SINGAPORE, Oct. 01, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Gamescom attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors each year, but tucked away from the sensory overload of the convention floor, a quieter gathering took place — one that offered a rare window into the creative engine quietly transforming how millions of people experience Genshin Impact's UGC gameplay module, Miliastra Wonderland. HoYoverse hosted an intimate, invite-only creator meetup in Cologne, bringing together more than 50 of the most active UGC stage creators behind Miliastra Wonderland. The result was an afternoon of candid conversations, shared war stories, and a striking look at just how far player-made content has come. Today, HoYoverse has released key highlights from the event and creator comments.
What Is Miliastra Wonderland?
Launched in October 2025, Miliastra Wonderland is a UGC gameplay module built directly into Genshin Impact — no separate download, no third-party platform. The module invites all interested players to unleash their creativity and become Craftspeople, using the in-game editor to design and publish custom stages for all Genshin Impact players to access and play. Since launch, the platform has grown to host over 90,000 Craftspeople, who have created over 120,000 Wonderland stages in total to date.
The breadth of what those numbers represent became apparent the moment the creators in that Cologne room started talking.
A Platform for Every Kind of Builder
No two creators at the event seemed to be building the same thing. That’s the entire point of Miliastra Wonderland.
Chryzel, the creator behind Legend of Manekina — an action-adventure stage filled with enemy encounters, hidden treasure, and hand-crafted puzzles — also runs a YouTube channel dedicated entirely to teaching others how to build in Miliastra Wonderland. For Chryzel, the platform's greatest strength is the cycle of making and sharing knowledge.
'I would learn something, make a guide about it, and then often learn even more from the questions and feedback I got. It became this really nice cycle of learning and teaching.'
Meanwhile, DODO was thinking in a completely different genre. The creator of IMPOSTOR, a social deduction party game built inside Miliastra Wonderland, had originally planned to stick to party games. Then the platform's new Shooter mode dropped, and plans changed immediately.
'I still want to make party games where you can have fun with other players or your friends. But now that I've seen the Shooter mode, I'm so excited to build a good shooter game in Miliastra Wonderland.'
And then there are creators like genshashin and collaborator Filo, who are using the platform in a way its architects may not have fully anticipated: as a professional filmmaking toolkit. Their stages — 3-in-1 Film Set, Sky Room, and Movie Explosions Set — are purpose-built environments for capturing cinematic Genshin Impact footage, complete with green screens, dynamic spotlights, and controlled explosion sequences. When they hit a technical wall (Miliastra Wonderland's Classic Mode doesn't support Camera Mode) they engineered around it.
'Filo made a wall spawner! In Miliastra Wonderland, you can use walls to trick the camera so that the character disappears from view. It might look scuffed, but it does the job.'
That spirit of improvisation and problem-solving ran through nearly every conversation of the afternoon.
Building the Impossible — Then Sharing the Blueprint
For yummie, a computer scientist and graphic designer, the technical edge of Miliastra Wonderland is where things get interesting. Their stage Teyvat Sports Day started as a straightforward experiment: which Genshin Impact characters run fastest? It has since evolved into a multi-discipline athletics competition. The next project, A Mazing TD, takes the tower defense genre and flips it: players design the enemy path themselves.
'That opens up much more creative tower placement, and smart 'mazing' can drastically increase the time enemies spend inside your maze.'
For yummie, if a mechanic doesn't exist in the editor, the answer is to build it. When Genshin Impact's iconic ice-bridging mechanic couldn't be replicated because water surfaces weren't freezable in Miliastra Wonderland, they recreated the entire freeze/unfreeze system from scratch and then offered to share it publicly in the platform's Resource Center.
Kosmos took a different creative direction entirely. Lightkeeper is a slow-burn cosmic horror experience — the kind of stage that could make a player forget they're inside a free-to-play open-world adventure RPG. You arrive on an island to work a temporary lighthouse job. You discover something is very wrong. The island, and eventually you, are under a strange influence. What started as an exploration of atmosphere has become a meditation on what the platform is capable of.
