101 Amazing Facts about Genshin

Impact

Merlin Mill
Unofficial & Unauthorised
 101 Amazing Facts about Genshin Impact
Published in 2021 by Jack Goldstein Books
Digital Edition converted & distributed by
Andrews UK Limited
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 General Facts

1. Genshin Impact is an open-world action role-playing game, developed

and published by miHoYo. It was first released for Android, iOS,
PlayStation, and Windows in September 2020.
2. The game is purely online-based and so requires an internet connection
to play; this facilitates the monetised gacha system that allows players
to obtain characters and weapons.
3. Genshin has been likened to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
for its similar gameplay and graphic style – both made possible through
Genshin Impact’s use of the Unity game engine.
4. GI’s head producer Hugh Tsai attended Shanghai Jiao Tong University
where he studied Computer Science. As a self-proclaimed ‘tech otaku’,
he personally enjoys anime and manga-style video games.
5. After the game’s initial release, it was announced that versions would
also eventually be made available on the PlayStation 5 and Nintendo
Switch.
6. Though the game is primarily playable in single-player mode, it was
always designed with the intention of having at least a four-player co-op
mode available.
7. Genshin Impact has been an undeniable commercial success and has
been described as the most influential video game ever to have come
out of China.
8. The game was first revealed in June 2019 at E3 – miHoYo also
announced that closed beta tests would be undertaken before its official
release.
9. Often praised for its music, Genshin Impact’s score was composed by
Yu-Peng Chen and much of it was performed by the London
Philharmonic Orchestra.
10. Genshin Impact is widely considered to be one of the most popular
games that also allows cross-platform play between all the devices on
which it is available.
 Playable Characters

1. At the time of writing, over thirty-five playable characters have been

revealed for the game.
2. Each character has a set of voice-over lines that are activated in
different sequences depending on two factors in-game: the weather and
the time of day.
3. The Traveler, the protagonist of Genshin Impact, can be either male or
female depending on the player’s choice, and is named accordingly:
Aether if male; Lumine if female.
4. Although she styles herself as Fischl, Prinzessin der Verurteilung;
Fischl’s real name is Amy – a fact she’s had much trouble coming to
terms with.
5. Not only has Diluc owned the Dawn Winery since the passing of his
father, Crepus, he’s also the ‘wealthiest gentleman in Mondstadt’.
6. Eula – also known as the Spindrift Knight – abandoned her noble yet
arrogant family to bring justice to Mondstadt in her own way. Despite
how highly she holds herself and the prejudice that comes from being
linked to the Lawrence Clan, she’s actually a kind-hearted person on the
inside.
7. Despite her passion for helping others, Amber isn’t a particularly
skilled cook. In fact, her signature dish is somehow always half-burnt
and half-raw.
8. Childe’s real name is Tartaglia and even though he now has a fearsome
reputation as a warrior, as a child he was uncommonly frightened and
hesitant of danger.
9. Despite being the physical form of a powerful Archon, one of the Gods
of Teyvat, Venti is allergic to cats.
10. Zhongli is actually the mortal vessel of the God Morax but decided to
give up his position of Archon and instead experience life from the
perspective of a mortal.
 Development

1. Development for Genshin Impact started in June 2017.

2. The original development team consisted of 120 people; this soon grew
to four hundred by the end of 2017, and then to seven hundred by
February 2021.
3. Confident of the success and potential growth of such a project, miHoYo
decided to set the game’s initial budget at a cool US$100 million.
4. When setting out the artistic vision for Genshin Impact, the design team
used The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild as a primary influence.
They also described the vision as ‘anime meeting real world cultures’.
5. On learning of the PlayStation 5’s features, the development team were
immediately keen to make use of the unique capabilities of the
DualSense controller. They committed certain job roles to ensuring that
the PlayStation 5’s controller was fully supported.
6. Wary of the negative connotations that a gacha system can leave on some
games, the development team decided to include a ‘pity system’
whereby a rare item is guaranteed after a player makes a set number of
draws.
7. While the finishing touches of the development process were taking
place, Genshin Impact received over ten million registrations to play
upon release – over half of these came from outside of China.
8. From the outset, Genshin Impact was envisioned as an ongoing game
that would receive updates as time went on; miHoYo’s president has
since estimated that this ongoing development will cost at least US$200
million per year.
9. The game was originally developed to support voice-overs in four
different languages and to support text in thirteen different ones.
10. Not only was the development work itself a challenge, but the team also
had to produce a near-perfect project management system because of the
regular content updates; these updates were always planned to take
place every six weeks after release.
 NPCs

