Last updated: 2026-01-13. 6.3 preload brought a HUGE update for us, and there were also some massive developments such as her first appearance in official artwork. Please see the commit history to see what changed. This will be updated over time as new information surfaces.

Okay, so 6.0 is out, and I admit I was wrong about Signora being playable in 5.8. However, there have been some MASSIVE developments lately, and all of them suggests that she will be playable soon. In fact, I’m glad I didn’t post this earlier in 5.8 as I was planning to do that as some kind of “postmortem analysis” of the lack of her return in that version, but pushing this back ended up giving me more arguments in favor of her resurrection.

If you haven’t seen the last two posts yet, then you should check part 1 and part 2, as they both give some context for this one. This post simply expands on part 1 as it was becoming too long, and some of the arguments in there are no longer valid.

Table of contents

Why I’m still certain that Signora will be playable

She finally received an official merchandise after 4 years

This is probably the biggest argument for her imminent playability. Recently, Hoyo announced that they’ll be releasing a Harbinger chibi figure blind box in China, which includes her as part of the collectable set, so this means that this is her first official merch that’s released a whopping 4 years after she was executed in Inazuma, and what’s interesting is the details for this specific merch. Here’s the product info, along with machine translations from Google Translate and ChatGPT:


All the possible chibi figures from the blind box



Original product description



Google translated product description


The Google translated image is still somewhat nonsensical, so here’s one from ChatGPT:

盒蛋规则 (Blind Box Rules):

隐藏 (Hidden Figures / Secret Rares):

抽取概率 (Draw Rates):

This is HUGE because not only is Signora included in this blind box unlike Crucabena (which implies the latter won’t be playable), she’s being marketed as the rarest figure. Normally, merch blind boxes make the “hidden” characters fan-favorites or hype characters, to ensure the rarest item generates the most demand. Putting Signora in this slot is a deliberate choice. If Hoyo really wanted her to “stay irrelevant”, they would’ve just left her out. Instead, they’ve made her the ultimate chase figure. This artificially drives up secondary market prices and creates demand for her. Also, this feels like a signal from Hoyo that they still remember her, and that she’s likely to be relevant again soon.


Aww, look how adorable she is

If Hoyo just wanted “generic hype”, they would’ve made Capitano, Dottore, or Columbina the rarest ones, since they’re top-ranking and “mysterious”, and that would’ve been the obvious move. But instead they chose Scaramouche and Signora, which are ranked far lower, but in which both have extremely vocal fanbases, were “removed” from the Harbinger lineup, and have a tragic, emotionally charged backstory (betrayal / identity crisis and tragic death / lost love respectively).

From a business standpoint, making them the rarest achieves two things. They could use this as some sort of market testing, as their rarity creates artificial scarcity, driving up demand. If resale prices spike and collectors obsess over them, Hoyo can measure how much “pulling power” these characters still have. Also, this allows them to generate free publicity and spark up conversations about her once again. Signora mains who’ve been silent for years now suddenly have a reason to reenter the conversation: “Why make her the rarest if she’s irrelevant?” That’s exactly the kind of buzz a company wants.

I think the inclusion of Scara in the “small hidden” category is likely an attempt at hyping him up once again in order to anticipate for a major plot point in Nod-Krai. Remember that in the teaser, Wanderer had a different reflection on the water, which is him in the original Scara outfit, not to mention that the Simulanka event back in 4.8 suggests his involvement in safeguarding Durin, which is confirmed to be playable in a future 6.x patch. If that’s the case, then it stands to reason that Signora is in the “big hidden” category because it’s a foreshadowing that she will be resurrected in the near future, which would be a huge plot point indeed.

I’ve seen some comments that “she won’t be playable because she and Scara are the rare figures and neither of them really became playable (Scara became Wanderer and switched to a different model)”, or “Hoyo hates Signora because they made her the rarest one”. Well, that’s not how marketing psychology works, and this shows a clear lack of understanding of how big businesses usually operate. Scarcity = value. They made her rare because she’s valuable, not because Hoyo hates her and wants people to forget her. This is especially considering how this merch will be available in CN, the market people have argued to carry the most weight for Hoyo’s decision-making. If Signora wasn’t popular among CN players, she wouldn’t be anywhere in this merch lineup, let alone as the rarest.

For four years she was treated almost like a taboo character: no splash art, no official merch, barely any narrative presence except her death. If Hoyo truly wanted her to stay discarded, the path of least resistance would’ve been to just keep ignoring her. But instead, they chose to do the exact opposite by giving her a merch debut after 4 years, and not just any merch, but in a premium slot (the rarest figure).

This, to me, looks like an attempt at corporate course correction. Companies don’t openly admit “we screwed up”, but they signal it through moves like this. For years detractors used the “no merch = she’s irrelevant” argument, and now that shield is gone. The CN market getting this first is no accident either; if CN fans have indeed been consistently pushing for her, this is Hoyo’s way of showing: “We’re listening. We’re giving her value again”. If anything, this makes her future playability more plausible than ever. They don’t throw marketing weight at someone they’ve written off. They only do this when they see untapped demand worth capitalizing on.

She also received other official merchandise in the form of cards and standees, further solidifying her relevance, especially when compared to Crucabena who isn’t featured in any of them.

As an aside, I decided to purchase the acrylic stand from an AliExpress listing that lets you choose which character you want, and it does look great in person. Might be worth checking it out.


Her mask looks elegant

She was mentioned by her real name many times in a row throughout 6.x

This is the second-biggest argument in favor of her return, and supports the pity-baiting theory I’ve mentioned in part 1.

In one of the Selenic Chronicles, which is fully voiced, Columbina says this towards the end:

Traveler: Looks like you’re in a good mood today… / You spoke quite a bit about your past…

The Damselette: Yes. Even though I’ve “run away from home,” I do have some fond memories of it all the same.

The Damselette: Arlecchino and Sandrone treated me quite well, along with…

The Damselette: …

Traveler: (That expression… I wonder who she’s thinking about…)

The Damselette: Give me your hand.

Traveler: …Huh? / …Why?

The Damselette: Rosalyne taught me… It’s important to always express gratitude to others.

The Damselette: So, thank you for listening to me.

Traveler: Don’t mention it…

This is important, because unlike the other two Harbingers she mentioned (Arlecchino and Sandrone), she mentioned Signora by her real name, Rosalyne. You see, the Harbingers are usually introduced and referred to by their codenames, because that’s what reinforces their role as the Harbingers, not as vulnerable human beings. Using her true name like this is a deliberate narrative reframing device, as it strips away the intimidating Harbinger persona and instead humanizes her as the woman behind the mask. Also, notice how she still seems to be shaken by her death, as evidenced by her pausing and telling the MC to give her their hand before mentioning Rosalyne. That’s a clear sign of pity-baiting, and it’s essentially Hoyo nudging the audience to empathize with her on a personal level, not just as a villain archetype.

