Genshin Impact: A Brief Rundown

By Helena Lieu

March 2022

Genshin Impact. The game that few have been able to avoid, perhaps hearing from a friend, seeing a YouTube advertisement for it, or scrolling through your Instagram feed. However, is it worth giving in to the pressure?

Chinese game company Mihoyo, who produced the popular game Honkai Impact, released a free open-world adventure game with gacha elements in September 2020 and picked up extreme popularity for the company ever since. Players can download the game and explore the world of Teyvat as a traveler searching for their lost sibling, following the story as they meet and aid new allies along the way, such as the cocky and relaxed cavalry captain Kaeya, or dutiful and kind Acting Grandmaster Jean. Unlocking new characters to fight introduces the gacha system, which acts similar to a toy vending machine, and encourages players to spend in-game money.

Providing a rich story influenced by historical Chinese, Japanese and Germanic culture, Genshin Impact has attracted fans with its deep and complex lore. This coupled with loveable characters has reasonably brought Genshin to its popularity today. However, there are some points that have hindered the game from growing even further in popularity.

Although its characters are appealing to some, most characters in Genshin Impact are forgettable, with dull and archetypal backstories. Beautiful design and high damage numbers are usually the most appealing aspects of new characters, but the writing and development of characters such as Raiden Shogun and Xinyan hinder their potential to be fan favorites. There is also the favoring of male characters over female characters, as there is consistently more in-depth and complex backstory created for male characters such as Xiao and Zhongli.

Additionally, although this game is great for beginners, it stagnates in excitement and novelty as soon as players pass about Adventure Rank 50, as gameplay becomes less about exploration and more about farming and fixations around high damage numbers. While this could be fun for some, this stagnation does not reflect how the game is advertised as an adventure game.

Genshin Impact is very much reliant on the pay-to-win strategy. Because of the gacha system, players are encouraged to gamble in-game money to obtain characters and weapons. This encourages excessive spending, as players can pay to buy in-game currency. According to Statista, mobile players spent over 167 million dollars in October 2020, while Genshin was gaining traction in the entertainment world. While this aspect of the game could be engaging to some players, there is no denying that bad habits and even a spending addiction can form around the gacha portion of the game. It is noticeably more difficult to be as successful as a free-to-play (players that spend little to no money on the game) when compared to a whale (those who spend hundreds, even thousands, of dollars a month on the game), making it frustrating to those who cannot spend money on the game, especially considering it is becoming harder at higher levels to receive free in-game money.

Mihoyo has a lot of potential with Genshin Impact, however, its character depth and pay-to-win system hinder its ability to truly stay interesting to a player over an extended period of time.

Bibliography:

Clement, J. “Global Mobile Spending on Genshin Impact 2022.” Statista, 3 Feb. 2022, www.statista.com/statistics/1208573/genshin-impact-player-spending-app/.

“Genshin Impact.” Top-Strongest Wikia, topstrongest.fandom.com/wiki/Genshin_Impact.