1. Flora is known as one of the sweetest NPCs in the game, but her
personality goes beyond just niceness. It’s been said that her devotion to
flowers and growth mimics the way Barbatos himself protects
Mondstadt.
2. Often categorised by players as simply ‘an old lady’, Madame Ping is
actually one of the adepti – and though she seems frail, in reality she’s
extremely strong.
3. Paimon’s popular nickname among the Genshin Impact fanbase is
‘Emergency Food’ – a reference to one of the early voice lines in-game.
4. Chloris, the wandering botanist, is actually the older sister of Flora.
Their names are fitting, as the former is the same as the Greek goddess
of flowers, and the latter is the same as the Roman goddess of flowers.
5. Anna, the girl who wishes at the fountain for relief from her severe
illness, often throws coins in it to find favour with a fairy. If you return
to the fountain at night, you can see her brother, Anthony, collecting
coins from the water – he does this to help pay for her medicine.
6. Timmie, the sad boy on the city of Mondstadt’s main-gate bridge who
loves pigeons, has a sadder backstory than many players know.
Unbeknownst to him, his father died in a hunting accident so he now
lives with Grace, to whom he isn’t even related.
7. Glory, the blind girl who sits in Monstadt with a bandage round her
head, actually has green eyes.
8. The reason Echo from Liyue repeats everything that others around him
say is because a wandering adventurer named Alice once gave him a
potion to help cure him of a stutter; unfortunately for Echo, the side
effect of that potion now compels him to copy the words of others.
9. In Liyue harbour, Shuzhi is actually waiting for Uncle Liu to come and
talk to her. It’s been said that she’s waited forty years for him to confess
 his true feelings.
10. The cat and dog at Wanshu Inn are called Wei and Richie, respectively.
 Controversies

1. Shortly after Genshin Impact’s release, players discovered that the

anti-cheat system would remain active after the game was closed or
uninstalled, raising suspicions that spyware had been secretly installed.
miHoYo have since announced that this was a coding issue and has been
resolved.
2. Some terms and words like ‘Taiwan’ and ‘Hong Kong’ get
automatically censored in the in-game chat. This is because Genshin
Impact has to abide by China’s strict censure laws.
3. In March 2021, KFC announced a collaboration event with Genshin
Impact in China, which encouraged fans to visit outlets and get limited
edition items – but due to the high turnout, outlets became overwhelmed
and the event was eventually called off.
4. Some fans have called for greater inclusivity in Genshin Impact after
claiming the game has described the few characters with certain skin-
types as ‘exotic’ or ‘scary’, though the real reason behind the choice of
these words is debated.
5. One of the game’s adult NPCs drew criticism after fans realised one of
their voice lines seemed to imply that he was in love with a child NPC.
In-game, Ulfr stated “I will confess my love to Flora...” – though some
wonder if this was simply an oversight and perhaps the ages of the
NPCs were unknowingly changed during development.
6. As a common type of enemy in the game, the design of the Hilichurls has
been frequently criticised as being offensive to indigenous tribes on
which some claim they are based.
7. To combat many issues which may potentially cause offense, miHoYo
explicitly state in the game’s user license: “We cannot guarantee that
you will not encounter content that you consider offensive or
otherwise inappropriate” – since all players of the game had to have
 agreed to these terms to play the game, miHoYo are under no obligation
to respond to any criticism.
8. After many complaints from fans, in which they questioned the security
of Genshin Impact’s login system, miHoYo decided to implement a
form of two-factor-authentication in May 2021.
9. In October 2020, a Redditor discovered a security flaw whereby any
phone number linked to any account could be acquired through
exploiting the ‘forgot password’ link on miHoYo’s website. Despite
this, nothing was done to fix it until a second post in November 2020
forced the development team to issue a fix.
10. Although Genshin Impact has openly praised The Legend of Zelda:
Breath of the Wild as an inspiration, that didn’t stop a wave of
controversy after the game’s initial reveal – some hardcore Zelda fans
even reported that they’d support Nintendo if they decided to file a
lawsuit against miHoYo... though no such thing ever happened.
 Critical Reception