After the huge blunder they did with Signora, Hoyo seems to have developed a formula on how to turn “morally grey” characters into sympathetic, playable ones:

  1. Antagonistic introduction. Each of these characters is first positioned as a threat or obstacle to the Traveler or their allies. At first, the player is meant to view them with suspicion or fear.
    • Wanderer: Manipulative, arrogant, and dangerous.
    • Arlecchino: Cold and ruthless, intimidating towards Furina.
    • Skirk: Tied to the abyss and enigmatic.
  2. Tragic backstory reveal. We then dive into why they became this way, and the player begins to empathize. Each story is devastating:
    • Wanderer: “Betrayed” by everyone he tried to love, manipulated by the Fatui.
    • Arlecchino: Raised under cruel conditions, forced to suppress her emotions due to her cursed bloodline.
    • Skirk: Survivor of a genocide, haunted by trauma, and forced to bury her past.
  3. Re-contextualization. Now that we know the pain, the cold exterior is reframed as a defense mechanism. They’re not necessarily “evil”, just morally grey, and they only appear to be villains because it’s their coping mechanism after everything they’ve been through. Their flaws are humanized, and Hoyo builds them up not as antagonists, but as people.
  4. Path to playability. They’re finally given purpose. They work with the Traveler, find redemption, or at least a meaningful path forward. Then the banner hits. This creates emotional investment, which translates directly into sales.

Columbina explicitly ties Rosalyne to a positive value: “It’s important to always express gratitude to others”. That is not something you write about a villain you intend to keep buried, and it’s exactly what “Step 3” of the pity-bait formula looks like: re-contextualizing negative traits by highlighting a sympathetic core. This also means that Arlecchino’s voice line wasn’t a fluke, but rather foreshadowing, and now we’ve got another Harbinger reinforcing the same narrative shift. You don’t just pity-bait her like this and then double down on it years after the fact unless if you’re setting up a payoff.

Additionally, in 6.1, Hoyo once again name-dropped Signora by her real name, this time directly in the AQ.

The Damselette: Have you held any tea parties lately?

Marionette: Tea parties? Uh, yeah, obviously. You don’t seriously think we’d pack it all in just because you aren’t here?

Marionette: If anything, they’ve been more eventful than ever. Just me, Arlecchino, and a bunch of insolent, insensitive “guests” who won’t stop asking where you’ve gone. Oh, they’ve been a real joy.

The Damselette: I bet you served them the worst tea you have. Just like you used to do to me when I upset you.

Marionette: Hmph… Who cares about how good the tea is when there’s no one around to drink it? I keep losing people…

Marionette: First Rosalyne, now you… I’m running out of people who can make me laugh. Honestly, what could be more ridiculous than a multi-centenarian goddess who’s only ever had the plain herbal tea she received as offerings? Heh…

The Damselette: You’d always brew a different type of tea for me each time. Was it really just to see how I’d react?

Marionette: I, uh— Well, duh! Why else? Watching you squirm was practically my only form of entertainment.

(Traveler): (Or was she genuinely trying to introduce Columbina to new flavors? Maybe all that coldness is just an act… and they actually get along?)

Marionette: Oh, yeah… and Capitano sometimes used to bring Tartaglia around too, but I guess we won’t be seeing him again.

[…]

Marionette: Hmph… I figured you’d leave eventually. You didn’t have as much of a reason to stay as I do.

Marionette: The Tsaritsa gave you shelter and protection, but that was it — nothing more, nothing less. Meanwhile, the Fatui demanded everything from you in return, until it was more than you could bear.

Marionette: I get why you left. And frankly, I have no interest in dragging you back just because the higher-ups told me to.

Marionette: But if you keep hanging around with this riffraff, the next time we cross paths, we might be enemies for real.

(The Traveler and Paimon smile knowingly)

(Traveler): (She says that, but she’s the one who just caved in and agreed to help Columbina…)

Notice how Sandrone views both Columbina and Signora positively, as she was just acting cold and pretending to make fun of them as a coping mechanism. In this context, they’re the people who could make her happy and help with her loneliness. She still treats Columbina as her friend even after leaving the Fatui, so it looks like she genuinely cares about her and presumably Signora too.

Most recently, in 6.2, Columbina once again name-dropped Signora by her real name, except this time in the AQ which is impossible to miss unlike her Selenic Chronicle quest. This is further indication that Hoyo really wants the players to pay attention to this. When you consider that all of these dialogues could’ve easily excluded this conversation, but they decided to put it anyway while doing it continuously, then there’s a good chance that this is an attempt at foreshadowing.

Columbina: Of all my days with the Fatui… The times I spent with you, Arlecchino, and Rosalyne… They were my favorite.

Columbina: I will not forget them, just as I shall not forget this moment.

Marionette: …

Columbina: We’ll always be friends, no matter where we are, right?

Marionette: Who’d want to be your…

Columbina: I’ll miss you, Sandrone.

Marionette: …

Columbina: …Goodbye, Sandrone.

Marionette: I’ll… miss you too… Columbina…

Also, notice how in all instances, they mentioned Rosalyne, not Signora, but refer to other Harbingers by their commedia dell’arte names (Columbina mentioned Arle and Sandrone, while Sandrone mentioned Childe and Capitano). This could be something the developers did to nudge the players into figuring out who “Rosalyne” is, so they’d realize that she’s Signora and get them to read her tragic backstory, likely in an attempt to get the players to understand her past.

The fact that she was mentioned by her real name thrice within such a short amount of time, and soon 4 times with the upcoming release of Columbina and the associated “About The Fair Lady” line, when they had all but forgotten her after the Inazuma AQ, is incredibly suspicious. If Signora was truly meant to stay dead, they wouldn’t reopen wounds with lines like these because it would just frustrate players. The fact that they’re deliberately putting this back in players’ minds during the Nod-Krai arc (where all Harbingers converge) suggests that they’re setting the stage for her return. Pity-baiting is the prelude to playability, and every other “morally grey” character who got this treatment eventually became a hugely popular banner.

On the contrary, the 6.1 event also featured Dottore, and he’s viewed more negatively in there. The Traveler and Paimon mentioned him as sounding cold, and he appeared to completely neglect his companion. It’s evident that he’s currently still on “Stage 1”, as he hasn’t been shown to have any tragic backstory, let alone a re-contextualization and redemption path.

Layla: I was just thinking, and this might sound rude, but the way this person speaks is just so…

(Dialogue option): Cold?

Layla: You noticed too!

Layla: I mean, it’s good that he helped treat his companion’s wound, but it didn’t seem like it was out of kindness. More like, he was looking out for his own self-interest… or thought he could get something out of it.

Layla: I don’t know… Maybe I’m reading too much into it.

(Dialogue options): No, you’re right… / He didn’t even mention this companion on the previous page.

Paimon: Yeah…

Paimon: If you’re both in this dangerous situation together, wouldn’t you mention them at least once?

and

Thoth: I still remember the look in his eyes… Nothing stood out, per se, and still… I could sense contempt and disdain radiating from his gaze.

Thoth: I could not give an exact reason, but on instinct, I just knew… It would not end well to get close to a man like that.

Thoth: So, I tricked him.

Thoth: Stick close to your companion, I said. “Only the descendants of Tulaytullah can come and go as they please. Leave him behind, and there is no escape for you.”

Layla: So, does that mean his companion wasn’t a descendant of Tulaytullah?

Thoth: Oh no, that part was true. The lie was in the other half. Anyone can enter or exit this place — there are no restrictions.

Thoth: I saw that his companion was exhausted, and was concerned Zandik might leave him behind.. Or worse, that some other “accident” might befall him… So I made up an excuse to prevent Zandik from going a step too far.

