Tears of Themis is an otome detective visual novel developed by HoYoverse, and if there’s one thing we know about both otome and HoYoverse games, it’s that they love birthdays. One of the first things the player is invited to do upon starting their account is to enter their own birthday information into their profile; and then of course, there’s the main romanceable NPCs, who all get a canon birthday listed on their character profiles too.
Because ToT is a live service gacha game, birthday events – both for the player and the characters – are designed to encourage you to check out what’s for sale, but you do get plenty of nice freebies just for showing up. Read on for details of all Tears of Themis character birthdays, birthday events, and what happens on the player’s birthday in ToT.
Tears of Themis character birthdays
There are only four romanceable characters in Tears of Themis, and it’s pretty clear that HoYoverse don’t plan on being one of those mobile otome games who keep adding new ones. There are upsides to this approach, of course, including the fact that each love interest in ToT can enjoy almost a full fortnight dedicated to his birthday celebrations.
| Character | Birthday | Event dates |
|---|---|---|
| Artem Wing | April 26th | 2022: Apr. 16-29 2023: Apr. 17-29 2024: Apr. 15-28 2025: Apr. 14-28 |
| Marius von Hagen | June 21st | 2022: Jun. 12-25 2023: Jun. 12-24 2024: Jun. 10-23 2025: Jun. 9-23 |
| Vyn Richter | September 27th | 2021: Sep. 20 – Oct. 3 2022: Sep. 19 – Oct. 1 2023: Sep. 16-29 2024: Sep. 14-28 2025: TBC |
| Luke Pearce | December 5th | 2021: Nov. 26 – Dec. 9 2022: Nov. 26 – Dec. 8 2023: Nov. 25 – Dec. 8 2024: Nov. 23 – Dec. 7 2025: TBC |
Character birthday events in Tears of Themis are split into two phases:
- The preparation (or puzzle) phase, which runs by itself for around three days before the main event begins. This sometimes functions a bit like a regular log-in event, rewarding the player for completing ordinary daily tasks, but with a little extra focus on the character in question and a limited currency reward that can be exchanged for consumables. Some years refer to the preparation phase as a Birthday Puzzle instead, which is broadly similar but further rewards you with jigsaw puzzle pieces that form an additional piece of special art when completed.
- The birthday event phase, which runs for the last 10 or 11 days of the birthday fortnight as a whole, with the birthday itself falling somewhere within this period (usually the latter half, but the exact dates are extremely variable). Birthday events include time-limited birthday banners with special Visions of the character in question boosted, as well as selected reruns of previous birthday banners for the character; a unique multi-part storyline that grants numerous rewards – including special outfits and cosmetics, conversations, CGs, and Visions of the character in question – throughout its various stages of completion; and an exchange shop for event currencies featuring more Visions and levelling materials for the character, as well as time-limited premium packs in the in-game Mall.
What happens on the player’s birthday in Tears of Themis?
It’s not just your quartet of potential husbandos who get to celebrate their birthdays in ToT — you, the player, get to mark your special day as well, although unlike the stars of a mobile otome game, you will actually get a year older on your birthday instead of somehow staying the same age you always were (sorry, but it’s not really the game’s fault).
When you start your Tears of Themis account, you’ll be prompted to enter your birthday on your profile – ToT even includes a helpful reminder that, as a Chinese-made game, you’ll need to use the Asian date format of MM/DD (my fellow Europeans will surely feel as reassured as I did having that spelled out).
Note that the in-game date is determined by server time rather than device time – and since ToT only has one server, which runs on Japan/Korea time (UTC+9), it is quite likely to be the best part of a day ahead of you if you live in Europe or the Americas! You may wish to adjust your birthday details accordingly, or just log in the day before your birthday to guarantee you don’t miss out.
On your birthday (or the day before your birthday due to time differences, or indeed the day you’ve claimed is your birthday; see below), you’ll log in to a couple of celebratory events in-game.
The first, and more time-limited, are the birthday blessings from Luke, Artem, Vyn, and Marius, which are only available on the birthday itself from midnight to midnight (server time). These are viewed via a button that is added to the right-hand side of the main screen, and each message is about 90 seconds long, so about six minutes in total.
The second celebration takes the form of a gift from each of the male leads, delivered to your Consumables Inventory after viewing your birthday messages. Each gift contains one Tears of Themis standard gacha pull currency, an Energy Drink Family Pack which restores 60 points of AP (energy) when consumed, skill levelling materials for the character whose gift it is, and a commemorative gift box which gets moved to your Collectibles Inventory.
If you’re having too much fun IRL and forget to log in to Tears of Themis on your actual birthday, don’t worry: as long as you log in any time over the next seven days, the gifts will be sent to your in-game mail, where you then have 30 more days to claim them before they expire. However, you can only view the messages on the day the game recognises as your actual birthday.
Finally, Leap Day babies should note that, in the event that there’s no February 29th this year, their birthday messages will be available on February 28th.
Birthday rewards change every year in Tears of Themis and are determined by the real-world date as recognised by the server, so unfortunately for new players, there’s nothing you can do right now to see the special messages or unique rewards for 2021-2024.
However, you do get one free birthday reset when you start your account. Therefore, if your actual birthday has already passed this calendar year, it’s recommended that you set the birthday on your profile to an upcoming date – say, the day after you create your account, assuming you plan to log back in tomorrow – and claim the 2025 birthday rewards before cashing in your free Birthday Encryption Key to change to the actual date you want.
Tears of Themis isn’t updated quite as prolifically as some of HoYoverse’s other games, but if you were worried that meant there were no freebies in the offing, worry not, because our Tears of Themis codes page is regularly updated with the latest reward codes!