1. According to the review aggregator Metacritic, Genshin Impact

received “generally favourable reviews” upon release, with an average
score of 82/100 across all platforms.
2. The open world of Teyvat drew particular praise from IGN and Kotaku,
with one reviewer even saying that Liyue was “one of the most exciting
regions that I’ve visited in a video game in years”.
3. Perhaps the most attractive and surprising aspect of Genshin Impact is
that it’s free-to-play. Since the financial model is based entirely on
players being able to choose what they spend, the abundance of free
content in-game means playing it doesn’t have to cost a penny.
4. Despite the game being free-to-play, many reviewers and fans have
criticised the borderline necessity of needing to spend real currency to
play ‘properly’ for more than a few hours a day. The resin system in
particular has been questioned.
5. In the United States, Genshin Impact’s launch was the biggest such
event in history for a mobile-based role-playing game.
6. Apple awarded Genshin Impact with ‘iPhone Game of the Year’ in
2020.
7. The game also won Google Play’s Best Game of 2020 and was
nominated for their Users’ Choice Game award.
8. Leading up to its official release, Genshin Impact came first in the
Tokyo Game Show poll – ranking above fourteen other titles.
9. Despite gacha systems usually receiving heavy criticism, many of
Genshin Impact’s reviewers said that the premium content and character
acquisition system didn’t seem intrusive, feeling that the game delivered
enough value for no cost to justify an element of gacha gaming.
10. The game’s release on the PlayStation 5 was critically acclaimed; most
players saw it as a perfect presentation of what the new console was
capable of, providing a continuous frame-rate of 60fps and load times
that only lasted a few seconds.
 Figures and Statistics

1. On mobile platforms, the game was downloaded 23 million times and

earned around US$60 million within its first week.
2. The first thirty days of Genshin Impact’s release – in which it recouped
its $100 million budget – also saw it become the highest-grossing game
worldwide for that month.
3. The largest portion of its initial revenue came from China, Japan, South
Korea, and the United States, with 69% of mobile revenue actually
coming from outside its home nation.
4. Within two months of its release, Genshin Impact had grossed over
$393 million.
5. According to live player trackers, the game hit an average of forty
million players a month in June 2021, up over twenty million since its
release.
6. At the time of writing, the mobile player base spends an average of
around US$175 million per month on Genshin Impact.
7. Over its first five months, Genshin Impact cemented its place as the
world’s third highest earning mobile game, making $873 million; it sat
behind only Honor of Kings and PUBG Mobile.
8. Apple’s App Store accounted for the majority of global player spending
on mobile during its first five months, contributing approximately $521
million.
9. In May 2020, Genshin Impact hit the milestone of having a maximum of
more than seven million players in a single day.
10. At the time of writing, the game’s official Twitter account (allegedly run
by Paimon) has over 1.5 million followers.
 Weapons

