe at any difficulty, you can save every Equation, Blessing, and Curio you've acquired. These saves can be used in the Ornament Extraction to directly challenge the bosses and claim Planar Ornaments, reducing the time it takes by a lot.