At first, it was easy for critics to write Genshin Impact off as a shameless Breath of the Wild clone from a country with a reputation for knock-offs. Even as it gained a following to everyone’s surprise, the coverage also had a hand-wringing focus on the gacha mechanics. But the free-to-play, open-world action-RPG exceeds expectations and has continued to gain momentum, grossing over $2 billion on mobile alone in its first year of launch and becoming the most talked-about game on Twitter in 2021. Its crossover success to western markets has established developer miHoYo (or HoYoverse, as it’s being renamed internationally today) as a vanguard of the Chinese new wave in big budget game development.
Gone are the days when people refer to this game with the disdainful nickname Breath of the Waifu. Now people are looking for Genshin likes instead (and Diluc and Zhongli mains can confirm the game has its share of husband too). But with an estimated 500+ hours invested, nearly a dozen max characters, and so much more to do, it’s hard for me to want to play anything else. This is especially true as we approach the 3.0 update, which aims to introduce not only the new tropical and desert region of Sumeru, but also a new element, Dendro, to mix up battles.
But what about the uninitiated who want to dive into the fantasy world of Teyvat for the first time? At first, Genshin Impact may feel like another victim of feature creep, with updates that added a city reputation system, your very own Animal Crossing-style island getaway, and even a dating sim minigame with some of its ravishing cast. Fortunately, these features are gradually unlocked as you play and your adventure rank rises, so as not to overwhelm you. For the first 15-20 hours, you can treat it like an old-fashioned single-player action RPG as you play as a mysterious traveler in search of your missing sibling, before getting caught up in a crisis involving a rogue dragon.
It’s these opening times that quickly dispel associations with Nintendo’s masterpiece, even if you can glide through the vast open world and climb just about anything, albeit without rain scaring you off. Where it lacks sandbox physics, however, it more than makes up for it with its delightful elemental combat system, which uses the tried-and-true rock-paper-scissor RPG formula and then spice it up by merging multiple elements together. For example, Pyro attacks are effective against Cryo enemies, while also burning wooden shields. Add a flurry of Ameno, though, and you’ll intensify and spread those flames, while wet enemies can be frozen with Cryo or zapped by electro-attacks.
Experimenting with these combinations makes combat a constant spectacle. It’s especially delightful to switch characters to switch into another elemental combo at lightning speed, something you don’t have the same control over as you depend on other online players. That, of course, depends on whether you have a party with all the bases and elements you want, which you can only get by crafting Wishes through the game’s gacha system.
The odds of unlocking the rare five-star character of your choice aren’t exactly high (0.6 percent to be exact, though this also fluctuates as you make consecutive pulls), but choose to save Primogems (the game’s premium currency) ) to do 10 wishes at once at least brings the pity system into play, so you’re guaranteed at least a 4-star character or weapon, and you shouldn’t turn those down either. There are treats here, such as Hydro-healing singer Barbara or the wonderfully wacky Electro-archer Fischl.
Still, it’s the event banners that draw the most attention, as they usually introduce a new five-star character that players will be raving about for weeks in advance (sometimes months, given the community’s ongoing efforts to leak an ounce of information) and then walk away. only three weeks. This leaves you with a relatively short amount of time to either grind up as many Primogems as you can in the game or crack open your wallet.
This will of course depend on the mindset of the individual player, and not all microtransactions are necessarily predatory or cynical money grabs. Nearly two years later, I still haven’t been tempted to spend real money making Wishes, while still amassing a nice list of five-star heroes. There are so many ways to earn the Primogems needed to make a Wish, from short daily commissions to completing story missions, as well as regular events with different types of challenges, with Primogems almost always being the first reward available. (This is good for players who don’t have the time to complete each challenge in a limited-time event.)
That said, gathering materials and resources is all vital in the overall course of Genshin Impact, because once you unlock your dream character, you still need to level them up before they become viable. While some of this grind had repercussions – given that most rewards can only be earned by spending Resin, which is either slowly replenished each day or automatically replenished by spending money – I think it has merit.
First, unlike the stamina bar of mobile games, Resin doesn’t lock you out from other in-game activities. Instead, the caps are less about milking you cynical money and more about preventing the gameplay from turning into a joyless grind. You see that the same thought process is also applied to gathering materials or mining ore in the world, with even longer respawn times that cannot be accelerated with cash at all. Even the time-limited events stagger the releases of their challenges, all of which encourage the idea of playing in moderation, something other open-world developers may learn from. Instead of being crippled by every time I sign up, in about an hour I can mine fast, do the quick daily commissions, maybe run an event challenge, or spend Resin on specific challenges to level up my newly unlocked character, and have yet to time left to continue another part of the game’s story.
While there’s a lot of charm in each of the 40+ and growing roster, and a strong desire to add them all to your collection, they’re not always well served by the story, which is often told with a little too much expositional dialogue while you also quickly notice the lack of attention in lip-syncing. Sure, the community will be seriously involved in the knowledge about Archons, Adepti and the Fatui, although more often than not they will complain about bugginess of certain five-star characters, which is fair if you actually paid for the chance to get them.
But even if the priority is less “what’s going to happen” and more “what can I do now,” there’s still some concern about how quickly parts of time-limited content get discarded. It’s not nearly as blatant as Bungie removing old Destiny 2 campaign content that people paid for, but when you consider that many of these events have their own unique mechanics – and how regularly the developers make them throughout the year – to then to have them around for just a few weeks before being unceremoniously tossed out seems like an unbelievable shame. It’s even more of a miss if they include some interesting character backstories, most notably Fischl’s in this summer’s current Golden Apple Archipelago event, which latecomers will only experience by checking out YouTube guides.
I suspect it’s a problem that miHoYo will eventually succeed, but meanwhile, the developer is already busy designing new banner characters or another event. Genshin Impact even defeated Elden Ring by expanding its open world underground. Meanwhile, the studio is also gearing up to bring not one but two other games to its HoYoverse, the turn-based Honkai: Star Rail and the post-apocalyptic Zenless Zone Zero. Time will tell whether these will hit the lightning or the jackpot in the same way as Genshin Impact’s charming and breezy open world, without the risk of cannibalizing the public’s attention. But for now I’m quite satisfied with wandering around Teyvat for another 500 hours. Sumeru can’t come soon enough.
This piece is part of our State of the Game series where we take a look at some of the biggest service games to see how it goes. You can find many more such pieces in our State of the Game hub.
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