Thoth: Oh, and speaking of, Zandik’s companion had the same blue hair and pointed ears as you.

Layla: !

Paimon: Wait, does that mean… Layla’s also a descendant of Tulaytullah?

Thoth: Indeed.

There’s also the fact that he’s missing from the character introduction cards and version splash arts (at least up until 6.3 where only then he was prominently featured in there), despite being shown in the Nod-Krai teaser, unlike Columbina and Sandrone who were prominently featured in them, even going as far as to put them in 6.1 and 6.2 splash arts. It’s becoming more evident who’s going to be playable judging by these alone.

An alternate interpretation of why these Harbingers refer to her as Rosalyne is that it’s probably similar to why they referred to Dottore as “Zandik” in the 6.1 event. In this state, the Traveler isn’t aware that “Rosalyne” is Signora just yet, and that they will probably be surprised once this is revealed to them, the same way that the ending of AQ Act 6 revealed that “Zandik” is Dottore and that the characters were mildly surprised of this revelation.

(Wanderer): Mmm. Mind you, the only reason I came here is because there’s someone I want to look into.

Paimon: Who’s that?

(Wanderer): The Doctor, also known as Dottore. Second of the Fatui Harbingers.

(Traveler): (Just as I thought…)

Lauma: From the tone of your voice… it sounds like there is bad blood between you.

(Wanderer): …I was reviewing our archives and noticed that a lot of information about him was missing. Left a bad taste in my mouth. That’s all there is to it.

(Wanderer): Dottore… or Zandik as he was then known, once studied at the Akademiya. But he got kicked out before he could graduate.

(Traveler): (Zandik? I’ve heard that name before… Back in the ruins, when the Ibis King mentioned that student — that was The Doctor?)

Varka: Hahahaha! So the harbingers’ number two man is a college dropout? How embarrassing for them.

Paimon: Last we heard, he was planning something… We actually heard that a few times before even coming to Nod-Krai. But we haven’t seen a trace of him since we got here.

(Wanderer): He only appears when something interests him. For all we know, he might have left already.

(Wanderer): But the fact that he did something here at all is worth noting… It’ll fill a couple extra lines in his file.

The preload for 6.3 is now available, and this is HUGE. It finally confirmed my theory: Signora’s placement between Pantalone and Childe wasn’t a fluke, and it happened again with Columbina’s lines about her:

The fact that this happened the second time in row means that this was a deliberate decision. Also notice how it says “About Rosalyne” instead of “About The Fair Lady”. She’s literally the only Harbinger who was mentioned by her real name in the VOs section, while others either use their codenames (The Doctor, Childe) or their commedia dell’arte names (Arlecchino and Sandrone, the other female harbingers). This is further evidence that nothing is as it seems, and they might be giving us subtle hints that she’s returning in the near future. While the line itself doesn’t explicitly hint towards her future revival, the fact that there are subtle oddities like these that outside observers would overlook, strongly implies that they want us to read between the lines instead of taking things at face value.

Not only that, she was mentioned multiple times throughout the AQ and in this item called Marionette’s Notebook, and they really are insistent on referring to her as Rosalyne instead of Signora.

■ / ■ - Overcast

Arlecchino and Columbina came over for tea and picked Rosalyne up on the way.
It was a good day.
I should keep some cookies on hand for next time.

■ / ■ - Snowy

Rosalyne is dead.

IDK why but this is kinda hilarious. Gives me Crab Rave vibes.


My reaction to this

Jokes aside, there were several additional mentions directly in the AQ itself, which means that it’s impossible to miss unless if you actively try to avoid playing the AQ. This is an unusual number of Rosalyne mentions in a single patch (we would’ve been lucky to even have a SINGLE mention of her back then) and it seems that they REALLY want everyone to pay attention to her. My guess is that this is meant to get everyone on board and hype her up for a potential revival arc, along with clearing up any misinformation about her, such as the myth of her being a one-dimensional villain whose death was deserved.


SO MANY ROSALYNE MENTIONS

We only got a glimpse of Mare Jivari in 5.8

The 5.8 special program VOD revealed that the majority of Mare Jivari is not yet accessible, suggesting a future major plot unraveling. Why else would they keep us from exploring most of the region if they’re not planning anything big with it?

This sounds like they’re planning to release a character that’s tied to the region, but they’re not ready to reveal it just yet, probably because we’ll only get some more context once we get to Nod-Krai. Also, doing a staggered release like this is a good business opportunity for them to build up hype for the grand reveal of a notable character. Some speculate it could be the Lavawalker, which is almost certainly Enjou as he gives the flower from that artifact set to the MC, but there’s nothing stopping them from connecting it to Signora and doing something like confirming that the liquid fire is indeed liquid phlogiston.

Hoyo would have absolutely no reason to gate the rest of Mare Jivari behind future content if they don’t plan on using it to market something. And because we all know that they sell characters, not stories or games, it stands to reason that an upcoming character is underway, and they will be revealed once the full Mare Jivari is released. To me, the only possibility would be Signora as Enjou himself has stated at the end of the WQ that it’s unlikely for him to cross paths with the MC ever again. Couple that with speculations about the descriptions of “crimson dawn” and “sea of flame” in her description in the archive, and you get a pretty strong candidate for which character might show up with the expansion.

The Pyro gnosis still hasn’t been stolen yet

This ties to the previous point and is something that some detractors hilariously overlook when they argue Signora can’t return: who’s gonna steal the gnosis after Capitano failed to do exactly that? As of 6.0, the gnosis is still in Mavuika’s hands, and the fact that they’re currently setting the gnosis heist lore aside means that they’ll have to explore it later and maybe surprise the audience.

The entirety of the Harbingers were all focused on dealing with the Wild Hunt Columbina’s problems, and now they have to deal with Dottore after she literally attacked her, so none of them seem to be interested in retrieving the final gnosis as of now. Having her return in Mare Jivari and steal the gnosis while everyone else is distracted would be a good way to reestablish her relevance and reinstate her position as the 8th Harbinger, which could satisfy the part of the community who wants her back as a Harbinger and with her original design.

We currently don’t know how they’re gonna do this, given how Nod-Krai is already filled with so many major plot points, but given how the developers themselves said that Nod-Krai was meant to tie up the story’s loose ends, one possible theory is that this will be similar to HSR’s Amphoreus where they push the main storyline throughout tne entirety of 6.x versions, and one of them may involve us returning to Natlan where the gnosis heist can finally take place.

Hoyofair features “fanarts” from various artists and they’ve been doing this annually since 2021. One interesting thing about 2025’s Hoyofair is that, unlike the previous years, Signora (or her moth) were prominently featured in this one. This is curious, because prior to this, she was only featured once, and that was in 2023 in a very brief section, but in this one, she literally appeared on multiple scenes.

Now, you might think that because these are “unofficial”, they don’t really mean much other than the fact that it’s meant to showcase the various Harbingers. However, I have a suspicion that this is actually a semi-official showcase instead, like some kind of controlled marketing. These are not random community submissions, because they’re actually commissioned (see below), and thus, they’re brand-safe. And there’s evidence that points to this.

Hoyo has made an official statement with their first Hoyofair in 2021, and the accompanying comment event, that says

For this HoYoFair event, we have invited talented creators and prepared many interesting programs~

This comment event also has the following rule:

Comments of the following nature will be regarded as invalid: […] comments that contain any form of advertising, and those which seek to spread malicious rumors or discredit the game and its characters.

