Genshin Impact

An adventure game that invites you to immerse yourself in the exciting events of the fantastical world of Teyvat. Alongside a group of brave companions, you will explore the ruins of ancient empires, use forbidden spells, test your strength against fantasy creatures, and defeat incredible bosses. This is a hundred-hour journey.

The graphics do not aim for realism, but they are a feast for the eyes. Simple, easy-to-read object shapes, high-quality artwork, colorful effects, and real-time rendering create a unique artistic style. The characters are beautifully animated, move naturally, and react to hits during combat. Lighting and weather change dynamically, bringing the visuals and gameplay to life.

Genshin Impact is a single-player, story-driven, third-person action RPG set in a huge open world. It is a gacha game focused on collecting characters, building a team based on their abilities, and endless progression.

At the same time, it is a free-to-play grind game, a live-service game with a long development cycle. You can add variety to your solo playthrough by inviting one to three friends into your world for co-op. Regardless of the mode you choose, the game requires an internet connection to run.

In the first few days, players are showered with resources, rewards, and characters, but after a couple of days, the free handouts dry up and character progression slows down considerably.

For the game, miHoYo created the medieval world of Teyvat, carefully establishing its basic rules and laws, the timeline of events, and the current state of affairs in its nations. You can learn more by visiting the library in the game and listening to dialogue.

Teyvat is ruled by seven gods, or Archons: Anemo, Geo, Hydro, Pyro, Electro, Dendro, and Cryo, each representing a known element. The game map is also divided into seven regions, whose residents worship only one deity. Each region has a large city (the capital) and several settlements, farms, and production sites.

Each region has a unique style based on the medieval culture it represents: Japan, China, India, Russia, Ancient Rome, Germany, and France (including their national and climatic features). Each also has something like an ideology: some value order, others freedom, and others financial prosperity.

The world of Genshin Impact is truly vast and spacious. You can explore it not only from end to end, but also up and down. Teyvat is filled with many activities: daily and weekly tasks, killing enemies and bosses, opening chests, and solving unusual puzzles.

In the style of an MMO, each region's map is divided into zones with different levels, which determine the available quests and enemies. The greater the difference between a zone's level and your character's level, the harder it is to defeat even a basic mob.

Genshin Impact inherits its gameplay and controls from mobile games. One button handles the basic attack—press it several times to perform a combo. Another button is for elemental attacks. There is also an "ultimate" ability that charges over time.

The basic combat system features one-handed and two-handed swords, as well as bows with magical arrows. Characters get their abilities from the elements: fire, water, wind, electricity, ice, earth, and living plants. In addition to offensive spells, there are support and defensive ones, such as a healing aura or a pet summon. The environment also reacts to magic—you can freeze water or set grass on fire.

During combat, you control only one character at a time, but you can switch between party members instantly and at any moment, using all kinds of weapons, skills, and “ults.”

The abilities of different characters can be combined. Drench a target with water and hit it with fire to trigger a “vaporize” effect. Freeze a target and hit it with lightning to trigger “shatter.” Or drench a target with water and hit it with lightning to spread the damage. Earth powers help with defense and crowd control, while air powers boost attacks.

Combos can deal significantly more damage to a target than basic or magic attacks. What’s more, some enemies and bosses are immune to physical or magic damage. Movement also includes climbing any walls and ledges, dashing to dodge, and flying through the air. There is a stamina system.

Putting together a powerful build in Genshin Impact that can destroy everything in its path is difficult, because classes are tied to specific characters. And those characters are tied to the gacha system. This is a monetization method in which the player pays a set amount to get a random assortment of items. In Genshin Impact, the chance of getting a five-star (ultra-rare) character is 0.6%, and if you want someone specific, such as an earth mage, the chance drops to a fraction of a percent.

Technically, you can complete the game with free characters, which are given to you in the first few hours. But taking on dungeons or completing co-op quests with them will be tough; you need better heroes. To get them, you’ll have to open quite a few loot boxes, which means hours of grinding or spending real money.

At the same time, the game has many manipulative mechanics that encourage you to collect characters or even want to get them all. Limited-time heroes are sure to be a long-awaited surprise. This creates addiction and forces players to spend a lot of money on cute anime waifus.

The story of Genshin Impact is simple and full of clichés. In the prologue, the main character’s sibling is taken away, and they do everything they can to get them back and defeat the main villain (who is evil simply because the story needs them to be). But the script also includes unusual plot twists and well-developed characters.

The side quests are simple, but their unusual approach to completing them makes them enjoyable. You’ll need to think creatively, unlock a certain skill, or save up in-game money for a bribe. The game also has lengthy personal quests for characters.

As players complete quests and explore the game world, they earn several types of experience, leveling up their character, friendship or Adventure Rank. The latter is the main measure of progress: it unlocks further story progression, challenging domains, and various other features.

All the collected content is used to upgrade items the player already owns. Players feed unwanted weapons or equipment to their useful items. The same applies to characters: when you get a duplicate, you have to “apply” it to the character you already own, thereby making them stronger. This greatly boosts their stats and unlocks an additional talent.

Upgrading anything is also divided into stages. You can’t just level up weapons or characters; you have to develop everything in parallel, or your progress will simply stop.

It unlocks at Adventure Rank 16. The mode is cross-platform, so your team can include friends playing on any device. Characters are distributed based on the number of players. Co-op offers its own set of quests:

Successful co-op play requires knowing your abilities and how they work with other characters, as well as having good equipment. At the time of release, Genshin Impact was not planned to have a PvP mode.

In co-op, the entire team cannot access the Spiral Abyss, story quests, or side quests. Only the host receives rewards for challenges, and only they can open chests and collect items.