National Student Esports (NSE) has renewed its Genshin Impact-focused partnership with Chinese game developer HoYoverse for the 2023/24 academic year.
As a result, NSE will continue to run Genshin Impact events and activations on student campuses across the UK throughout the academic year
In a press release, NSE and HoYoverse shared their plans for the 2023/24 academic year, including online and in-person events to increase awareness of Genshin Impact among UK students. Moreover, student societies will be able to run their own Genshin Impact events supported by NSE and HoYoverse.
This is the second consecutive year that NSE and HoYoverse have delivered joint activations to the growing UK Genshin Impact sub-community. In addition to events organised by NSE, last year’s partnership allowed societies to be directly funded by NSE and HoYoverse through its campus event support scheme.
NSE is a supporting body of university esports in the UK and has one of the largest grassroots gaming communities in the country. It was founded in 2018 in partnership with British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS), the national governing body of UK university sports. In the past, NSE has partnered with the likes of Monster Energy and Pringles to organise tournaments in VALORANT, CS:GO, Rocket League and more.
NSE also operates the British University Esports Championship as part of its goal to support the growth of esports within the higher education sector. In the 2022/23 academic year, over 2,200 teams from 11 universities participated in the competition.
HoYoverse is the developer of Genshin Impact, an open-world action gacha RPG. The Chinese company is most known for its portfolio of gacha games, including Honkai: Star Rail, Honkai Impact 3rd and Tears of Themis. The developer has typically stayed away from the esports ecosystem.
Leveraging major partnerships, NSE continues to strengthen its key position in the UK university esports ecosystem. In July, the organisation announced the renewal of its partnership with technology company Intel for a fifth year. Furthermore, NSE launched the Splatoon 3 – University Championship together with Nintendo UK in February.
Alex Coulson, Managing Director at NSE, commented on the partnership with HoYoverse: “We are thrilled to continue our partnership with HoYoverse for a second consecutive year, we always aim to further enrich the university experience for UK students and this partnership helps us to do this.
“Our community loved hosting their on-campus events and we can’t wait to see the enthusiasm and creativity that the university societies will bring to this campaign once again.”
