Genshin Impact is an open-world RPG where players explore the world of Teyvat for their lost sibling while uncovering the secrets of its seven nations. Check out our review to see what it did well, what it doesn't, and our overall impressions of the game.
Overview
What is Genshin Impact?
Genshin Impact is a free-to-play open-world action RPG developed and published by HoYoverse. Set in the fantasy world of Teyvat, players take on the role of the Traveler, an adventurer searching for their lost sibling while uncovering the secrets of the continent's seven nations and the gods who rule them. The game features real-time action combat centered around a party of four characters, each wielding unique elemental abilities that can be combined to trigger powerful elemental reactions. Alongside story quests, exploration, puzzles, dungeons, and boss encounters, players can collect and upgrade a large roster of characters and weapons through Genshin Impact's gacha system while exploring an ever-expanding world supported by regular content updates.
Genshin Impact features:
⚫︎ A Fantasy World Spanning Seven Nations
⚫︎ An Expansive Storytelling Experience
⚫︎ Combat Powered by Elemental Reactions
⚫︎ Over 100 Playable Characters and Counting
⚫︎ Character Progression and Team Customization
⚫︎ Updates with New Regions and Events
⚫︎ Four-Player Co-op and Boss Encounters
| Digital Storefronts | |||
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 Google Play |
 App Store |
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 Epic |
 HoyoPlay |
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| Free-to-Play | |||
Genshin Impact Review (2026) | Beyond the Bell Curve's Peak
Plenty of Free Content, for Better or Worse
After years of continuous updates, the massive world of Teyvat now has 7 major regions, with each area offering its own set of puzzles and quests to be discovered. This is somewhat expected, as most live service games eventually reach a certain size if they run long enough. But Genshin not only has new content released at regular intervals, it also has regularly updating combat modes and minigames. For beginners and even returning players, this means there is a lot to go through, which can be equal parts exciting and overwhelming.
Once you do catch up on all of Genshin Impact's current content, you might suddenly find yourself with nothing much to do. Outside of daily and weekly missions, there won't be much to the main game itself outside of the minigames and endgame modes. The limited-time events have recently developed a pattern of being easily completed in a few hours, even if they're spaced out over the six weeks an average update lasts. The change from too much content to barely any can be jarring, and can create an artificial craving pushing players towards the repeatable endgame content. Content that, in turn, pushes towards spending resources on the latest available characters.
Overall Audiovisual Quality Remains Top Notch
Credit where credit is due, the quality and effort put into the game’s audiovisual experience has remained evident throughout the years. Genshin Impact benefits from HoYoverse’s propensity for putting a lot of effort in their sound design to bring life to the game and giving each new character, region, and story arc their own musical identity. Scaramouche’s boss fight, for example, not only hypes up the tension with its fast-paced and dramatic music, but also mixes in the electronic and wind instruments the game has associated with Inazuma to allude to the character’s backstory. Story cutscenes in both the main story and large events are often a cinematic delight.
Story plotlines aside, Teyvat's environment is always a feast for the eyes and the SFX is smoothly implemented. A simple yet hauntingly cold melody will follow you around while exploring Dragonspine, only to pick up and transition seamlessly into combat music the moment enemies detect your presence. Boss fights, secret areas, cutscenes, all have their own unique motif as well. From traversing the colorful wilderness to fighting off a wide variety of enemies, you can expect to have some interesting background music for it.
A Visual Struggle of Man VS Nature
As a dual-edged blade, the rich and inspired regions of Genshin Impact, as well as the obvious effort and research they put into them, end up contrasting with the design choices present in their playable characters. The character designs are still tied closely with their region and background, with the only exceptions being those without a specific 'homeland' to ascribe to, but the practicality and logic of the environment is simply not present in them. Despite the playable Knights of Favonius characters having elements of their organization present in their outfits, it's still somewhat removed from the regular Knights of Favonius outfit every NPC Knight has. Any playable character who shares an occupation or race with NPCs will find themselves sticking out in the crowd. This is obvious in all the regions and all playable characters, although the gap widened extensively in the modern outfits exclusive to paid skins and playable characters in Natlan.
The designs of Natlan characters are controversially full of modern elements, from ripped jeans to a full-body biker suit, that simply don't exist amongst the other people presumably living in the same nation. Having a specific nation develop jeans and skintight latex as daily wear is a stretch of the immersion, but only three people in the entire region wearing them downright breaks it. It's far too removed from the cohesive visual identity the game has tried to present since the beginning. The line between marketable product and story character has never been more clear in the way that Mavuika, god of war and seasoned warrior, looks to have been designed to match her sleek, one-of-a-kind motorbike rather than the other way around.
Nod-Krai, in contrast, feels like the designers walking back on certain visual decisions. The playable female characters are still not dressed all that appropriately for the weather or their jobs, but there are no longer overtly modern and alienating elements in their designs. Flins, a lightkeeper and combatant, share many design elements with his fellow lightkeepers. Nefer, hailing from Sumeru's desert region, dressed like she never left, and Lauma is an important leader from a tribe that worships the moon and it shows. Perhaps they're saving the luxurious coats and winter gear for Snezhnaya, even if it feels like a missed opportunity for Nod-Krai. Nonetheless, they retained the distinctly fantasy charm of the other nations.