'Miliastra Wonderland has been really valuable to me as an outlet for creativity and as a way to pursue my game-development aspirations. What I personally look forward to most is seeing how much further it can evolve, and what kinds of new experiences creators will be able to make.'
Low Floor, High Ceiling
One theme emerged again and again throughout the Cologne meetup: Miliastra Wonderland's editor tool is genuinely accessible to people with no prior technical background — while still offering the depth that experienced developers want.
DODO began building games at 14. Years of wrestling with bugs and unfinished projects had taken a toll.
'I got stuck so many times trying to fix bugs that I began to feel like I was wasting my time. From then on, I didn't make another game. I really needed to finish and publish something to heal my burnout — and Miliastra Wonderland helped me a lot because it's so easy to understand and build levels in.'
That accessibility is by design. The platform's Craftspeople Academy provides step-by-step video tutorials and a comprehensive General Guide. Creators point to Node Graphs — the visual scripting system at the heart of the editor — as the feature that most lowers the barrier to entry.
'Don't worry if it's overwhelming at the start,' DODO told us. 'It doesn't matter if you've never programmed in your life — Node Graphs are easy once you understand them.'
Chryzel's advice aligned: 'Start small and focus on finishing projects instead of trying to build something massive right away.' Make mistakes. Ship something. Learn from it. Repeat.
No Creator Creates Alone
Perhaps the most consistent thread running through the day was the role of community. Multiple creators cited the Miliastra Wonderland Creator Front Discord server as a critical resource — not just for technical help, but for staying motivated through the long stretches between a stage's first idea and its published form.
Aeszarck, who co-created the intense bullet hell stage 100 Rounds MW with collaborator Sonarenity, was candid about the emotional reality of long-form game development.
'It takes a tremendous amount of work to bring about a high-quality Miliastra Wonderland stage, and it's easy to lose motivation before you finish. Maybe you discover a critical bug that forces you to rework tons of your logic. Maybe the editor crashes and you lose hours of work. I've found that having a collaborator is a great motivator. Once you're no longer working for just yourself, it gets a lot harder to give up.'
Beyond the technical and emotional support, Aeszarck also pointed to something less tangible but equally powerful: the feeling of being seen by people who understand what you're making.
'Having a network of people who genuinely respect your work is the real game-changer. Their support becomes a massive emotional boost during the tough parts of development.'
IslaWoof, creator of the music-driven puzzle stage A Fantasy In Sync and the lore-driven obstacle course Ronova's Deathrun, also credited the community and the platform itself for making the journey feel less lonely: 'The support I received from the creator community, and also directly from HoYoverse, made the whole process feel less solitary.'
What Comes Next
The Cologne meetup was, at its core, a recognition by HoYoverse and by the creators themselves that Miliastra Wonderland has outgrown its earliest definition. It is no longer just a feature added to a live-service game. It is a platform in its own right, one approaching its first full year with an ever-expanding toolset, a self-sustaining creator community, and a library of stages that spans horror, sports, film production, party games, bullet hell, and experimental mechanics that don't fit any category at all.
For anyone still on the fence about trying it: it's free inside of Genshin Impact, and there is a stage built for anyone and everyone.
The 2026 Miliastra Wonderland Creator Face to Face was hosted by HoYoverse on August 30, 2026, in Cologne, Germany, during Gamescom.
Photos accompanying this announcement are available at
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About Genshin Impact
Genshin Impact is a free-to-play open-world adventure RPG that brings players to the visually stunning world of Teyvat. The player takes on the role of the mysterious 'Traveler,' who sets off on a journey to discover the fate of their lost sibling. Starting from Version 7.0, Snezhnaya, the seventh nation of Teyvat, is open for exploration. Players can explore each region with unique cultures and vast landscapes, meet a diverse cast of characters, master the art of element-based combat, and unveil the secrets of Teyvat. With cross-progression and Co-Op functions, players can now continue their adventure across PlayStation®5, Xbox, PC, Android, and iOS alone or with friends.
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