Editorial policy
How we update countdown dates
A countdown page is only worth visiting if the number on it can be trusted. This is the rulebook that keeps that true.
Rulebook
Announced, or labelled an estimate
Update triggers
A page is updated when HoYoverse publishes something, not when a community theory appears. The announcements that trigger an update are the pre-download and update notice, the update announcement, the phase channel notices, the Intel Report, the store notice and the Special Program post.
When a new version is announced, the countdown page, the release time page, the banner page, the pre-download page and the content page are rewritten for that version, and the previous version moves to the archive.
Estimates versus confirmed times
A time is only presented as confirmed when an official announcement prints it. Everything else is marked as an estimate and shows the reasoning.
Confirmed
- Maintenance starts 2026/10/21 06:00 (UTC+8)
- Phase I channels close 2026/11/11 11:59 (server time)
- Phase II channels run 2026/11/11 12:00 – 2026/12/01 14:59 (server time)
- Version 3.3 ends 2026/12/02 06:00 (UTC+8)
Estimated
- Go-live at 11:00 (UTC+8) — maintenance start plus the “about five hours” HoYoverse quotes
- The next version date, derived from the 42-day cadence
Estimated times never get a countdown that implies more precision than exists. The estimated card is labelled, and the sources page repeats the label.
How fast we update
Announcements are read on the day they are published, and the countdown targets are updated the same day. The sources page records the last time each announcement was checked, so a reader can tell how current the data is without asking.
When the maintenance window passes, the status strip on the home page follows the schedule automatically, and the “last checked” timestamp is updated by hand whenever the page is reviewed.
Corrections
A wrong date is corrected as soon as an official source contradicts it, and the change is recorded in the verification log. Corrections are not silently overwritten: the log keeps the old value visible next to the new one.