There is also an obvious type of clothing standard present that is not unique to Genshin Impact. One can even argue that Genshin Impact can be somewhat tasteful with its character designs. If you look past the obsession with detached sleeves, seemingly-randomly-placed cuts to expose skin, nonexistent to miniscule skirts or shorts, and impractical footwear, nearly every character design ties back to their origin, profession, or personality. Perhaps what elements that survived through rounds of drafts demanding their sellability is already a testament to the design team's efforts to reconcile the characters with their own reality.
Natlan Was a Mistake, But Nod-Krai Isn't Exactly A Fix
As a long-time player since Genshin Impact's release, the change in the game's visual identity, storytelling direction, and combat gameplay was stark during the Version 5 updates and Natlan's regional arc. Coming off the streak of two narratively delightful and engaging arcs from Sumeru and Fontaine, Natlan attempted to do the same on a scale too big for itself. Natlan proved to be another failed attempt at a large-scale, national level conflict, this time without the excuse of a shorter three act structure that Inazuma had.
The high stakes were severely dampened by Genshin Impact's own unspoken rule; no playable character has ever truly died in the story, and no dead character has ever become playable. Why should we care about NPCs we know are more likely to die, and why should we care about the stakes when we know the playable characters are immune to them?
Nod-Krai scaled the story back down to where Genshin Impact works best; a specific enemy to rally against, and people with clear and personal motivations to do so. There are interesting and lively dynamics between the characters, and the main antagonists have their own personality and charm. Nod-Krai had also begun to reveal answers to long-asked questions, like Varka's purpose for his expedition, and more of Dainsleif's past. For lore enthusiasts, it has been nothing but one feast after the other. At least for the story, it has very much been an improvement and a return to Genshin's more grounded storytelling. As it stands, going through Natlan is worth it for Nod-Krai, and the entire game's story as a whole is still full of intrigue.
Exclusivity Extending to Exploration
In terms of gameplay and exploration, the Nightsoul mechanic severely affects both, and ramped up the need to get specific units regardless of the players' want. If you ever plan on exploring Natlan and challenging its world bosses, know that it will be significantly harder without Natlan characters in your party. Nod-Krai unfortunately continues the trend with introducing Lunar reactions and Hexerei buffs, although these mechanics do not affect world exploration as much as Nightsoul does. The exploration mechanic is instead replaced with Kuuvahki, which is more in line with the game's other types of regional exploration.
Build Flexibility VS Combat Specialties
Lastly in the perspective of combat, the Lunar reactions are a little more flexible, only requiring a minimum of two Lunar-enabling characters, although both the best DPS and support for any given Lunar reaction are still 5-Stars. The Hexerei buffs served to both bring Mondstadt characters back to the forefront and at the same time drive up the need for newer characters to enable it. However, this is also more for the niche playerbase that loves using old characters, and comes with the caveat that pressures them into trying to grab the newest relevant character to bring their favorites back from the brink.
At the very least, the characters have seen more polish, with each new character carrying seamlessly synergistic, yet complex kits that make them stand out from each other, as opposed to the grounded but overly-simple characters before the concepts of Arkhe, Nightsoul, and Lunar reactions existed. This can be seen when comparing units like Flins and Cyno, who have similar frontloaded playstyles, but Flins carries more "intent" in his kit since he was specifically made for a Lunar reaction. Cyno, on the other hand, was created to fit the creation of the newly-implemented Dendro element, but had split-scaling in his abilities that made it so that he was best at no roles when he was released.
While the old cast can still ferry you through most of the game barring the highest echelons of the endgame content, there’s no denying that newer characters are more favored by the current meta. By ‘reviving’ older characters with newly applied mechanics, players wanting to keep their old favorites relevant can be forced to pull for new characters anyway to support them. In the end, it always comes down to making one reason or another to get the newest character, whether you actually like them or not.
If you’re interested in learning which characters are functionally better at the current state of the meta, though, you can refer to our guide below:
Endgame's Challenges Did Not Age Well
In terms of its endgame content, Genshin has unfortunately taken a harsher stance for those who want to clear it. For instance, the scaling between the characters and its endgame have done very little to keep older characters relevant as they pump out more bosses that require special mechanics, specific team comps, or top-tier damage that is only accessible for the players that have put in more than just effort into the game.
While this was made to incentivize the players that do participate in the most competency-requiring aspects of the game, just like with the characters, it creates a divide between the players since—simply put—it is either doable, or it is torture. Those who wishes to delve into the endgame at this day and age must put in a substantial amount of farming into the artifact system, raise almost all their available characters, and usually acquire a constellation or two, all for the chance to compete against players that simply had the means to acquire character after character in almost every banner, who now have easier times.