Judging by these, it’s very likely that these artworks must align with their marketing and/or in-game narrative. This implies that Hoyo directly sponsors, supervises, or preapproves the content. The creators probably have to work under guidelines, which means they have restrictions on how they can portray the characters. Notice how, in all instances, Signora’s right eye is always obscured by something (her mask, a butterfly). This, in my opinion, is a good example of how Hoyo controls these “fanarts” to prevent misrepresentation of what her full face might look like, because we haven’t gotten to that point in the story just yet.


One of the scenes that feature Signora. I love how she freaks out like that when Bina cheerfully splashed some water on her

Then there’s also this official statement from Hoyofair Spring 2023, which confirms that they’re indeed commissioned (sponsored):

HoYoFair presents a collation of fan works derived from HoYoverse IPs. You can find a rich variety of fan art here as well as creators and players from all over the world who engage in multilingual creations and interactions. Here, everyone can express their love for games.

All content in the program is produced by creators sponsored by HoYoFair, which are derivative works of Genshin Impact, and is not related to the content of Genshin Impact itself.

Notice how they put a disclaimer saying that it’s “not related to the game’s content”. I think this is just a legal shield to protect their asses, not a creative truth. It gives them a plausible deniability in case fans overanalyze something that’s actually intentional foreshadowing. And this is why I think these fanarts are the perfect cover for teasing things like Signora’s return without directly hinting at it as they could easily say something like that to neither confirm nor deny hints for future content.

If fans start speculating that her return is coming, Hoyo can just shrug it off with something like “Oh, that’s just community creativity. This isn’t canon”. But internally, it lets them test audience response (if fans react positively, they know the timing is right for a revival arc), and rebuild emotional connections around her without having to confirm anything officially. This is basically marketing disguised as community engagement. After all, why would multiple different artists feature a character that was deemed “irrelevant”, when they could’ve absolutely featured someone else instead? Given what we know, a plausible explanation for this is that Hoyo has control over which characters are featured, and that just implies they’re probably planning to do something with her in-game.

There are two unknown IDs that don’t belong to anyone in 6.x

HomDGCat, a reliable Genshin leaker with a good track record, has published a playable character ID list for Nod-Krai, and we can make some educated guesses as to how they could possibly release Signora in 6.x.

Hoyo has always consistently released 17 characters for each major version, so we can make an assumption that there will be 17 characters released in 6.x. The UGC characters likely won’t count towards this as while they are usable in free roam, they can’t be used in endgame modes, which is the whole point of pulling for characters. This means that in addition to the unknown IDs 129, 130, and 132, there are two potential unknown IDs 134 and 135 following Sandrone.

Additionally, they’ve posted another silhouette teaser for the upcoming playable characters in 6.x. Two of the silhouettes have been identified to be Varka and Nicole, and ther is a missing silhouette right next to the fifth one, only reflecting a shadow underneath.

The story of Teyvat continues. #GenshinImpact

Even though they don't appear in the picture, Our fates could still become intertwined in the future. pic.twitter.com/WdClVrWAIO

— Genshin Impact (@GenshinImpact) January 2, 2026

Now here’s my speculation of the unknown IDs:

We currently still don’t know who these two IDs belong to, but it’s certainly possible that any of these could be Signora, perhaps with the release of Mare Jivari expansion. After all, out of the 11 Harbingers, only 5 are playable or will be playable as of now, and they’d probably want to release the lower-ranking Harbingers as soon as possible before the higher-ranking ones like Pierro, Capitano, Dottore and Columbina start to cannibalize on their sales too much as players who are indifferent to the Harbingers may be psychologically more likely to focus on the highest-ranking characters than lower ones as they give the impression of being the “best”.

Releasing Signora alongside Sandrone and Columbina in 6.x and then Pantalone alongside Pulcinella in 7.x would be a great way to get rid of them from the waitlist and ensures that Pierro, Capitano, and Dottore can be released last in Snezhnaya and Khaenri’ah without killing the revenue of the lesser Harbingers. This also gives an element of surprise, because people won’t be expecting Signora to be playable anytime soon due to the lack of her presence, along with the fact that the missing figure was immediately speculated to be Sandrone.

However, an alternative theory exists in that there will be no 6.8, which would mean IDs 134 and 135 would be characters released in 7.x instead. The only problem with this theory is that, because end-of-major-version banners tend to sell poorly (see Emilie and Ineffa’s debut), Hoyo is taking a risk that Sandrone’s banner, arguably one of their flagship characters, may not perform as well as expected.

Signora being irrelevant to the story means nothing

This ties to my previous point about Mare Jivari. Some argue that Signora’s return would be pointless as she’s no longer relevant to the story, which makes her playability very unlikely. Well, guess what? Bennett has been pretty much irrelevant in the main story for a while, and yet he got an entire lore dump in 5.8 anyway, with Hoyo exploring his Natlan background and his constellation showing up in the fake Mare Jivari.

Then there’s also the fact that Skirk literally just came outta nowhere in Liyue on 5.7, after not hearing back from her since she last showed up in 4.2’s AQ, and without any story relevance in Natlan. They even made a whole-ass backstory about how she was the sole survivor of her planet and gave us a sob story of someone who was forced to shut out her emotions after all she’s been through. All of this without any prior build-ups in 5.x or even later versions of 4.x.

What’s stopping them from doing the same thing with Signora and reveal the fact that her liquid fire turns out to be liquid phlogiston, or simply her busting that coffin open in Snezhnaya once we get there?

While we didn’t get any new playable Harbingers in 5.x, we’re still able to look at the pull count for Arlecchino (the only Harbinger who was rerun in 5.x outside chronicled banner), and compare it against other banners.

When including debut banners, it might seem as if her pull count wasn’t really all that great, only sitting at the 9th place, and trailing behind Furina’s rerun. However, do note that those two banners were the only rerun banners that made it to the top 10, so that’s still quite an impressive feat.

However, if we filter this to only include reruns, then Arlecchino sits at an impressively high 2nd place, leaving the rest of the top 10 behind except for Neuvillette, and was far more frequently pulled than even Mavuika’s rerun. This is surprising, considering how Archon reruns are typically highly anticipated, as evidenced by how many people are still pulling for Furina on her 2nd rerun, and it shows that Mavuika might have flopped after her debut.

This is another evidence that the Harbingers are highly desirable among the community, and by leaving Signora unplayable, they’re likely to miss out on potentially massive banner revenues, both in the short-term (her debut), and long-term (her subsequent reruns).


Top 10 most pulled characters in versions 5.0 - 5.8, including reruns



Top 10 most pulled characters in versions 5.0 - 5.8, reruns only

Columbina’s and Sandrone’s release might be intended to test the waters before releasing Signora

With Columbina and Sandrone being finally confirmed to be playable by reputable leakers, this means that they’ve released all the female Harbingers except Signora. If we assume that Mare Jivari or Signora isn’t in Nod-Krai, I can’t help but think that this could be a litmus test to gauge the potential success of Signora’s banner. While they probably have internal projections, nothing speaks louder than the final revenue numbers from their banners, and they might use those to figure out things like what people want or don’t want in a Harbinger kit or which story elements would make the most impact for the audience and entice them to pull the banner.

