Genshin Impact

• 1. Introduction

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  Genshin Impact, a 2020 action role-playing game from the Chinese studio miHoYo, caused an uproar before anyone could play it. At the ChinaJoy convention in 2019, fans of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild gave the Sony booth the middle finger. One player destroyed his own PlayStation 4 console in protest. They believed the new game's trailer borrowed too much from their favorite title. A year later the game was free to download, and it was earning money at a pace that startled the industry. It now runs on phones, consoles and computers, and it has collected awards and attention from critics, censors and regulators alike. How did a game accused of imitation build a world that players kept returning to? What rules shape its battles, its stories and its spending? And why did the company end up answering to governments on two continents?

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• 2. Teyvat And Its Gods

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  Teyvat is divided into seven nations, and each one answers to a god called an Archon. Every nation is tied to a different element and a different ideal. Above them hangs the floating island of Celestia, described as home to the gods and to mortals who ascended to godhood. Beneath the ground lie the ruins of Khaenri'ah, a mysterious nation that Celestia destroyed 500 years ago.

  Two kinds of magical object mark the people who matter in this world. Anyone with great ambitions, from any nation, may be granted a Vision. This gemstone lets its bearer control one element and offers the potential to ascend to Celestia. Archons carry something different, a device called a Gnosis. It affirms their authority and lets them resonate with Celestia.

  The player steps into the role of the Traveler, an interstellar adventurer who came to Teyvat with a twin. Players choose to be Aether, the brother, or Lumine, the sister. Most of the game addresses the Traveler by the player's own username instead. A companion named Paimon serves as guide.

  Two powers stand against the Traveler. The Abyss Order is a legion of monsters made from corrupted Khaenri'ahns, and it wants to overthrow the existing world order. The Fatui are a delegation of diplomats from Snezhnaya who pursue an aggressive foreign policy across Teyvat. They are led by the Eleven Harbingers, powerful lieutenants of the Tsaritsa, who is the Cryo Archon. Each Harbinger carries special authority to carry out her will.

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• 3. The Traveler's Road

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  A god calling herself the Sustainer of Heavenly Principles is the first thing the twins meet in Teyvat. She attacks, separates the two, and seals the playable twin away for five centuries. When the Traveler awakens, they rescue Paimon, who becomes their guide in the search for the lost sibling.

  The journey starts in the city of Mondstadt, where a corrupted dragon named Stormterror threatens the people. The Knights of Favonius, the order that protects the city, help the Traveler purify the beast. So does the bard Venti, who is secretly the Anemo Archon Barbatos. Then La Signora, a Fatui Harbinger, steals his Gnosis.

  In Liyue, the Geo Archon Rex Lapis holds an annual rite to give the people guidance for the coming year. This time he appears to have been assassinated. The Traveler investigates with Zhongli, a consultant at the local funeral parlor, and with the Fatui Harbinger Tartaglia. The Traveler learns that Tartaglia has staged events to obtain the Geo Gnosis, even summoning the ancient god Osial to force Rex Lapis's hand. Afterward Zhongli reveals that he is Rex Lapis. He was satisfied that humans could manage without his guidance, so he retired and traded his Gnosis to the Tsaritsa.

  Back in Mondstadt, a man named Dainsleif tells the Traveler that their twin now leads the Abyss Order. The twin refuses to reunite and disappears. Next comes Inazuma, a nation held under the Raiden Shogun's Sakoku Decree. The Traveler joins the resistance and confronts both Signora and the Shogun herself. Signora dies, the decree ends, and the extent of Fatui involvement comes to light.

  In Sumeru, the governing Akademiya tries to turn Scaramouche into a god, with help from the Fatui Harbinger Il Dottore. Scaramouche is a puppet created by the Raiden Shogun. The Dendro Archon Nahida helps the Traveler foil the plot. Inside the world tree Irminsul, the Traveler witnesses the erasure of the previous Dendro Archon from Teyvat, done to stop the Abyss from corroding the tree. The Traveler also learns of the Descenders, four people who came from outside Teyvat. The sibling is not one of them, and is instead Khaenri'ahn royalty.

