Intro

I'd been dying to go to BW since 2023, but school and scheduling never quite lined up, so the plan kept falling through. This year, I finally managed to make the trip with a good friend. It really wasn't easy getting here.

This wasn't just a trip—it was finally meeting something I'd loved from afar in real life. So I'm putting pen to paper to remember it by.

A note from future me, editing this post:
Some of the photos haven't been color-graded. I was too tired.
While proofreading, I suddenly realized some of the images had been compressed into a blurry mess. Can't really help it—object storage bandwidth qaq. I'll just put the originals separately in Photo Gallery: Memories · BiliBili World 2025.

「Prologue: Setting Off」

My flight was on the afternoon of 7.11. At the gate, I caught the sunset on camera. Watching it paint the skyline gold and red put me in a wonderful mood.

After arriving at Hongqiao, there were a few hiccups while checking into the hotel, but thankfully I still managed to get to sleep a little after one.

The next morning, we left the hotel at around 6 to get a head start. I'd mentally prepared myself for the crowds, but when I biked over to the venue and saw what was waiting there, I was still stunned—

「Main Story: BW2025!」

After about half an hour in line, I finally made it through the gates.

Right by the entrance was an Itasha display, and every single car was incredibly well done.

「Main Quest: Strinova Fan Meetup」

Strinova didn't have a dedicated official booth of its own—it was basically piggybacking on MSI's booth.

Quite a few people had gotten there even earlier than I had, and everyone was gathered around the Strinova area.

There was a lot on display. One of the standouts was an incredibly detailed Celestia-themed custom graphics card.

By the time I was reorganizing and migrating this post, I'd actually won the postal gift box in a Bilibili giveaway, meow! 👉 This post
I absolutely loved this box the first time I saw it, especially the metal Superstring badge inside.
At the BW booth, you could win one by beating a content creator in a 1v1, but my social anxiety absolutely did not give me the courage for that.
Still, I got one in the end, and I'm super happy about it.

The booth activities were full of memes. They held 1v1 matches and even a “knife fight.”

I'd assumed the game designer barely knew anything about the actual game, but then nobody managed to beat him in a knife-fight 1v1. I even picked up a few knife-fighting tricks I'd never thought of before.

There were also plenty of Strinova cosplayers around on Day 1.

The biggest surprise was actually catching the game designer and getting to chat with him! I gave him a piece of merch I'd made myself—an Ideal Coin acrylic card (cyber hell money).

I casually uploaded the clip to Bilibili afterward, and somehow it became my first video to break 10,000 views.

An incredibly faithful recreation of Scallion's curtain-call song.

At the end, I traded tons of fun fan-made merch with everyone at the booth, and we even took a big group photo together. (By “we,” I mean I took photos of everyone else. Social anxiety said no to being in the shot.) The event had just ended, though, so before the official photos came out, I sent my shots to the people in the group chat who wanted them.

「Side Quest: Booth-Hopping」

Arknights &Endfield

There were plenty of Dokutahs at the Arknights booth too. The display cases had passes from across the game's history on show.

You could pick up freebies there. I originally wanted to grab one for a friend, but one look at the queue snaking around like it had no end and I gave up. (I did manage to get one near closing time in the end, though.) So instead, I took some photos for him.

When Endfield came up, my friend gave me a pained smile: “I pre-registered 3 years ago and I still haven't gotten into a test 😅.”

Honkai: Star Rail

The friend I came with is a die-hard Star Rail fan, so naturally we stopped by. HoYoverse really does have money to burn—the set design was gorgeous and impressively faithful to the game.

And by sheer luck, we ran into 猫罐.

There were plenty of booths from other game companies too, but I didn't really explore them, so I won't pretend to know what I'm talking about.

Here are some photos instead.

Random Thoughts

The network situation inside the venue was basically: mobile data on, messages still wouldn't come through. It was completely overloaded.

During the Strinova 1v1 matches, both players were practically teleporting around because there was no usable network. They had to connect to a staff member's phone hotspot, and even that lagged like crazy.

Across the way, RedMagic and a bunch of hardware brands had their booth networks go down completely too.

After I got back, I saw reports saying there were more than 300,000 people on-site. No wonder the network was under that much pressure.

「Curtain Call: Back to the Real World」

Stamina depleted...

I spent the whole day hauling a camera and backpack through an ocean of people. Somehow I walked 12 kilometers. I still can't believe it!

Even when mealtime rolled around, I was way too excited (and didn't want to queue for food), so I basically survived the entire day on two bottles of juice I got from event giveaways. Yeah, maybe I pushed it a little too far.

The moment I walked out onto the pedestrian bridge by the exit, I looked down at the crowds still bustling below and the city lights gradually flickering on in the distance. All of a sudden, this intense sense of emptiness hit me.

I guess that's what you'd call post-con withdrawal.

It reminded me of a sign someone had put by the exit—I have no idea who:

Emergency Exit: Return to the Real World

「Bonus Episode: Two Days in Shanghai」

Since I don't get to visit Shanghai that often, I also spent some time exploring the city after Day 1.

HoYoverse Headquarters

It happened to be on the way, so I stopped by. No ticket needed—you just have to make a reservation.

The visitor area had been moved since before, but it was still really nicely set up.

As usual, every visiting player got a visitor badge and a bottle of water.

China Art Museum

I'd seen plenty of photos online before, but it wasn't until I stood at the foot of the building and looked up at those enormous red dougong brackets that I truly felt just how imposing the China Pavilion is.

There are lots of exhibition spaces inside with different themes—oil paintings, installations, and quite a few pieces that genuinely caught me by surprise.

The Bund

When I came out of the metro station, this library happened to be right there.

From there, I walked down Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street to the Bund.

I even took the metro across the river specifically to see the Oriental Pearl Tower.

Then I wandered around Nanjing Road, grabbed dinner, and deliberately waited until nightfall for the skyline to light up.

There was quite a bit of cloud and mist that night, all wrapped around the tops of the skyscrapers. I shot a time-lapse on my action camera, and it turned out pretty nice.

I mean, once you're here, how can you resist yelling: Oh my god, that's the unbanned one!

Yu Garden

To be honest, I wouldn't really recommend this place. It was extremely crowded, and the ticket wasn't cheap either.

There were lots of international tourists, but honestly, there wasn't that much to see.

You'd be better off visiting Liyang Academy and Chenyu Vale

It was so crowded that getting a single clean photo was almost impossible.

So I had no choice but to zoom all the way in and shoot a few corners instead.

「Epilogue: The Journey Home」

Another evening flight. As the plane climbed, the lights of Shanghai slowly receded into the distance.

I couldn't really sleep on the way back, so my friend and I spent most of the flight reliving everything we'd done over the past two days.

As we flew over the Yuzhong Peninsula, I pressed the shutter through the airplane window.

Looking down at the countless lights below, I knew the trip was over. But this memory of summer, of the things I love, and of the people I met along the way had already been saved.