Also, by making it seem like they’re releasing all the female Harbingers but Signora, they’re creating a powerful effect where her absence sticks out like a sore thumb, which keeps her relevant in community discussions and builds anticipation for a potential future reveal. And Hoyo seems to know this, given how they seem to make the female Harbingers friendly towards each other, and they even made this tweet that makes the absence of Signora feel all the more powerful. They’re basically teasing us, the audience, by implying “Look how much more complete this would’ve been if she had been here”.

She received her first ever official artwork, and it proves there’s a real demand for her playability

With Columbina’s release being right around the corner, Hoyo has released a promo content called “Columbina’s Anecdotes - Her Memories”. Interestingly, unlike the Christmas commissioned fanart, this features Signora, and was made by Hoyo’s own artists in-house, making it her first ever official appearance in image-based artwork (aside from Arle’s teaser, which is a video). Remember that she wasn’t even featured in 2.1’s splash art, so it pretty much took them over 5 years to feature her outside the game.


Aww, she brought the tea

Places like Reddit, Twitter, and even Hoyolab were flooded with comments about her appearance, and this shows that their marketing strategy of emphasizing on Signora’s absence is working. The sudden presence of Signora after a long absence sparked up discussions once more. Even better, the CN community wants her back in the comments section of the same official post on Weibo, which further confirms that the demand for a playable Signora exists in their home country.


An example of some comments from the official Hoyolab post



Another example of some comments from the official Hoyolab post



An example of some comments from the official Weibo



Another example of some comments from the official Weibo



Another example of some comments from the official Weibo

Hell, even the entire comments section about this on the official subreddit was filled with Signora comments, which is a rare sight given how these would normally result in mass downvotes instead. This is even more proof that people DO actually want her, and when Hoyo starts giving them some tangible content like this, discussions about her become more open-minded.

Character design, kits, and playability are not set in stone

One of the arguments that are frequently thrown by Signora detractors is that Hoyo is unlikely to change their mind when it comes to kits and playability. However, I’d like to once again emphasize that business plans are usually not set in stone, and if they feel like they could make some changes to improve their product or profits, they would absolutely do that. There’s evidence that proves this:

The “surprising reunion with a Harbinger”

I’ve mentioned in the previous post that Xiao Luohao, the game’s editor-in-chief, allegedly made a statement that there will be a surprising reunion with a Harbinger. Given what we know so far:

The whole thing just feels like a teasing and marketing hype cycle to me. After all, if you wanted to do a “surprising reunion”, you gotta prep the audience by building up hype before you reveal the big surprise. This ensures that the audience is well-informed that something major is about to happen, but at the same time, they can’t stretch this for too long or else they’ll get burnt out from all the blueballing. Releasing merch drops, character mentions, and artworks that evoke the feeling of her absence is a perfect way to do this in a controlled manner.

Her resurrection arc might have already been in development

We’ve finally received an official confirmation on how long it takes to finish a major game content, such as AQs, in Genshin Fes 2025. I’ve speculated in my previous post that it could take up to 22 months to complete an AQ plot, given how that’s how long it took between Signora’s first appearance in the game files (CB1.2 in November 2019) and her death in September 2021. Turns out, I was virtually right on the money.

According to this interview, shorter versions take around 6 months, while longer ones can take 17-20 months to finish. They move back and forth with the concept design and revision pipeline, which means that things are subject to change.

There’s actual in-game evidence of this too. “The Little Witch and the Undying Fire”, which is a book about Simulanka Durin, was first seen in 4.7 beta (during 4.6). That was from April 2024. Durin himself became a playable character in 6.2, which was in December 2025. That’s almost a 20-month gap between the foreshadowing of his playability and him becoming playable. We use the betas as our reference for starting dates, since we can assume that was when they first began the development of the content, not when the final version is out.

If we assume that the first instance of Signora’s pity-baiting under her real name and the merch drops in 6.0 beta are a foreshadowing for her return, then we can expect her being playable as early as 7.2 in December 2026 (almost 17 months later), and as late as 7.4 in March 2027 (20 months later, just like Durin’s release). Do keep in mind that these are just estimates, as we could only make educated guesses on when the development started based on in-game and marketing hints, so her actual banner may come out earlier or later than these.

New Bloodstained Knight achievement in 6.3

There’s a new achievement with the release of version 6.3 called “The Lone Wolf’s Memory”, which mentions the Bloodstained Knight. For those of you who don’t know, the Bloodstained Knight was Rostam’s student, and Rostam was Signora’s lover. This appears to be an achievement for completing a quest as it’s a hidden one and the description is rather vague, but it’s currently unknown if this achievement is part of the unmissable AQ or the more skippable WQ. It’s also unknown if the quest in question (no pun intended) will involve Signora’s or even Rostam’s backstory. We’ll just have to wait until the preload for that.

(Still no dataminers following up on this on the preload. We’ll have to wait until release.)

The achievement’s name is rather suspect though, as Rostam’s nickname is “Wolf Pup”, so I’m willing to bet that this may involve Rostam’s backstory at the very least, but I could be wrong.

Unconfirmed dialogue of an abyss invasion in Mondstadt

Recently, there’s been an unconfirmed (sus) leak of Mikhail and Lyudmila’s updated dialogue about an approaching abyss invasion in Mondstadt. This is currently unconfirmed as confirmation for future dialogue content will only be available once the preload is out 2 days before the official release, and even after the preload is out, no one has actually dumped the specific text map for this just yet. However, if true, then this not only would make for a good segue to Dornman Port, but it may even give us more Signora lore crumbs, considering how her transformation into the CWOF was driven by the fact that she wanted to purge the monsters and demons out of grief from the loss of her lover. This also reveals that the 10th seat has been empty this whole time, which would further confirm the theory that the alleged “surprise reunion” can’t be the currently unknown 10th Harbinger, and that it’s likely it would be Signora instead.

The similarities between the symbol in her boss fight and the Eroded Sunfire

Some people have noticed that the symbol that shows up when you try to one-shot Signora in the first phase looks fairly similar to the weapon held by the Lord of Eroded Primal Fire, and by extension, the Eroded Sunfire item. This symbol is unique to this boss fight, and it’s currently unknown if this is related to anything. It also looks different from the Harbinger logo. However, its shape does bear some similarities to the aforementioned Eroded Sunfire, albeit not completely (the circle in the middle is missing).


Left: the symbol on the ground if you try to one-shot Signora in her boss fight. Right: Eroded Sunfire icon

“Ruzicka” being mentioned in a 3.6 event

This is an older theory that’s worth mentioning simply because most people have forgotten about it. In “A Parade of Providence”, specifically, during the quest “Sachin’s Article”, an NPC named Huvishka said:

Many people say that the Spantamad Darshan produces many talented people, such as Cyrus, Ruzicka, Lisa, Cyno…

Cyrus refers to an NPC in Sumeru which is a retired Akademiya professor. Lisa and Cyno are obviously the playable characters, but who is Ruzicka? She doesn’t appear to correspond to any NPCs in the game, and was only mentioned in this event dialogue and never again. This is suspicious, because Růžička means “little rose” in Czech. And guess what Rosalyne means? That’s right, “beautiful rose”. Ruzicka also sounds a bit like an abbreviated form of Rosalyne-Kruzchka. Then there’s also the fact that Signora studied at the Akademiya prior to her Crimson Witch transformation, so this may or may not be a subtle hint of Signora under a different name.

