Faceless Ayato

About

Faceless Ayato is a Genshin Impact creepypasta about a player who encounters a faceless version of the character Ayato while playing a version of the game downloaded from an unknown website. The player is haunted by him in-game every time he plays. As the story evolves, the player finds other faceless characters, including faceless Itto and faceless Baal, learning that faceless Ayato may have been the victim of a murder in real life. The story, which was originally posted to TikTok in Russian and translated by a third-party account, went viral in November 2022 and inspired numerous works of fan art and content referring to it.

Origin

Between November 10th and 18th, 2022, Russian TikToker^[1] and Genshin Impact player @vanya2010upoloklove, a Diona main, posted the first 14 videos in a creepypasta series about finding a faceless Ayato character when he started the game. TikToker^[2] @bububimi_ started posting English translations of these on November 16th. In the first video, the player describes how they downloaded a version of Genshin Impact from an "unknown website." When they started the game in single-player mode, they noticed Ayato standing with his back facing away from the character. Ayato then turns to reveal that he's faceless. The Russian upload garnered over 790,000 views in a week, while the English upload garnered over 1.6 million in two days (shown below).

That same day, the Russian TikToker^[3][4] uploaded another video where he shows Faceless Ayato again after purportedly restarting the game, garnering over 1.1 million and 400,000 views on the Russian and English pages, respectively.

The Russian TikToker continued to upload videos expanding on the story over the following days. On November 11th, he uploaded a video to TikTok^[5] where Ayato seemingly murders another character.

On November 16th, 2022, the English TikToker posted a translated video where he finds a riddle in Diona's character description that translates to, "the riddle must be solved by the creature which is ready for hard and long path to truth. To get the key from certain memory, find me next to the 'special thing' of the 'deity.'" He then finds faceless Ayato next to a large tree in Mondstadt, wondering if he worships it. On November 17th, he uploaded a translated video to TikTok^[6] where the player finds a faceless Itto with Ayato caught prisoner, garnering over 134,000 views in a day (shown below, right).

The player continues to learn about the faceless characters' vague backstories through their character descriptions and in-game items. On November 17th, the English TikToker uploaded a video where he finds a note describing a young boy with depression who called himself Itto who was undergoing an experimental new form of therapy and medication to deal with his symptoms. The note consists of a medical report documenting his progress. The note claims that Itto woke up screaming after a dose and talking about other universes, mentioning that Ayato is "dangerous for universe 2" and he needs to kill him. They then show his journal entries, writing that "mother Baal" called Ayato the "God of darkness" (shown below).

On November 18th, 2022, he posted another translated video to TikTok^[7] where he poses a theory about the situation, painting Ayato as somewhat of a victim. In the video, he writes that he thinks Faceless Ayato was a real person killed by his mentally insane friend Itto (shown below). Itto passes out one day and sees Baal. His antidepressants made him crazier and he was given an operation to cause amnesia. He remembered years later and went to kill Ayato, thinking he was a danger.

Spread

The Faceless Ayato story gained a significant fanbase as TikToker @bububimi_ continued to translate it, inspiring fan art and content across social media. On November 17th, 2022, Twitter^[8][9] users @Islaboo_art and @Softeas_ posted fan art of the character, garnering over 40,000 and 34,000 likes respectively in a day (shown below, left and right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References