  Fontaine hides a different secret. A prophecy foretells the nation's demise in a flood, and the Traveler's group discovers that Furina has been lying about being the Hydro Archon. She is in fact a human. After the flood is stopped, Neuvillette, Fontaine's chief justice, points the group toward Natlan, a nation of warriors threatened by the Abyss. The Traveler helps the Natlanese defeat that threat.

  In Nod-Krai, the group chases the Moon Marrow, a core of energy from the dead body of one of Teyvat's moon goddesses. They learn of the Wild Hunt, an Abyssal monster group controlled by Rerir, a dangerous Sinner from Khaenri'ah who is trying to regain form after being split into pieces. With allies such as Columbina, a moon goddess and former Fatui Harbinger, and the Harbinger Arlecchino, they trap Rerir through memory manipulation and banish him from Teyvat. Dottore then ambushes Columbina after a festival and steals two Moon Marrows. He creates an artificial one to become a god. The Traveler's side retrieves the Marrows, and Dottore is presumably killed.

  A letter from Collei about a strange dream sends the Traveler and Paimon back to Sumeru. They find a mass evacuation from the forest to the desert under Nahida's orders. Another segment of Dottore's Omega build is fatally damaging Irminsul, and the Fatui are attacking at the same time. Irminsul cannot be saved, so Nahida burns it to its roots with the Pyro Gnosis she borrowed from Mavuika. The fire kills Dottore permanently and moves the data from Irminsul into Aaru. The Traveler's search is not finished, and Aaru now holds what the world tree once kept.

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• 4. Elements And Exploration

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  Seven elements drive every fight in Genshin Impact: Anemo for air, Geo for earth, Pyro for fire, Hydro for water, Cryo for ice, Electro for electricity and Dendro for plants. Players bring four characters in a party and can switch between them in the middle of combat. When elements meet, they react. A Hydro hit leaves an enemy with the Wet status. A Cryo hit after that combines with Wet and freezes the target, so it temporarily cannot act.

  Each character has two signature abilities, an Elemental Skill and an Elemental Burst. The Skill is an attack with a set cooldown. The Burst is an ultimate attack that usually costs energy, which players must build up first. Smart parties chain these abilities together and exploit each enemy's elemental weakness. Some elemental powers also solve puzzles scattered around Teyvat. A character who freezes water can lay an ice path across it.

  The open map invites free roaming, with running, climbing, swimming and gliding all available. Teleportation points allow fast travel. Among them are the Statues of The Seven, which heal and revive characters and grant benefits such as extra stamina. Players gather food and other materials from the world, cook meals that boost damage or health regeneration, and refine ores to make or strengthen weapons. Characters grow through experience points and through upgrades to their artifacts and weapons.

  The richest rewards come with a limit. Bosses and challenges that pay out highly valuable resources consume a currency called Original Resin, which slowly regenerates up to a cap. Special battle instances called Domains reward materials that strengthen characters and weapons. Finishing challenges raises the player's Adventure Rank, which opens new quests. The World Level rises at Adventure Ranks 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55 and 58, making enemies tougher and rewards rarer. Co-op for up to four players unlocks at Adventure Rank 16, and cross-platform play lets any platform join in.

  In December 2022, the Version 3.3 update added Genius Invokation TCG, a tabletop-style card game with turn-based battles. Each player fields a deck of three characters and thirty supporting cards, and wins by knocking down all of the opponent's character cards. A dice roll each round limits which cards can be played. Elemental reactions carry over from the main game. Players can challenge NPCs, playable characters or real people.

  The "Luna II" update in October 2025 brought Miliastra Wonderland, a sandbox for user-generated creations. Players build and share work using the game's existing assets, terrain and enemies. They do so through the Wonderland Manekin, a new customizable character that is unlocked along with the mode.