If this really refers to Signora, then they can’t just name-drop Rosalyne because that would’ve been way too obvious, so they settled with Ruzicka as a nod to her, in order to minimize suspicion and get people to shrug it off and not to think too hard about it.

Analogies to help people understand the reality of business strategies

I’d like to put this here because I feel like the detractors who argue against Signora’s return don’t get how marketing actually works. I’m not expecting them to change or anything, but it’s evident that they only rely on the low-hanging fruits like “she’s turned into ashes” or “her death was deserved because she kicked Venti” rather than looking at how businesses work and the workplace politics surrounding them. Companies spend millions or even billions of dollars on marketing to ensure their product sells, and Hoyo is no exception. If they deem a past strategy to be a failure or unsustainable, they will pivot and change course to one that’s more likely to be successful. Expecting Hoyo to stay true to their original plans is unrealistic from a financial perspective, and their marketing department is unlikely to keep this decision forever when there’s an overwhelming amount of data that suggests this is a bad business move.

The BMW M1 analogy

I saw a video about the BMW M1 and how it was a commercial failure despite being widely praised by critics, and I think this is a great analogy for the biggest flaw with the detractors’ argument of “Signora should stay dead and people should move on”.

At 12:57, the host said “the M1 was, despite its good looks, its supercar provenance, its spectacular performance, good build quality, and universal praise, a failure”, and that “people don’t actually want to drive a race car on the road. What the people want is cars with a hint of Motorsport, and all it takes is some extra power here, a spoiler over there, and a couple M-badges… and then people open their wallets and pay through the nose for nothing more than a glorified sport package”. “BMW isn’t in business to make cars. BMW is in business to make money”.

Think of it like this: the M1 was a masterpiece of engineering. It was a true “race car for the road”. From a purist, engineering-first perspective, it was a perfect product, and the car equivalent of a tragic, narratively consistent story where dead characters stay dead; a piece of art created for the purists.

But in the end, “people don’t actually want to drive a race car on the road”. They wanted the fantasy of racing packaged in a comfortable car that’s practical and viable as a daily driver. As a result, the M1 was a commercial disaster. BMW struggled to sell them, eventually having to offer massive discounts, and they only sold a fraction of their initial goal. However, the idea of the M1, the “glorified sport package”, went on to become the foundation of their wildly successful M-Division, a multi-billion-dollar business that sells everyday cars with performance tweaks, aggressive styling, and M-badges. Suddenly, people lined up to buy them. The “spirit” of the M1 became the foundation of a highly profitable business.

This is pretty much analogous to the Signora situation. A writing team, operating like the engineers at BMW, might create what they see as a perfect, “narratively consistent world where dead characters stay dead”. They might even get praised by Signora detractors for their commitment to these tragic stakes. This is their “BMW M1”, a well-crafted (in the detractors’ and writers’ eyes) but ultimately niche product.

However, just like car buyers didn’t want a literal race car, most Genshin players don’t want permanently dead, unplayable villains. They want the fantasy of a powerful Harbinger in their party: badass and lore-rich but redeemable. They’re opening their wallets and paying through the nose for the experience of these characters, not for the abstract purity of a story where they die and don’t have their banners released.

If Hoyo continues to defend their controversial “plot device” for no other reason than a commitment to a 4-year-old narrative decision (which isn’t even explicitly stated or legally binding to begin with), they risk repeating BMW’s mistake. They’re offering a product (a tragic, finished story) to a market that is loudly and clearly demanding a different one (a playable, redeemed character). By releasing filler or side characters instead of established, lore-significant ones, they’re choosing to make less desirable products while their major characters gather dust.

A company composed solely of writers, like a company of engineers, risks creating a product that is technically sound but commercially unviable. The success of a live-service game, just like the success of a car company, depends on finding the perfect balance between the vision of the writers/engineers and the desires of the consumers. Just like BMW, Hoyo isn’t in business to make narratively consistent stories where dead characters stay dead. Hoyo is in business to make money by selling characters.

The enthusiast trap

There’s a video by TechAltar that explains the “enthusiast trap”. It argues that it’s nearly impossible for a tech company built for enthusiasts to remain successful in the long run. This occurs when a company focuses too narrowly on its early, highly opinionated users (the people who demand purity, difficulty, or uncompromising ideals) and then struggles to pivot to the broader, more profitable mainstream audience. In Genshin’s context, replace “enthusiasts” with a small but loud subset of lore purists and “mainstream” with the wider fanbase that favors the character collection aspect of gacha games.

The general idea is this:

  1. The lure: Smaller companies tend to cater to “enthusiasts” because they actively seek out cool new products and promote them in an act of evangelism. This sounds great at first, because word-of-mouth marketing doesn’t cost the company anything, and the community organically promotes the product for free.
  2. The trap: In reality, this is actually unsustainable, because enthusiasts are a small, niche market, with strict standards where they want NO compromises, and expect the company to stay committed to this. This makes it impossible for companies to scale, and cutting corners isn’t an option either, as the enthusiast community actively scrutinizes the company, so any perceived compromise can lead to rejection.
  3. The pivot: Eventually, in order to survive, companies are faced with difficult choices. They have to choose between staying with the enthusiast audience (which might bankrupt them), pivoting to the mainstream, “betraying” the enthusiasts in the process (but more likely to succeed), or trying to please both but more likely to fail as they get involved in a lose-lose situation.

Pebble, Cyanogen, OnePlus, Oppo, and now Nothing have been dealing with this.

Pebble and Cyanogen are examples of trying to take the third option and ended up failing. Both companies tried to cater to their original audience while also branching out. Pebble tried fashion and fitness, and Cyanogen split into commercial and enthusiast platforms (Cyanogen OS and CyanogenMod respectively). In both cases, they failed to attract the new audience while alienating their core community, resulting in a “lose-lose situation”.

OnePlus pivoted hard to a non-tech “lifestyle” audience with the OnePlus X after their OnePlus 2 flopped, which apparently sold terribly. They returned to their roots with the OnePlus 3 but are simultaneously spending millions on traditional ads with models, trying to appeal to a non-techy audience. A follow-up video by MKBHD in 2021 showed that they have successfully pivoted to the mainstream, with their flagship phones now costing just as much as any other company’s offerings, and their lineup evolving from a single phone every year to releasing refreshes and more affordable models with reduced specs (the Nord) to expand their reach while staying profitable by increasing their profit margins.

Oppo is another example of a successful pivot. It was once an enthusiast brand but made a “complete 180° turn”. They focused on mid-range phones with locked bootloaders and a heavy emphasis on selfies. The enthusiasts left, but Oppo became “incredibly successful” and one of the world’s largest smartphone vendors.

Nothing is a latest example of an attempt at pivoting. They initially bragged about how their phones had “no bloatware”, only for them to add bloatware and lock screen ads on their non-flagship phones starting from the 3a. This, unsurprisingly, resulted in the enthusiast community complaining about them, pointing out the hypocrisy like the “no bloatware” tweet in response to someone tweeting “[they] missed to add Instagram” only to do that exact same thing in their official announcement, and making hashtags like #RollItBack. Nothing itself admitted that it’s operating on razor-thin margins, and that this is necessary to ensure their business model is sustainable.

