Fans have begun to speculate the reasons why Feixiao's English VA has not been present in recent trailers.
Honkai: Star Rail fans have recently expressed concern over Anairis Quinones, the English voice actor for upcoming 5-star character Feixiao, after the character's recent English trailers were released with Japanese voice acting.
With Feixiao set to become playable on September 10 alongside the release of Honkai: Star Rail version 2.5, developer HoYoverse has been rolling out trailers to hype up the new character's arrival. These trailers included Feixiao's “Myriad Celestia Trailer: The Arrow that Seeks the Stars” released on September 3 and her “Keeping up with Star Rail” trailer released on September 4, both of which were voiced in Japanese instead of English.
While Feixiao's English dub was still present in the Trailblaze Continuance Missions in version 2.4, the absence of her English voice actor for the version 2.5 promotional material still caused concern for fans. Honkai: Star Rail developer HoYoverse alluded to scheduling conflicts as the reason for her absence in the “Keeping Up With Star Rail” video regarding Feixiao.
Why is there no English dub for Feixiao's recent trailers?
There has been no statement further elaborating this situation from both Honkai: Star Rail and Quinones. In fact, fans discovered that Quinones had disappeared from the internet, with both her social media accounts in X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram scrubbed away some time after the release of Feixiao's Myriad Celestia Trailer.
Rumours have begun to circulate around the HSR community that Quinones’ disappearance may coincide with her posting a skin colour edit of Feixiao to her X account. The edit featured a brown-skinned Feixiao, which allegedly angered Chinese fans to the point of “bullying” and “harassing” her, leading her to be “fired” from Honkai: Star Rail.
This particular rumour notably got a lot of traction as HoYoverse has been in hot water lately due to the reactions of fans regarding Genshin Impact’s newest region release.
However, it’s best to do proper research than to jump to conclusions. There's very little reason for Chinese Honkai: Star Rail players to play in the English dub as the game is already dubbed in their own language, and even less motivation for them to be embroiled in controversies within the game's English-speaking communities.
Spreading baseless accusations can do more harm than good, something that Alejandro Saab, the English voice actor for Jing Yuan, emphasised in a statement to his official X account.
Since there are no official statements from both parties, it is safer to assume that the scheduling conflicts regarding Feixiao’s English VA coincide with the ongoing video game voice actor strikes, which started last 26 July.
In-game content like quests, gameplay voice lines, and other voiced interactions are generally recorded months in advance before a new character is released. So, Feixiao should still be fully voiced in the English dub of the upcoming 2.5 version update. However, promotional material like trailers are often recorded closer to the release, so the schedule for recording would have likely been affected by the strikes – which explains why HoYoverse had to resort to using the Japanese dub for Feixiao's recent trailers.
Sorry, drama-hungry Honkai: Star Rail fans, there's very likely no real controversy to be found here.
Honkai: Star Rail version 2.5 will be released on September 10 with three new playable characters in Feixiao, Lingsha, and Moze as well as tons of other new content, including a special triple rerun banner in the first half of the version featuring Kafka, Black Swan, and Robin. For more information on what's to come in Honkai: Star Rail version 2.5, check here.