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• 5. Building The World

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  In January 2017, miHoYo was focused on Honkai Impact 3rd and planned a sequel to it within a few years. That same month, initial development of Genshin Impact began. In April 2017, version 1.4 of Honkai Impact 3rd was released. It had a strong effect on the team and led them to create an open-world concept for the new project.

  By February 2021, the development team had grown to nearly 300 people. One estimate that month put the total number of people working on the game at 700, about 29 percent of miHoYo's entire staff. Developers named their greatest challenge as blending every contributor's ideas and conveying each character's background through visual design. The COVID-19 pandemic forced them to work remotely. A member of miHoYo's global publishing team reportedly described the equipment as insufficient for the demands of the role.

  The team studied various real-world mythological sources and chose Gnosticism as the core foundation for the setting and story. The elemental reaction system took its cue from actual chemical reactions. Real cultures shaped the look of the nations. Liyue is based on ancient China, and Fontaine on Industrial Revolution-era Europe.

  Yu-Peng Chen of HOYO-MiX headed the music team. The London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra performed the score. Chen wrote for each region by its cultural influences. In Mondstadt he used woodwinds to suggest wind and freedom. In Liyue he blended Chinese folk elements, such as traditional instruments and a pentatonic scale, with Western Romantic harmonies. The battle themes are polyphonic and draw on orchestration from composers such as Beethoven. On the 12th of September 2023, Chen announced on Bilibili that he was leaving miHoYo and HOYO-MiX.

  miHoYo revealed the game to the public in June 2019 at E3 2019. Closed beta testing began on the 21st of June 2019. In August 2019 the company announced a PlayStation 4 version. On the 4th of January 2020 it officially announced a Nintendo Switch version, which has never been released. A second closed beta for iOS, Android and PC began on the 19th of March 2020. The game launched on the 28th of September 2020.

  Only two of the seven main areas were available at launch. miHoYo expected the story to take several years to finish, and it announced a schedule of updates with new events and areas. On the 11th of November 2020, the PlayStation 5 could run the game through backwards compatibility using the PlayStation 4 code. A dedicated PlayStation 5 version followed on the 28th of April 2021. On the 20th of August 2024, miHoYo announced the 20th of November as the Xbox Series X and S release date. A native HarmonyOS NEXT port reached China in September 2025.

  In August 2025, HoYoverse announced that PlayStation 4 support would end on the 8th of April 2026. It cited hardware performance limits and application size. Downloads stopped on the 10th of September 2025, and in-game purchases ended on the 25th of February 2026.

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• 6. Critics And Crowds

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  Metacritic classed Genshin Impact as having "generally favorable reviews," and OpenCritic recorded an 87% rating. Travis Northup of IGN described Teyvat as "a world that is absolutely bursting at the seams with possibilities." Jordan Helm of Hardcore Gamer called it "one big environmental puzzle."

  Sisi Jiang of Kotaku singled out Liyue as "one of the most exciting regions that I've visited in a video game in years." She said the region "shows an idealized portrayal of Chinese social relations that exists in localized pockets." Other fans raised concerns about whitewashing and cultural appropriation in the character designs for Sumeru and Natlan.

  Kamui Ye of IGN China listed the overworld, art style and mechanics that the game shares with the Zelda title. He also stressed that Genshin Impact has a unique identity and features of its own.

  The gameplay drew warm praise. Daniel Tack of Game Informer wrote that "the gameplay loop of collection, upgrading, and customization is captivating and compelling." Chris Carter of Destructoid called the combat system "one of the most interesting things" about the game. Kaity Kline of NPR noted an abundance of material despite the free price. Gene Park of The Washington Post hailed the game as a breakthrough for the genre, one that let him "imagine a mobile gaming world with titles with quality that matches the industry's top-tier experiences." Khee Hoon Chan of Polygon credited it with standing apart from its peers as mobile games rose to mainstream popularity, and with reaching players who cannot run resource-intensive RPGs.

