Genshin Impact

An incredible open-world and addictive exploration make Genshin Impact anime-zing adventure.

Genshin Impact offers a very well-made action-RPG as a free-to-play service--though it's not without a few caveats.

Genshin Impact's open world and clever combat are fantastic, but its endgame tries way too hard to milk you for cash.

And so I chip away and bristle against it where I can. I will allow myself to grind, but I will listen to a podcast during the most unbearable moments. I will not feel bad about getting every last Primogem. I will accept that my brain might feel an itch for a while, because I simply will not get to that “one world quest” for a week, and my log might be more clogged than I’d like it to be. Instead of worrying, I will simply close the game and try to forget about it for a few days. Then, on a fresh Saturday morning, I will return to its beautiful world, and find that my flowers have regrown.

This is an amazing smorgasbord of exploration, discovery, combat, and customization worthy of your attention – despite the presence of a predatory monetization model

Genshin Impact could be a little more lively than it is when leveling, but the beauty of its world helps suck you in. You really can't beat free, so long as you resist the rather tame temptations to spend money.

HoYoverse usually releases a major nation every year, and our next destination is the France-based region of Fontaine. This is where the god of justice resides, but I find this a little ironic. It says in the lore that she’s not willing to challenge the divine—the rulers in Celestia who have colonized this world and caused multiple genocides against its inhabitants. How could she be just if she won’t challenge the rulers who demand the world’s fealty by force? By now, I know that HoYoverse has a good answer planned. We just need to wait an entire year to find out what it is.

Genshin Impact is a remarkable game in many respects, boasting vibrant visuals, a rich, sprawling world, deep systems, and finely-tuned action. Unfortunately, the game's free-to-play gacha business model often undermines its own sense of adventure and excitement. Genshin Impact is a good -- potentially great -- game locked in a loot box it can't quite escape.

Though the story elements won't be to everyone's taste - and as such, the efforts the game makes to inject a sense of drama and interpretation stakes can fall flat and veer into being completely off-putting - the sheer breadth and scale that Genshin Impact offers means that the brief lows in no way impact on the many lofty highs offered up.

Overall, the current patch is a huge improvement from the content presented in the previous update, Version 4.5. The combination of strong story quests and a beautifully designed underwater area to explore along with a powerful new playable character make up for the unremarkable events in the update. The update is surprisingly good considering it is a late-year patch that is filling in some content gaps before the massive update that will see the release of Natlan in Genshin Impact later this year.