The point is, it used to be rewarding to max out your favorite character and bring them into the Spiral Abyss or Imaginarium Theater and watch them do you proud, but now it mostly feels like a desperate attempt to keep them relevant since at this point, your favorite old character will likely need heaps of work and investment put into them, just to compete against a newer character that can outperform them even with a lackluster build, who will then be overshadowed a few patches down the line when the meta's focus inevitably shifts yet again.
This is most obvious in its two most challenging endgame levels, Floor 12 of the Spiral Abyss and Stygian Onslaught, where it requires hyper-specific characters against hyper-specific bosses, or else it bars you from some of its rewards, which further starves you of its already hard-to-acquire currency in the end. To sound it out as blunt as possible, it is not that Genshin has become too challenging, but rather that its challenges feel like they can no longer be solved with hard work and dedication alone.
Induces FOMO Through Banners
Onto the game's biggest con, which is its ridiculously unforgiving character collection system through gacha. Looking at similar games, the likes of Honkai: Star Rail was able to remedy this by presenting constant rerun banners, with as many as four characters rerunning in one phase. This quickly solved the issue of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) that most gacha games had, which would often deter players if they had missed one or two banners. Take note that other gacha games also have healthier banner cycles, and are quite forgiving to players.
Genshin Impact understands this, but instead of nullifying that FOMO, they instead amplify it by creating more characters that require previous banner characters to utilize properly, with the first rendition of this being Escoffier and Skirk. This is made even more agonizing as an after-effect of the game creating characters that are either faction-exclusive like the Hexerei, or making their playstyles so unique towards a team comp that no one else can substitute, like Zibai and Nefer.
On top of all of this, FOMO is only addressed by offering once-a-version Chronicled Wish Banners, with their pities not carrying over to the regular character banners, hereby almost pressuring the players into pulling if they wanted a featured character from it. It is likely that if you never anticipated the Chronicled Banners, you would be forced to either burn pulls on non-guarantees, ignore it entirely and have the FOMO grow, or feed into the temptation and spend your money for it.
The only saving grace for its value for money is that most characters can still handle most content you throw at it, even if they are considered sub-optimal for their use case. It can be discouraging, however, when a performance comparison video between the best teams you're missing out on is enough to make you throw everything you have into the banner the next time a "needed" character rolls in.
Is it Worth it in 2026?
Worth Picking up for New Players
Genshin Impact is still worth a try, if only for the storytelling and exploration. There are plenty to discover, and the rewards can be hefty for new players willing to grind for them. Although, I would warn against spending on the game until you're sure you will be playing longterm. It may no longer be the newest or hottest gacha game out there, but is and always will be a fun romp in a constantly updating open world.
Accept That Your Favorite Won't Always Be Genshin's Favorite
The game is best enjoyed by picking a select few as favorites and investing in them over time. Keeping your focus narrowed in this way can help avoid feelings of FOMO, although this advice may not work for those who like to always complete endgame content. One thing you have to accept though, is that no matter who your favorite is, the game won't always pay attention to them. While certain characters get preferential treatment for a time, it will always move on to another character eventually. Trying to keep up with all the latest characters without discretion is a futile attempt, and will only leave you frustrated, broke, and burnt out.
How to Catch Up as a New Player
First-time Travelers can expect hundreds of hours of content to catch up to Version 6.0, especially when it comes to the main story and its numerous optional but story-rich questlines. It can take more than a month or even more to reasonably go from Genshin Impact's start all the way to its current position, but it is guaranteed to give plenty of Primogems, resources, and fun as you get immersed in the Traveler's story.
For starters, here's a rough sketch of what you'll be doing to catch up, either as a new or returning player:
| New or Returning Player Catch-Up Guide |
|---|
| 1. For returning players, complete the Stellar Reunion Welcome-Back feature. |
| 2. Progress your Daily Commissions and Battlepass. |
| 3. Play through the Main Story. |
| 4. Spend Resin on resources and build characters. |
| 5. Participate in the "To Temper Thyself and Journey Far" permanent event. |
| 6. Do limited-time events |
| 7. Advance Spiral Abyss to get some Primos from its Endgame Content. |
| 8. Explore the world of Teyvat and obtain rewards from doing so. |
Realistically, this will take you around 90+ hours of play time to complete from Mondstadt all the way to Nod-Krai, and this excludes all the limited-time events you will no doubt have to detour around. If you ignore some of the world quests and the more non-story-related events, you can expect to thin this number down to around 70+ hours, which is still quite the hurdle.
If you want a more in-depth look at what your day-to-day will look like once you start your journey, check out our Starter Progression and Catch Up Guide here:
Genshin Impact Wiki Guide
Genshin Impact Wiki Front Page
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Game8 Reviews
So genshin gets a 5 for value but wuthering waves get a 9? I know the rates are slightly better in wuwa but genshin has capturing radiance equaling it out. The weapon banner might be guaranteed but because the 4 star weapons in wuwa are so bad you have to pull for the weapons. Also while wuwa might have more pulls per patch, they almost always release two 5 stars per patch. I'm not saying that genshin should get a 9 for value too, but wuwa has similar problems it should be brought down as well