  The English voice acting fared worse. Jiang found it inaccurate to the original Chinese voice-over. She compared the Chinese voices to "real friends" and said the English dubs sounded like anime tropes. Some fans disliked certain performances so much, such as that of Barbara, that they aimed criticism at the actors. Nathan Grayson of Kotaku wrote that Laura Stahl, Barbara's voice actress, was being harassed "for being good at taking notes from a director." Several English voice actors refused to record lines during the 2024-2025 SAG-AFTRA video game strike, and roles were recast. Paimon's voice changed from Corinna Boettger to Penelope Rawlins, a change Austin Wood of GamesRadar+ welcomed. Park Gwang-seok of Inven called the Korean dub "impeccable" and "of a high level of completion." The Japanese cast is routinely marketed as "star-studded."

  The card game received positive reviews at launch. Marco Wutz of USA Today compared it to Gwent from The Witcher 3 and suggested it could widen the game's audience. Stephanie Liu of Siliconera said it rekindled her excitement from the early days. She praised its balanced design and simplicity, and noted that it "should remain fair" because every player gets the same cards to work around. Jiang said she was addicted and wanted more cards. Guopu and Grey Pigeon of Youxiputao argued that it can "make up for the shortcomings of the game's long-term experience."

  Miliastra Wonderland also reviewed largely well in 2025. Robin Bea of Inverse called it "one of the biggest features" the game had, and she and Wood compared it to Roblox and The Sims. Wood liked that buying the regular Battle pass includes a free Miliastra Wonderland battle pass. He also contrasted its many avatar customization options with the small number of skins released for the main cast.

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• 7. Scrutiny And Settlements

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  On the 19th of October 2020, a security flaw was found on the miHoYo website that exposed the phone numbers players used for password recovery. The fix did not arrive until the 9th of November 2020, three weeks after the first report. miHoYo then urged players to be careful sharing account details and to bind accounts to an email address and phone number. Two-factor authentication for logins from new devices came in May 2021, after critics noted its early absence.

  A second worry concerned the anti-cheat system, which runs through a kernel driver, as it does in many online games. Players found shortly after release that it stayed active after the game was closed or uninstalled, and some feared spyware. Some Japanese iOS players also saw the game read their clipboards at startup. miHoYo said coding errors caused both problems and that they were fixed.

  On the 6th of October 2020, the journalist and Twitch streamer Kazuma Hashimoto posted a video showing that in-game chat censored political terms sensitive in China, such as "Hong Kong," "Tibet" and "Taiwan." Because miHoYo is based in China, it follows national censorship policy, including a long list of prohibited words. The list also caught harmless words such as "enemies" and "words."

  In September 2021, the Chinese government said game companies should avoid "obscene and violent content and those breeding unhealthy tendencies, such as money-worship and effeminacy." That month more than 200 Chinese video game companies signed a self-censorship pact. In January 2022, HoYoverse released an update with outfits for many playable characters that were more modest than the original designs. The outfits were optional on global servers and mandatory in China. Joseph Allen of TechRaptor asked whether this counted as censorship and speculated that it was meant to appease the Chinese Communist Party.

  Most characters and weapons are won through the game's gacha system, called Wishes. The currency for pulling is Primogems, which come from in-app purchases or gameplay rewards. A pity system guarantees rare items after a set number of pulls. Ari Notis of Kotaku said the system can feed "a cycle that belongs more in Reno, Nevada, than a magical fantasy land of gods and wizards." Heidi Kemps of GameSpot wrote that the game is "hampered a bit by the restrictions its free-to-play model imposes." Steven Messner of PC Gamer called the endgame "a slog" and said the resin limit "feels so unnecessary." Gene Park warned that the polished look of the system could lure players into gambling. Stephanie Liu was disappointed by the scarcity of outfits for sale compared with similar games, and Matthew Adams of the British Journal of Chinese Studies argued that gacha reshapes personhood and social identities in digital communities.