1. The game launched with five types of weapons. They were: Swords,
Claymores, Polearms, Catalysts, and Bows.
2. Since weapons have different rarities that also affect their damage
output (even when they’re identically levelled), some players have
shown frustration that 5-star weapons are only obtainable through the
gacha system of Wishes.
3. There’s a way to get the three-star Dark Iron Sword completely free:
simply travel to Liyue Harbor and talk to Chen the Sharp; he’ll give you
the weapon at no cost.
4. Each character can only wield one type of weapon. It’s been said that
the development team wanted it this way so they could make the
characters’ interactions with their weapons more meaningful.
5. Though bows are useful for exploiting critical spots on enemies, another
reason you may want a bow user in your party is because of the sheer
number of ranged puzzles across the world – you’ll miss out on a lot of
treasure without a way to deal with them.
6. Catalysts are the quickest way on average to dish out elemental damage,
so don’t think of catalyst-wielders as simple support characters – they
can be handy in certain combat situations too.
7. Not only can claymores put out some of the highest raw damage on
average, they’re also better at breaking rocks than most other weapons.
8. Weapons with a rarity of three-stars or higher get access to both a
secondary stat and a passive ability; it’s always worth checking exactly
what these are before equipping one, as the usefulness of a weapon isn’t
always what it seems on the surface.
9. Similar to the approach seen in other video games, Genshin Impact’s
development team designed their swords to occupy the middle-ground
 of weaponry – ‘in between the slow attacks of claymores and the rapid
attacks of polearms’.
10. In a poll held on the r/Genshin_Impact subreddit, the community
decided that the next weapon-type they wanted to see after the initial
five was ‘dual-wielding’.
 Enemies

1. Genshin Impact initially released four categories of enemy. These

were: Common Enemies, Elite Enemies, Normal Bosses, and Weekly
Bosses.
2. The categories of enemies can be further broken down into enemy
families. Most enemies can be grouped into such families as:
Automatons, Elemental Lifeforms, Hilichurls, Mystical Beasts, The
Abyss, Fatui, and Treasure Hoarders.
3. Animals in Genshin Impact have zero Defence and zero Resistance,
with a multiplier of only 1 for their HP.
4. At the time of writing, there are over fifty different types of enemies
(excluding bosses) in the game.
5. Despite their presence on the continent being known about for over a
thousand years, the Hilichurls have no real recorded history, nor any
discernible civilisation.
6. Before unlocking the first Statue of the Seven, enemies are unable to
drop any items for the player when inside a certain radius near the
starting point of the game.
7. The imposing Ruin Guards that can be found across Teyvat were
codenamed Field Tillers by their creators; this wasn’t for their farming
abilities though – instead it came about because of a war-borne
metaphor.
8. Enemies of the Abyss family used to be human citizens of a lost nation
called Khaenri’ah.
9. The word ‘Fatui’ is Latin for ‘Fools’.
10. Hypostates are enemies who have achieved the purest form of life
energy. In fact, the term hypostasis refers to the underlying substance
that supports fundamental reality in some religious teachings.
 Lore

1. Though Archons are effectively the gods of Teyvat, they are by no

means all-powerful. Many have been killed or defeated over time and
some who are mentioned like the ‘salt god’ and ‘dust god’ no longer
seem to exist.
2. Of the ancient Archons, only seven are now recognised as gods of
nations in Teyvat.
3. Andrius – also known as Lupus Boreas – was once a contender to be
Anemo Archon. He chose to pass over this opportunity as he didn’t
believe he held enough love for humanity to do the role justice.
4. Ancient Liyue folklore tells of a time when there were three moons in
the night sky. According to legend, they were sisters who fought for the
right to be the first to appear; the in-fighting left two of them dead so
now only one remains.
5. The fall of Khaenri’ah’s ruling kingdom was said to have been so
devastating that now the events which ended it are simply known as the
cataclysm.
6. Hilichurls are capable of using elemental powers without having access
to visions. Many believe that this means Hilichurls are more in-touch
with the nature of Teyvat than humans are.
7. Despite the Knights of Favonius being called ‘knights’ none of them
have actually been knighted by anything that even closely resembles
royalty; instead, their knighthood is said to be earned through their
noble duties.
8. The rare ore, dragonfall, is not a naturally occurring mineral. Instead, it
was brought into existence by the effects of the great battle fought
between Azhdah and Morax thousands of years ago.
9. Though many in Teyvat believe Seelies to be human spirits, they’re
actually an entirely different species.
10. Before Barbatos rose to power in Mondstadt, Decarabian was the
overlord of the nation – he even created the city now known as
Stormterror’s Lair.
 And Finally...

1. Genshin Impact grossed an incredible $1 billion from sales on mobile

devices within just six months of its release.
Also Available