Genshin Impact is an open-world action role-playing game from HoYoverse, set in Teyvat — a world of seven nations, each bound to an element and ruled by its own god.
Combat is built on elemental reactions. Every character channels one of seven elements, and combining them produces specific effects: water and lightning electro-charge, fire and ice melt, wind spreads whatever it touches. You control a party of four and swap between them mid-fight, so building a team is about which reactions its elements can chain rather than raw damage numbers.
Exploration is unusually unrestricted. You can climb almost any surface, glide from height, swim, and cook food from ingredients gathered in the field. Regions open up as the story progresses, each with its own culture, architecture, music and roster of characters.
The game is free to download and monetised through gacha — a randomised system for acquiring new characters and weapons. The full story and the entire open world are playable without spending, and the starting cast is capable of clearing most content; spending accelerates roster breadth rather than unlocking the game.
It runs on Windows, Android, iOS and PlayStation, with one account and shared progress across all of them, so you can continue on a phone what you started on a PC. Major content updates arrive on a regular patch cycle, typically adding regions, characters and story chapters.
Developed by HoYoverse and published internationally by COGNOSPHERE PTE. LTD., Genshin Impact has shipped continuous content updates since its 2020 launch.