  In 2025, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission announced a multimillion-dollar settlement with miHoYo over its use of loot boxes and misleading odds for limited-time prizes. Samuel Levine, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, said players spent "hundreds of dollars on prizes they stood little chance of winning." Makena Kelly and Wes Davis of The Verge noted that loot boxes have been compared to a form of legal gambling. The complaint also accused the company of marketing to children through social media posts and of collecting their personal information in violation of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act.

  The terms were specific. miHoYo had to delete data for children under age 15 unless parental consent was obtained. It had to "disclose exchange rates for multi-tiered virtual currency." It also had to stop selling loot boxes to teens under 16 without parental consent. The company said it agreed because it valued the trust of its fans. Genshin Impact received the changes in early May. Honkai: Star Rail and Tears of Themis followed in late May, and Honkai Impact 3rd and Zenless Zone Zero in late June.

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• 8. Money And Influence

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  Twenty-three million downloads and a huge revenue haul came within a week of release on mobile platforms. Within two weeks, revenue had recouped the game's development and marketing budget. By October 2020 it was the highest-grossing mobile game worldwide. The largest shares came from China, Japan, South Korea and the United States, and 69.5 percent of mobile revenue came from outside China. In the United States, it was the largest launch of a mobile role-playing game to date.

  From release through the end of March 2021, it ranked third in mobile game revenue, behind Honor of Kings and PUBG Mobile. It was also the fastest game to reach that milestone on Google Play and the App Store. By its first anniversary, Michael Baggs of the BBC called the mobile haul "unheard of." Sensor Tower ranked it the third highest-grossing mobile game of the year. Pocket Gamer estimated that it passed a major revenue mark across all platforms by the end of 2022. By its fourth anniversary in 2024, total revenue had climbed higher still.

  The curve has since bent. In January 2026, Genshin Impact ranked fourth in Sensor Tower's mobile revenue growth rankings and missed the list of the month's ten highest-grossing games. As of 2025, it still averaged around 57.3 million monthly users. Among its honors are Best Mobile Game at The Game Awards in 2021 and the Still Playing Award at the 2023 Golden Joystick Awards.

  Song Tang of The Diplomat argues that players can learn about traditional Chinese culture easily through the game. Tang also says its increasingly close relationship with the Chinese government confirms its role as a tool of soft power. In 2022, Ben Dooley and Paul Mazur of The New York Times called it a sign that Japan's video game industry faced challenges from abroad. They said it was "beating Japan at its own (video) game." The success also produced a phrase, "Genshin killer," for anime-style action role-playing games that might rival it. Reviewers have applied it to Solo Leveling: ARISE and Wuthering Waves.

  Brand partners multiplied. Beijing Business Today counted partnerships with Heytea, Pizza Hut, Mengniu Suibian, Amap, Redmi, Nippon Paint, KFC and OnePlus. Xinmin Evening News reported at least fourteen brands in the second half of 2022, including Lawson, Alipay and Amap. For the third anniversary on the 20th of September 2023, QQ Music held a celebratory event for players. On the 3rd of November 2023, Juneyao Airlines unveiled the world's first Genshin Impact livery on a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner named "Genshin," registration B-209R. It began flying domestic and international routes on the 8th of November 2023.

  The tie-ins also reached abroad. A Japanese cafe chain announced on the 29th of July 2021 that all twelve of its Japan locations would become Genshin Impact collaboration cafes for one month starting the 1st of September. They served Mondstadt-themed food and sold exclusive pre-order merchandise. miHoYo holds the HoYo FEST event yearly across Southeast Asia, where partner restaurants offer themed meals and merchandise. In December 2025, Duolingo announced that learners in select regions who completed a three-day streak would receive a redeemable in-game code.

  Before release, miHoYo published a comic on its websites about the backstories of the characters and the world of Teyvat. Animated videos on its official YouTube channels have teased story, characters and combat. In September 2022, it announced a partnership with the Japanese studio Ufotable on a prospective anime, accompanied by a concept trailer. By January 2026 the anime was still in development, and some players guessed that Ufotable was busy with Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba.

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