Hoyo is in the same situation with Signora. Based on my analysis, it seems that the reason why they killed Signora is that they’re simply following the HI3 playbook back when Hoyo was a smaller company that catered towards niche gacha gamers who are lore purists (the “enthusiasts”), and they’re likely just trying to do the same thing as Wendy where she died early on and didn’t become playable. When they killed Signora, they were still writing under this HI3 “enthusiast-first” assumption, that tragedy equals depth and that people would respect the moral “lesson” of her fall.

However, Genshin was their first smash-hit title, and presumably, they didn’t know that the mainstream now dominates their playerbase as a result of it. The game’s explosive popularity brought with them a different group of audience which had a completely different cultural and emotional baseline from the HI3 crowd. They favor collecting major characters and reject the notion that these characters can die and become unplayable.

They didn’t realize that this strategy is fundamentally incompatible with this new breed of audience that are playing the game, because back then, they were still trying to appeal to these purists, which runs counter to what the mainstream wants (playable Harbingers). In other words, Hoyo applied a niche storytelling formula to a mass-market gacha economy.

This is pretty much the same unsustainable business model. The “let her stay dead” crowd represents a vocal but tiny portion of the community. Catering to them means sacrificing potential banner revenue and engagement from millions who grew attached to her lore or simply wish to collect the Harbingers they like, not to mention that a single story payoff (Signora’s death) gives diminishing returns after the event passes, much like early enthusiast hardware that can’t scale.

They doubled down on her death (Winter Night’s Lazzo, MC’s brag lines in a Sumeru daily, lack of splash art, etc.), likely as an attempt to assert narrative authority, the same way enthusiast brands often double down on “integrity” when criticized for ignoring the wider market.

This is where they realized too late that they weren’t the same kind of company anymore. Hoyo was no longer an “enthusiast brand”. It was a multimillion dollar company competing with other major studios.

After finally realizing this, they now have three options, none of which is easy:

  1. Stick with the purists and keep her dead (potentially missing out on easy revenue and engagement).
  2. Pivot to mainstream, resurrect her, and make her playable (pissing off these purists, but the most sustainable option for banner revenue, engagement and community goodwill).
  3. Try to please both by somehow keeping her dead but playable after 4 years (likely unsustainable, pisses off both sides due to neither of them truly getting what they wanted).

Option 2 is the Oppo move: betray the old guard, but win over the majority.

Hoyo, like any multimillion dollar game company, ultimately optimizes for engagement-driven monetization rather than narrative purity. Reviving her allows them to reactivate dormant spenders, like players who quit after Inazuma because their favorite character was discarded. This also generates free marketing, as content creators will flood the social media over this (imagine the clickbait titles, like “THEY’VE DONE THE IMPOSSIBLE - SIGNORA IS BACK!?”, “THE COPERS WERE RIGHT ALL ALONG!”). She can then be involved in future events or AQs, which maintains engagement. Last but not least, this fixes a legacy PR issue, as reviving her can be framed as “listening to fans”, repairing the perception of tone-deaf writing decisions.

Compare that to keeping her dead, a choice with zero monetization upside, no hype, and no sustained engagement. From a product lifecycle standpoint, resurrecting Signora is the renewal phase that prevents the game from declining in popularity.

The compact phone analogy

This is something I’ve personally seen as a phone enthusiast, and is related to the previous point about the enthusiast trap. For years, people have wanted compact flagships because proponents argue that bigger phones are more difficult to use and require a ton of finger gymnastics, and that most compact phones on the market are either low-end or midrange phones, with mediocre or even poor hardware and software support. But every single time a company tries to do that, they’re hit with the realization that the market is too niche to justify their existence.

Major companies like Apple (with their iPhone mini), Asus (Zenfone 8/9/10), Samsung (Galaxy S3 - S5 mini, Galaxy Alpha, and later, Galaxy S10e), and Sony (Xperia Compact series) listened to this feedback and invested heavily in creating these niche products. They gave the vocal minority exactly what they asked for.

But then the sales data came in, and the truth was undeniable. While a small group loved them, the vast majority of consumers, when it came time to actually spend their money, chose the bigger phones. They prioritized larger screens for media consumption and the bigger batteries that came with a larger chassis, and they just didn’t think the improved ergonomics of smaller phones was a good enough reason to choose smaller phones over the bigger ones.

Because these things sell so poorly, every single one of these companies came to the same conclusion: the “small phone” market, despite being loud, was too niche to justify the investment. They all pivoted back to the more profitable big phones.

Now, how is this similar to the Signora detractors? Well, those who want her to stay dead (analogous to the “small phones”) argue that people should move on and just pull for any of the new characters, including filler or less significant characters such as Navia, Mualani or Flins, instead of clinging on to hopes for her return. These are characters with less narrative weight or those who appear in the story for a shorter time. While they may have their own dedicated fanbases (just like the small phone enthusiasts), their overall market performance can be less predictable and often lower than the major, established characters. They are, in a business sense, a higher-risk, lower-reward product.

By comparison, there’s the Archons and Harbingers, which are analogous to the “big phones”, and they’re the lore powerhouses. They are the characters at the very center of the game’s multi-year narrative and generate a ton of hype whenever they’re announced to be playable or even simply showing up in the AQ. Not only that, they have deep lore significance and a proven track record of generating massive banner revenue. Basically, they’re the safe, reliable, blockbuster products.

Just as Apple, Asus, Samsung and Sony’s marketing and finance teams looked at the sales data and concluded that continuing to invest in a niche product was illogical, Hoyo’s teams are probably gonna look at their data and realize that the massive success of Wanderer and Arlecchino gave them irrefutable proof of what the broader market wants: playable Harbingers.

The marketing and product management teams can just go to the writing team and say, “We understand the narrative choice you made with Signora. However, the market data is conclusive. Our audience overwhelmingly prefers and spends more money on the major (‘big phone’) characters; the lore-heavy, narratively significant Harbingers. Continuing to release less popular filler / side (‘small phone’) characters while ignoring a proven major character like Signora is not a viable long-term strategy”.

And this is how a business decision overrides a creative one. The reluctance of a writer to revisit a past plot point is gonna be less powerful than the company’s need to create products that the majority of its customers actually want to buy. This, once again, proves that in the end, the market always decides.

In fact, this could actually be the reason why they’ve been introducing five major characters who are likely to be playable in Nod-Krai: Columbina, Sandrone, Nicole, Varka and Durin. They probably realized that releasing too many filler or side characters like Varesa or Lauma isn’t going to be sustainable as their sales tend to be mediocre or poor even when compared to reruns of Archons or Harbingers, and the story is so far along that Hoyo doesn’t have room for another filler every patch without players feeling cheated. People have been sitting on years of unanswered teasers (Varka, Harbingers, Hexenzirkel), and if they didn’t start cashing in those promises now, they’d risk alienating players who’ve been waiting since the game’s launch.

Cautious confidence: Some caveats with every resurrection theory

I gotta admit, even with all the evidence we have so far, I can still be wrong, and there’s always the chance that we might simply be overanalyzing. I recently watched these videos by Veritasium on why most experts aren’t actually “experts” and the dangers of overconfidence, and these actually give a very good insight on why predicting Signora’s resurrection is so difficult.

