HoYoVerse Forcing Some Players to Rename Their Genshin Impact Wanderer

Some players reported that HoYoVerse is forcing them to change the name of their Wanderer (Scaramouche) character in Genshin Impact. Players affected by this policy will receive a letter in the in-game mail system, along with a free An Appellative Stroke item. Only players whose Wanderer shares a name with an upcoming Genshin Impact character will need to change it. [Thanks, お惣菜屋 on Twitter!]

The player who seems to have first encountered the issue is a Japanese player named お惣菜屋 who named their Wanderer “Chiori.” Unfortunately, when Kirara debuted in Version 3.8, her voice lines and story mention a character named Chiori, who is a fashion designer in Inazuma. The problem is that no one ever brought up Chiori prior to Version 3.8. So it was impossible for the player to have known about them when they named their Wanderer.

There are several rules for what names you can give Wanderer in Genshin Impact. You can’t name him any of his old aliases or give him the same name as a playable character. Because Chiori will apparently become playable in the future, this now makes their Wanderer’s name illegal by HoYoVerse’s standards. Some players have commented about the unfairness of the situation. For instance, not everyone pays attention to leaks. With this particular name, Genshin Impact‘s Chiori came out five versions after Wanderer’s debut. So players might retroactively get in trouble just because they gave their Wanderer a name that HoYoVerse wants to use in a future update.

Genshin Impact is readily available on the PS4, PS5, Windows PC, and mobile devices. HoYoVerse is working behind the scenes to solve the issue, so it will likely find a way to prevent similar problems from happening in the future.