Honkai: Star Rail 4.5 release time and maintenance countdown

Updated September 28, 2026

Honkai: Star Rail 4.5 — “To Roll the Stars in Astropolis” — the summer version that takes the Astral Express to Astropolis — goes live on 26 August 2026 — officially confirmed — at 11:00 (UTC+8) when update maintenance ends. That is one moment worldwide: mid-morning in Europe, the evening of 25 August in the Americas. The countdown and region table above translate it into your timezone.

The date is now official. HoYoverse’s Version 4.5 store post, published straight after the special program, states outright that the fashion headwear and the reset Herta Contract bundles arrive “after the Version 4.5 update on 2026/08/26.” That converts the date from cadence-based inference into an announced fact.

What is still pattern rather than promise is the clock time: the formal maintenance notice, which fixes the 06:00–11:00 (UTC+8) window, normally lands about 48 hours before the update and is not up yet. Every recent version has used that window. This page changes with the notice if anything differs.

One thing worth doing the arithmetic on. That same store post sets the Herta Contract availability as 26 August through 2026/09/28 03:59 (UTC+8) — a window of roughly 33 days, where a standard Star Rail version runs 42. Shop windows do not always span a whole version, so this is a signal rather than a proof. But it points the same direction as the Chinese community reporting that 4.5’s second half may be trimmed so the following banner lands on a holiday, which this page has been carrying as unconfirmed. If phase 2 is short, the practical consequence is that a rerun you plan to skip may not come back around when you expect.

Maintenance and compensation

The official window, as announced and as it ran:

• Maintenance started: 06:00 (UTC+8) on 26 August — official, from the 24 August maintenance preview
• Servers came back: around 11:00 (UTC+8), the announced five hours later

Compensation came to 600 Stellar Jades in two separate mails, and the split is not what “600” usually implies:

Both required Trailblaze Level 4 or above before 26 August 06:00 (UTC+8), and both were sent within five hours of servers returning. Mail expires after 30 days. The issue-fix 300’s deadline, 25 September, has now passed; the maintenance 300 stayed claimable until 4.5 ended on 28 September.

Honkai: Star Rail 4.5 banners

• Phase 1 (26 August – 16 September): Robin — Summeretto debuted, with her signature Light Cone on the weapon banner.
• Phase 2 (16 September – 28 September): Aventurine — Waveflair. Note the short half: the official 4.5 update notice runs the version only to 28 September 06:00 (UTC+8), and says in as many words that the version duration was adjusted — its endgame modes ran five weeks instead of six. Schedules still showing Phase 2 to 6 October are applying the usual six-week cadence to a version that did not get one. 4.6 arrives 28 September.

Both new characters are SP forms — the same faces, rebuilt from scratch:

Robin — Summeretto (Wind, Remembrance)

Robin’s swimsuit form swaps her Physical Harmony kit for Wind Remembrance. Test-server descriptions centre on a stacking “atmosphere” gauge: filling it summons three songbird memosprites, and with all three on stage Robin enters a Fever state that projects a field letting the whole team partially ignore enemy defence — a base value that scales further with the gauge. On top of that sit team damage buffs, an action-advance ultimate that also refunds energy, and a mode that adapts its buff (attack or crit damage) to whoever she supports. Community verdicts from the test server ranged from “universal support ceiling” to “a tailor-made partner for specific DPS units” — her numbers shifted across V1–V3 test builds, so final judgement belongs to the livestream and release notes.

Aventurine — Waveflair (Quantum, Elation)

Aventurine’s SP form drops the shield-support role entirely and plays as a follow-up-style Quantum DPS on the Elation Path, converting Speed into an Elation resource (with a bonus when teamed with other Elation characters). A late test-server change made his skill count as a follow-up attack when he is the team’s only Elation member — a deliberate bridge into existing follow-up teams. Test-server discussion flagged his constellation curve: the first two Eidolons remove key limits on his extra attacks, so expectations for the free-to-play baseline stayed modest across the V1–V3 builds.

Story: a summer on Astropolis

The 4.5 main story shifts to Astropolis, framed as a summer vacation centred on Robin and Aventurine — matching the two SP debuts. A new game mode also appears in leak coverage, resembling a challenge event with clear-to-complete structure; Chinese community sources read it as groundwork for a future expansion of an existing endgame mode. Details on both are exactly what the livestream exists to fix.

The 4.5 livestream — and 300 free Stellar Jades

Officially scheduled: Friday 14 August at 19:30 (UTC+8), broadcast on the official YouTube and Twitch channels. The announcement also fixes the version name — “To Roll the Stars in Astropolis” — and formally names Robin • Summeretto and Aventurine • Waveflair as the version’s stars, upgrading them from leak to official. As always the stream will drop three redemption codes worth 100 Stellar Jades each, valid for roughly a day. All three codes are out: 2TKRKAR6YG2X (100 Jades + 50,000 Credits), LSJ9JARPZH33 (100 Jades + 5 Traveller’s Guides) and YAJQ2TR6ZY2P (100 Jades + 4 Refined Aethers) — all expiring 15 August at 23:59 (UTC+8) / 10:59 UTC-5. Full redemption paths and a transcription warning on the codes page. When they expire we mark them expired rather than quietly deleting them.

The shortened version, settled

Before launch, one strand of Chinese community reporting said Phase 2 might be trimmed to roughly two weeks so the following banner could hit a holiday window, while Game8 showed a standard 20-day Phase 2. The community read was right. HoYoverse’s own 4.5 update notice ends the version at 28 September 06:00 (UTC+8) — about five weeks, not six — and explains the knock-on directly: because the version duration was adjusted, this cycle of Apocalyptic Shadow and Pure Fiction ran five weeks rather than six.

That is why 4.6 lands on 28 September rather than the 7 October a six-week cadence produces. Any schedule you see with 7 October on it, including an earlier version of our own 4.6 page, is doing cadence arithmetic instead of reading the notice.

Honkai: Star Rail 4.5 guides

• The special program: time, channels, what to expect
• Codes: how to redeem and when the next three drop
• 4.5 banners: what is expected before the reveal
• Honkai: Star Rail 4.6 countdown — the next version, dates labelled as derived
• Maintenance compensation
• Robin & Summeretto, explained

Sources

The banner phases and kit details above trace to the linked schedule and press coverage, which in turn summarise official teasers and test-server builds; nothing here is from the official 4.5 notice yet, because that notice does not exist at time of writing. Sources are marked accordingly, and this page is rewritten against the official material the moment it posts.

• HoYoverse — official 4.5 Special Program announcement (14 August 19:30 UTC+8; names the version and both SP characters)
• HoYoverse — official Honkai: Star Rail news hub (the 4.5 maintenance notice will appear here; not posted at time of writing) press report, not an official statement
• Game8 — Warp banner schedule with 4.5 phase dates press report, not an official statement
• Pocket Tactics — Honkai Star Rail 4.5 update release date press report, not an official statement