With Generative AI (GenAI) remaining the most controversial topic in the video game industry, any mention of GenAI or AI in general is making the hair on players' arms stand up. The latest occurrence of this comes from Genshin Impact players looking a little more closely at Hoyoverse's recent updates to the popular free-to-play game's Privacy Policy, which appears to have indicated that unless players opt-out, Hoyoverse will collect players' in-game voice chat data to train an internal AI model.
Initially spotted on a now-removed Reddit post, Bluesky user Cevian shared a change to Genshin Impact's privacy policy that was made as recently as January 14, 2026. The change specifically referred to a clause from Section 1, subsection XVIII, being removed, which read, "Where applicable, our services may offer voice-based chat functions that allow users to communicate with others in real time using voice. If you choose to use such features, we may process voice communication data for the purposes described in Section 2 and Section 13 of this Privacy Policy, including providing communication services, maintaining service security and stability, content moderation, and complying with applicable laws and regulations."
Now, with the above section removed, Section 2 of the Privacy Policy, titled "Why We Collect and Process Your Personal Data," simply reads:
"Like many AI-powered experiences, we may use your user-generated input such as chat data to train and improve the model that we use to provide our Services. You can opt-out of model training anytime in your Service-related settings. Opting out will not affect your existing gameplay."
It's worth noting that the now-removed subsection XVIII statement is referring to Hoyoverse using the data it collects for things like improving its customer support and its moderation efforts. Essentially, there's no indication that Hoyoverse is using this data to train an internal GenAI model, which appears to be part of the concern players had when this policy was first spotted.
We've reached out to Hoyoverse for a comment on the situation, and despite the fact that it doesn't appear to be the case that Hoyoverse would be using this data for anything unsavory, the concern players have seems to mostly come from a feature like this being on by default, with users having to manually opt out.
That's what caused players to have issues with Microsoft's Copilot Gaming AI, which added an 'on-by-default' feature that initially appeared to be recording your gameplay to train Copilot. That wasn't exactly the case, but the fact that it was on automatically, without players being sufficiently asked about it in the first place, is what caused the uproar around it. And it's worth betting that people would care more about their voices being recorded without their knowledge or proper consent, over some of their gameplay footage.
Hopefully, we'll have some word from Hoyoverse soon to properly explain the situation.
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
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