What Makes Genshin Impact Worth Playing?

Is it worth it to start playing Genshin Impact? The short answer is yes, but we’ve come up with a number of compelling reasons to prove it.

Genshin Impact – A Free-to-Play Anime Masterpiece

Genshin Impact is an open-world, live-service action RPG set in a fictional world of Teyvat, where players play as one of the twin Travelers who get separated by a mysterious deity, thus starting the first main objective: to find the missing twin. The Traveler decides to set out on a journey through Teyvat in hopes of finding clues about their twin and gradually learns more about the true nature of the world and the twins’ past.

You can find mixed opinions about the game online, ranging from praise to hate, yet people criticizing the game seem to be more vocal about it. Since entering the mainstream, Genshin became an easy target of blind hate, and it’s often ridiculed by the people who never even played it, who are not the target audience, or who hate anime aesthetics in general. Imagine a competitive Counter-Strike player who complains that The Sims is boring, because there are no guns in it.

The fact is that Genshin Impact is an extremely influential game and remains such, even five years after release. What started as a simple “Zelda clone” is now being copied by the entire gacha industry that spawns clones of it instead, and those who wish the game to fail are praying for a new messiah in the form of a “Genshin Killer” to come and dethrone the king. Yet, Genshin reigns supreme, and there’s still no worthy competition in sight.

So why play Genshin Impact? Here are a few reasons that may convince you.

A Casual-Friendly Experience and a Game to Relax

Genshin Impact features a variety of gameplay options, but its main strength lies in the fact that it focuses on non-competitive activities, such as exploring the world, solving puzzles, and playing the stories, which minimizes anxiety and stress.

If you’re a competitive person, you’ll probably find the game a bit boring, as it doesn’t offer a proper challenge. The endgame dungeons do exist, but they’re very limited and often not even worth being cleared fully. Leaving the most difficult stages unfinished won’t slow down your progression; the rewards you’ll miss are barely worth mentioning.

The game has no leaderboards and generally encourages people to work together rather than against each other. On top of that, it’s mostly a single-player game, but you can play in co-op with up to 3 other people if you wish to.

It’s a game you play to relax and unwind; it’s a game that allows you to immerse yourself in a beautiful, colorful fantasy world created with a huge amount of passion and care.

Stunning Anime-Like Visuals with Beautiful Sceneries

Genshin Impact’s stylized anime-like visuals look incredible. The world is full of bright, vivid colors, but not to the point of hurting your eyes; they all mix well and create a coherent style that glues everything together. Nothing looks out of place; Liyue’s mountains, Sumeru’s deserts, Natlan’s canyons, and Mondstadt’s plains; it all looks like it belongs to the same anime-inspired world. There’s also a dynamic day and night cycle – environments look absolutely gorgeous if you manage to catch them at the golden hour, and the sky at night is a sight to behold, with all the stars, the visible galaxy, and even the auroras.

On top of that, Genshin Impact’s visuals don’t age because the game never tried to look realistic; stylized graphics stand the test of time much better. Genshin Impact does get some visual upgrades over time, but if the game were to be released today, it’s safe to assume it would’ve looked exactly the way it does now, because it was a deliberate choice from the developers to make it look the way it does.

Emotional Stories, Deep Lore, and Masterful Worldbuilding

The stories of Genshin Impact are akin to fairy tales, such as The Little Prince. Simple, perhaps even childish on the surface, but they are actually much deeper and meaningful if you can read between the lines. Most of the stories are written in such an accessible way that a child could understand, but adults will be able to find even more value in them. Genshin’s stories are absolutely capable of making a grown-up cry.

You’ll connect with the characters you meet on a personal level, and you’ll witness their growth and struggles. Amazing voice acting also greatly helps with selling characters as “real” human beings you’ll care about and sympathize with, rather than simple fantasy characters.

And let’s not forget about world quests that focus on revealing the history of Teyvat itself.  These tend to use a variety of dark themes more openly and directly. Genocide, child sacrifices, human experiments, you name it.

