What's the current state of ripping from Genshin Impact and other HoYoverse games?

[Worldblender]

Sorry that I haven't been active lately with new rips for the past year since 2024. There was a lot in real life, but one new change since my last rips last summer is that I have picked up Genshin Impact (by MiHoYo/HoYoverse), that free to play, anime-style, open world RPG that blew up since September 2020. I only started since 11/22/2024, shortly after this game's Xbox Series release on 11/19/2024, during a time where new 1st party Nintendo Switch games are starting to dry up, and I plan to be mostly free-to-play, only spending when necessary and targeted towards getting 5-star male characters with no constellations + no weapon banner pulling.

Quick facts I learned:

• Yes, this game has pages on both Spriters and Models Resource, under the Mobile and PC categories, respectively.
  
• Unfortunately, those pages do not have the latest content (as of this post, latest version is 5.5, with version 5.6 coming out next week on 5/6), and are slow to catch up, despite being highly popular with about 60 million monthly active users. Content from newer regions including Sumeru, Fontaine, and Natlan (plus any expansions for Mondstadt, Liyue, and Inazuma) may be missing as a result, and can further fall behind once Nod Krai and late Snezhnaya are released.
  
• I understand that this game (plus Honkai Star Rail and Zenless Zone Zero that are also from HoYoverse) is running on top of a heavily modified Unity engine (version 2017.4.30), primarily using custom encrypted .blk files to deliver the bulk of the audiovisual assets on-screen. This encryption is why me and some others are having a hard time extracting any useful assets.
  
• This encryption struggle is not new; it seems to have been ongoing for a while, but I don't know when exactly this all began. I do know that certain big leaks like what happened during 3.7 have been major motivators for MiHoYo to further strengthen the encryption to prevent such leaks from happening again.
  
• As this and all other active HoYoverse titles are live service games, they continuously ship content updates, and keeping up with them is highly suggested unless it can't be done feasibly. Should this become an issue, decreasing the frequency to every 2, 3, 4, or x.0 versions can be an option.
  
• There are some files that are unencrypted (in the root data directory of GenshinImpact_Data), but nearly all of the meaty assets are located within the thousands of .blk files that, as mentioned above, are encrypted, including the targets 2D character and item icons and 3D character models and textures.
  
• Wikis like HoYoWiki and Genshin Impact Wiki on Fandom have the 2D character and item icons I seek, but I won't upload them here since I didn't rip them myself.
  

Where I'm at now in relation to this:

• I will only use official files downloaded with the HoYoPlay launcher or 3rd party ones accessing the same files; no beta versions will be accessed at any time. My efforts will focus more on extracting the assets in a read-only manner instead of modding, as I don't intend to put them back into the game.
  
• I often play on Linux distros using Wine/Proton, doable since version 3.8 without patching. I can download files all the same as on Windows (barring recent issues with the HoYoPlay launcher).
  
• The tool I actually need, a way to decrypt the .blk files to then be processed in software like AssetStudio, AssetRipper, or UABEA, is apparently very hard to find nowadays. Several DMCA takedowns, or removal of such software from public view by authors themselves, have made this all the more challenging. Private groups may have what I'm looking for, but I neither know any of them nor have connections with anyone connected to them.
  
• Reverse engineering could be another option, but I'm not skilled enough for this, nor do I know anyone who can reliably do so. The exact encryption method may also change between versions, which can be hard to keep up with.
  

Given the background and my current situation explained, what's the current state of ripping from Genshin Impact and other HoYoverse games? There has to be solution(s) to these issues, and after becoming emotionally attached to most of the Genshin playable male characters (even with representation deficiencies like no facial hair, true dark skin, muscular builds, or slightly older ages), I really don't want to abandon / give up this game if it can be helped. But my pending ripping efforts - given this encryption situation, should I give up because of too many hurdles to jump through, or is there some light at the end of the tunnel, even if that requires waiting?