Genshin Impact

More about Genshin Impact

Genshin Impact is HoYoverse's free-to-play open-world action RPG, built around Teyvat, a continent split into nations each inspired by a different real-world culture and each tied to one of seven elements: Anemo (wind), Geo (earth), Electro, Dendro (nature), Hydro, Pyro and Cryo. The player controls a nameless Traveler who arrives in Teyvat searching for a twin sibling who was separated from them at the story's start, and is guided early on by Paimon, a small floating companion who narrates and comments throughout. From there the story unfolds nation by nation: Mondstadt and Liyue at launch, followed over the years by Inazuma, Sumeru, Fontaine, Natlan and further regions, each adding its own Archon (a ruling elemental god), its own smaller side stories, and its own version of the game's various side activities. Combat is built around switching between a party of up to four characters in real time, each tied to one of the seven elements and to one of five weapon types (sword, claymore, polearm, bow or catalyst). The core hook is elemental reactions: applying one element and then another to the same enemy triggers an effect, for example Pyro plus Hydro causes vaporize damage, Pyro plus Cryo causes melt, and Electro plus Hydro causes an area shock, which turns team-building into a puzzle of complementary elements rather than just picking whoever hits hardest. New playable characters, and the weapons and companion mechanics tied to some of them, are added roughly every six weeks alongside each content update. Characters are obtained mainly through Wishes, the game's gacha system: players spend in-game currency, most of it earned through free play and some purchasable, on randomized pulls from rotating banners, with a pity system that guarantees a high-rarity character or weapon after enough unlucky pulls so the system is never fully open-ended. A separate, equally deep system covers gear: Artifacts dropped from domains (instanced mini-dungeons) and bosses can be farmed and upgraded to fine-tune a character's stats, alongside a talent and weapon-ascension system that consumes materials gathered from exploration and world bosses. Exploration is the other pillar the game is built on. Teyvat's open world is dense with environmental puzzles, climbing and gliding traversal, hidden chests, world bosses and region-specific mechanics (seasonal weather in some nations, unique local transportation in others), and world quests that flesh out side characters without requiring a Wish pull to engage with. For players who want a harder combat benchmark outside the main story, Spiral Abyss is a rotating, difficulty-gated tower that resets its enemy compositions and rules periodically and is widely used as the game's measure of a team's actual combat strength. The game is cross-platform between PC, PlayStation, iOS and Android, with shared progress across devices tied to one account, though it has never shipped on Nintendo Switch or Xbox despite early interest in a Switch version. Outside of combat, housing exists too: the Serenitea Pot lets players decorate a customizable realm and invite friends to visit, and a daily commissions system gives players steady smaller rewards for returning each day rather than only rewarding long play sessions.