Fantastic Music that You Will Remember

Genshin Impact is the reason why people came up with the meme that says that HoYoverse is secretly a music company that only makes games on the side to popularize their music. And it’s totally understandable, considering how good the music in Genshin Impact is.

You rarely see developers paying so much attention to the music, even less so in free-to-play games, and it’s a shame, because it’s such a powerful tool that helps immensely with building the right atmosphere and setting the tone for the game.

Right after launching the game, you’re instantly welcomed with a peaceful, ethereal composition that invites you into Teyvat, but it’s only the tip of the musical iceberg you’re about to witness. There are hundreds of songs and themes in Genshin Impact. Many places, such as cities and villages, have their own music themes, which can also come in different variants that play at different times of the day.

The music in each region of Genshin Impact is different and heavily inspired by and influenced by real-world cultures, utilizing traditional instruments from all over the world. Each region in the game has its own source of inspiration, and so, for example, Inazuma is all about classic Japanese music, Fontaine is home to French orchestral pieces, while Sumeru is where you’ll hear beautiful Middle-Eastern and Arabian tunes.

Surprisingly Complex and Fun Combat

Combat in Genshin Impact revolves around seven elements that interact with each other, adding more depth to each encounter. Elemental reactions can be utilized in a variety of ways. You can, for example, cover the enemy with water and then use ice to freeze them. You can then use a claymore attack to deal extra “shatter” damage or use fire to deal additional “melt” damage.

Combining elements is fun, intuitive, and makes sense from a lore perspective. However, combat goes beyond the elements; characters have their own special, unique abilities that may entirely change how you approach battles. For example, there is a character that gives your team the ability to jump very high, which can be used to perform powerful plunge attacks.

Live-Service Format with Continuous Updates

Genshin Impact is on a tight, 6-week schedule, releasing new content regularly, and it’s quite impressive how HoYoverse managed to do that for five years straight, with only a few exceptions.

There are new fun stories, new incredible places to explore, new events to participate in, new puzzles to complete, and new characters to try every few weeks – it’s all new and fresh, there’s no lazy copy-pasting. The game is not afraid of trying out new things and experimenting with new gameplay mechanics. Each new region is a new experience.

There’s always something to do in Genshin.  Even if you manage to complete everything and all that’s left is spending your daily energy and doing some quick tasks, you’ll get more of the unique content soon enough.

Genshin Impact as a Gacha Game

One of the main criticisms of Genshin Impact is that it’s a gacha game. If you’re not familiar with the term, it’s short for “gachapon” and refers to a Japanese machine with capsules containing random toys inside. You throw in a coin, and you get a random toy. Gacha games are similar; they often feature additional playable characters you can only get by participating in the gacha part of the game. So, you have to acquire some virtual currency first – either by spending real money or by earning it through in-game activities – and then you can “roll for a character”. The characters you get are essentially your “toys”.

It can be a very predatory system that incentivizes spending ludicrous amounts of money. For years, gacha games were seen as greedy cash grabs, and Genshin being a “gacha” automatically fails as a proper game in many people’s eyes, as it carries the “gacha” baggage with it. It’s like a magic word that triggers a specific, allergic reaction, and for some people, is enough to avoid the game entirely.

But Genshin Impact is different and you’ll quickly realize it if you give it a try. It’s first and foremost an open-world action role-playing game, focused on exploration and the stories. You can fully enjoy and experience all the content the game has to offer without ever participating in its gacha system, and you won’t feel like you’re at a disadvantage.

Imagine The Witcher 3 with an option to pay extra to play as Yennefer. Would that make the game worse? Would it invalidate the game’s worldbuilding, visuals, lore, quests, or music? Of course not! You’d get to experience a different, probably spell-oriented kind of gameplay – but at its core, the game would be just as great as ever, even if you were still stuck playing as Geralt.

Conclusion

Still not convinced? Just give Genshin Impact a try and decide for yourself – the game is completely free to play, no strings attached. You’ll only find some optional purchases that are not required to fully enjoy the entire content the game has to offer; they exist solely to give you more gameplay variety, but the variety at the core level is already massive.

If you like anime and you’re able to appreciate the artistic beauty in games, you’ll love Genshin Impact.