What Is Genshin Impact? An Explanation

Genshin Impact is the latest free-to-play craze to hit the gaming landscape, and it's available now. But what is it? Here's an explanation on what the game is and how it plays for anyone who's confused! 

What is Genshin Impact? 

Genshin Impact is a free-to-play open-world RPG set in a fantasy world. Imagine stepping into a game like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild or the Tales of games. It has a stunning anime art style that may indeed get a mixed reception from the mainstream audience, but the game itself is a stunning triumph, especially with it being a free-to-play game. It's absolutely massive at the cost of... well free.

But it's more than just a Breath of the Wild clone. Genshin Impact features fun combat you would expect from a highly polished Japanese RPG, hence the Tales of comparison, and yes, swords don't break.

It also has a unique elemental system that is engaging to figure out. Outside of combat, you explore the world around you, find unique vistas, and discover all sorts of treasure and puzzles along the way. Once you hit a certain rank, you can also play this game with friends in co-op.

There is a storyline that runs deep within Genshin Impact, and it's almost fully voiced in English, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. It has full-on cutscenes, big story moments, and a lot of quests to finish.

It also has a Koji Kondo-esque soundtrack that has a few beautiful melodies here and there, which adds to the AAA quality. There's a lot here, and it's worthy of a download.

What Platforms is Genshin Impact on?

You can currently play Genshin Impact on PC, PlayStation 4, Android, and iOS devices. The developer has said to RPGSite that they are currently working on a Nintendo Switch version, but it doesn't have a date as of yet. There is no word on an Xbox release either. On PC, the title is only available through its own client, not via Steam or Epic Games Store. 

Genshin Impact Microtransactions

If the game is free, what's the catch? It's fairly difficult to get new characters. Genshin Impact adopts the gacha system, and it gets very expensive if you want to pull 10 characters at a time. If you do summon 10 at a time, you are guaranteed at least a four-star character, however. 

As of right now, the developer of the game is giving a lot of rewards to players during the launch of the game, so you'll likely get a new character, but in the future, it may be more difficult. The game does provide the player four characters during the main campaign, but everyone else needs to be unlocked. Venti, why are you so difficult to unlock!?

For more on Genshin Impact, check out our guides for it below.