The first video explains the 4 things that makes experts have real expertise: pattern recognition, high-validity environment, timely feedback, and not being too comfortable.

In the case of Signora’s resurrection analysis, the pattern recognition exists: Harbinger banners usually perform well, and quests and lore crumbs often hint toward which character will appear in the future. However, the environment is a mix between high- and low-validity. People do gravitate towards collectible groups of characters like Archons and Harbingers, which is backed by data, and this is a high-validity environment, but a low-validity environment also exists in that lore crumbs don’t necessarily guarantee playability.

A good example of this is how Neuvillette was mentioned by Nahida in the epilogue of the Sumeru AQ Act 5, and he did become playable by 4.1, but on the contrary, Capitano and Dottore were mentioned by Neuvillette and Mavuika respectively, but neither of them became playable yet, with Capitano “dying” and Dottore becoming a weekly boss with no playable ID. Hoyo is actively breaking patterns to prevent players from accurately guessing what they’re trying to do next.

Additionally, Signora’s situation itself is a low-validity environment: it is a one-off. So far, there has never been a playable character who died in-game and was then resurrected. Qiqi doesn’t count as she had already been playable since launch. Similarly, Capitano has yet to be resurrected, so making predictions of how they will perform this by extrapolating from his resurrection arc is also impossible. And even if he did get resurrected before Signora, it’s still not an exact 1:1 situation, as Capitano has an intact body to return to, and we’re using the term “death” loosely here, since pure-blood Khaenriahns cannot die due to the curse. On the contrary, Signora was completely vaporized, and it would require a more elaborate arc to bring her back. This is similar to how presidential elections have a slightly different environment each time, and that predicting who wins the election is extremely difficult, if not impossible.

Another factor is that the feedback is delayed. It’s not immediately apparent which character will become playable. At best, we only get hints through the promo arts of the upcoming region, and we usually only get confirmation for the upcoming version from leakers (silhouette teaser by Hoyo themselves has only been done once until 6.2), so we can only predict with what we found so far that may support her revival.

Every single “when Signora will be playable” prediction always ended up being wrong, and we have a disastrous track record of incorrectly predicting that since 2.1. That’s not necessarily the person’s fault, but rather, the nature of the system itself. Point 4 of the video (“don’t be too comfortable”) is irrelevant here, as we already failed at point 3 and partially point 2.

The second video explains the dangers of overconfidence and the factors that influence it, while also elaborating on portions of the first video.

Most people tend to be overconfident, and those who claim to have very high confidence is only correct about half the time. One of the factors at play is the complexity and unpredictability of a situation, an issue of feedback. In a controlled environment, where the rules are clear and the results are consistent, there is clear feedback. In a noisy environment where consistency or timeliness are nonexistent, however, this feedback becomes unreliable.

In the case of Signora’s revival theories, there’s a ton of inconsistencies on what we thought as “patterns.” The order of characters on the Harbinger wheel doesn’t necessarily imply which one of them would come up next (Capitano appeared before Columbina). Character mentions at the end of AQs don’t necessarily mean playability. Symbolism is unreliable (does Signora’s moth symbolism represent “moth to a flame” or rebirth?). Harbingers aren’t guaranteed to be playable in the same region they’re introduced in, unlike archons. So on and so forth.

There are things we can do to mitigate these. One of them is to not make statements that sound too confident, being aware of our confidence calibration (e.g. instead of “she will return in 6.x”, make it “there’s a 60% chance she’ll return in 6.x”). Also, listen to those who disagree with you and try to figure out their best arguments against yours. Fill in the blind spots in your decision-making process with those. “True wisdom lies not in being certain, but in knowing the limits of your own certainty”.

The unusual Rosalyne name-drops might still not be indicative of her return. One of the arguments I’ve seen is that this doesn’t guarantee that she might necessarily be resurrected, and that perhaps this was merely meant to evoke the player’s feelings that she had a softer side, but they still have no intentions of bringing her back if they feel like they could move on from the execution incident back in 2.1, especially when there’s still other banners that could sell just as well. And that’s valid. There’s a chance that because they learned the lesson, they don’t need to fix the mistake. They can just ensure they never do it again with future characters. And maybe the name-drops are just there because they want us to feel the tragedy of her death more deeply, essentially “twisting the knife” rather than healing the wound.

However, my confidence lies in the fact that there are real financial incentives to bring her back. To me, it simply would be too weird for Hoyo to tease her, but then not bring her back simply because “it’s just a coincidence, this is the only time when we get to interact with the Harbingers more frequently”.

Vote with your wallet

I’ve seen the drama revolving around Harbingers on r/FatuiHQ, which is honestly quite stupid and should’ve never happened to begin with, and those who were involved in this are no different than Signora’s haters. All I can say is this: if you want your Harbingers to become playable, then vote with your wallet and pull Columbina, Sandrone and all future playable Harbingers. Remember, all Harbingers are grouped into the same category, so the success of one of the banners can encourage them to rethink their strategies when it comes to releasing others, and perhaps even launch them sooner.

I’m personally willing to get Columbina and Sandrone’s constellations/signature weapons if it turns out Signora isn’t in Nod-Krai. I believe in this principle and I think if those two Harbingers become really successful, then they might prioritize Signora’s return because like I’ve said, the fact that they’ve released all female Harbingers except Signora implies that they’re testing the waters to estimate how successful her banner will be, and if they both turn out to be a huge hit, then they might even expedite her release as a playable character.

Conclusion: They’re (probably) setting the stage for her playability

With all the new evidence that has surfaced so far, Signora’s release is no longer a matter of if, but when. My prediction? I’m 60% confident that she will be playable as early as 6.x, maybe with the release of Mare Jivari, and 80% confident that she will be in at least 7.x with Snezhnaya, maybe with her literally busting that coffin open and making a huge reveal. I’m saying 60% in 6.x mainly because Nod-Krai’s arc is already packed with a ton of major story beats and characters, so I feel like it’s more likely she’ll be in 7.x instead to prevent her return from being overshadowed by literally everything else in 6.x. The fact that they’re making her the most sought-after item in the Harbinger blind box, along with further evidence of pity-baiting, means that they’re slowly bringing her back into relevance and trying to get people to talk about her more often, in order to build up hype and anticipation for her launch.

Given how she’s not in the silhouette teaser, both outcomes are definitely possible, although I’m still leaning more towards 7.x banner given how Sandrone is looking to be the hype character as she was missing from the silhouettes and only her reflection is visible, and we know this because she has a playable ID, so what else could that reflection be other than her?

Still though, the fact that the number of Signora mentions under her real name is increasing dramatically, along with her being prominently featured in official media, merch, and Hoyofair’s semi-official fanarts, is way too suspicious to ignore. They’ve never done something like this prior to 6.x, and the tone was also shifting dramatically from portraying her as an “evil, irredeemable villain” to a “lost soul who was tragically misunderstood”. I think she’s very likely return, but this time under Rosalyne, instead of Signora, given their insistence on using her real name, and that everything we’ve seen so far is a slow build-up towards her return.

It’s honestly quite amazing to finally start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, and I really hope her eventual resurrection would be insanely peak, finally silencing all the detractors for good, and maybe even get some of them to apologize for harassing us Signora mains. All I have to say is, after over 4 years of wait since her death, she’s coming, folks. This is very possibly the build-up to the moment we’ve all been waiting for.