After originally causing controversy due to its similarities to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, free-to-play PlayStation 4 action role-playing release Genshin Impact has turned out to be a bit of a juggernaut for Chinese developer miHoYo. Also available on iOS, Android, and PC, the title has grossed $100 million across all platforms in less than two weeks, with over 17 million downloads in just four days on mobile alone.
The game is part of a new wave of releases from China, which are attracting global attention: “As the mobile games market matures in China, developers are looking to reach new players, both outside China and on new platforms,” Daniel Ahmad, a Senior Analyst at Niko Partners, told IGN. “Both small and large Chinese studios have been investing in more robust experiences that can scale to console and PC. As many have seen with previously announced games such as Lost Soul Aside, Bright Memory Infinite, and Black Myth Wu Kong, Chinese game developers are beginning to make their mark in the West.”
With regards to Genshin Impact in particular, it was just awarded September 2020’s Players’ Choice on the PlayStation Blog, and appeared third in the latest free-to-play PS Store download charts. Writing on Twitter, Ahmad summarised the title’s appeal: “It's accessible, immersive, and focuses on quality. Engagement drives monetisation.”
[source twitter.com, via ign.com]
Comments 37
Best free to play game ever.i was just playing it this morning.graphics is amazing.story is good.gameplay is good also.word up son
Gave it a quick try over the weekend out of curiosity - it is a bit brazen with its influences for sure, the storyline and characters are cheesy as heck, and there are a baffling number of systems and currencies to get to grips with. But, I did enjoy it and am keen to play more of it. The world design is lovely and the combat seems like it'll get interesting with the way you combo characters. If you bounce off corny anime games then it probably won't be your cup of tea but for me it kinda added to the charm in a weird way.
The only thing that really puts me off at this early stage is that there just seems to be so much to do - looks like it might need almost MMO-like time investments to really play and enjoy. Could be wrong, just the impression I got so far.
Still need to give this a try.
It has been a delight sinking into this game... Even though I only have three Geoculi left to find and thought I had been marking them off accurately... but I didn't and now i don't know where the missing ones are and it all so very upsetting!
I might eventually give it a try
@Mintie Devastated. Good luck dude.
Played this for an hour last week. I could see myself playing it but I'm about 40 hours into The Witcher 3 right now - doing the seemingly endless main story and side quest missions in Voligrad regarding Dandelion and Triss - so this is not the game I want to be playing alongside it. Maybe when I'm done.
I played 140 hours of Zelda BotW on my Wii U, and there are similarities, but there are similarities to almost every game I play as I mostly only play 3rd person view games. There is certainly not enough similarity to keep me from playing it, any more than I would have skipped playing TLOU b/c I had already played Uncharted. I mean people keep playing Assassins Creed games and the last 2 I can barely tell apart.
Not to say everyone should like Genshin Impact, it's such a free to play game w/ the cringey voice acting, my wife hates that little flying girl so much. And there seems to be just way to much to micromanage, I think every menu has 3 or 4 menus embedded within it. That may be par for the course w/ MMOs but I've never played an MMO.
So it's a nice action packed JRPG, but I think it's something you have to be invested in, so not pick up and play for a bit. It's almost DQXI in it's undertaking. W/ is nothing at all like BotW and it's mostly barren empty world. The "filling in the area map w/ the beacon" is a bit too BotW.
I only wish it had cross save with ios and android like pc does.
@rjejr lol my wife hates the voice work too. Especially the flying thing.
Of course,people love their Waifu's and Husbando's,whether they admit it or not,is another topic.
I don't quite understand how a game with a frame rate this bad could win any player's choice award
I feel like if this game wasn't free to play no one would really care about it
It’s cool, but not a fan of locking co op behind a grinding play wall.
@Stragen8 It's not that bad so it's not really an issue.
Large complex multi character action RPG with the same freedom to move and explore as breath of the wild. Nothing else quite like it and it’s very good. Just don’t trigger the Gacha mechanism with real money. You really don’t need to.
It's a pretty good ftp game but I'm seeing articles about this saying it's a GOTY contender which I find hilarious.
The game is good, it just need ps5 version for that 4K & 60 fps performance
I might give this a try at some point if I ever make a big enough dent in the backlog but the lack of Platinum is so upsetting.
Enjoying it a lot even if the character art style is not my cup of tea...amazing exploration, good to play while listening to podcasts.
@Nepp67 it is when you’re trying to get your wife to play it but she needs to pour like 10 hours into it before we can play together.
The game is great. Glad they made their money back.
Dropped $4.99 for the 30 day blessing because wanted to support the game - but 100% not necessary and feel zero pressure to buy anything else.
Even downloaded the Soundtrack on Spotify.
Xuan Yuan 7 is coming to PS4
https://www.gematsu.com/2020/10/xuan-yuan-sword-vii-launches-october-29-for-ps4-pc
Really liked Gujian 3 (if you have a PC)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/994280/Gujian3/
Keeping an eye on more Chinese games for sure.
I find it odd that this game has zero cosmetic options to it. Might be shallow, but that's something I want from RPGs and the reason I won't be playing this game unfortunately.
It's surprisingly good. I expected to play it once and delete it. That was about 30 hours ago lol.
I can't believe i read some people hate Paimon, she is one of the funniest game mascot.
most people loves her.
also, use JP voice.
I gave it a go as it was free, but thought it was absolute trash. I suppose if you’re a fan of that style then go for it.
a fool and his money are soon parted
Well deserved. It's an excellent game. I just wish I had enough time to play it. I prefer smaller games due to life taking over lately.
@Ryall considering that that... let's say "simple" Goose game won Game of the Year last year and even push square staff had no issue with it, I'd say this deserves it way more.
Glad its doing well as its very fun and for a gacha/F2P game its fairly easy on you even if it becomes more of a grind in the late/end game. I even got that blessing thing what costs nearly a fiver just so i could give them something.
Also why are people hating Paimon? I think she's adorable and really reminds me of Digimon with the 3rd person speak and the "mon" at the end of the name.
@starbuck2212 I somehow found them, well the two i needed to finish levelling the SoT7 and get the last shiny ball for the quest...
Now back to the steady AR grind!
@Mintie Awesome.
It's a beautiful and highly enjoyable game. I think I've spent 20hrs+ so far. The characters and their outfits, menu items, fonts are some of the best I've ever seen in gaming. Yea the frames drop at certain points but I see it as the game autosaving or something, dunno why minor things like this bother people so much.
@Sevenifity so far Paimon is okay but not as funny as say Morgana of P5. Venti is the funny one so far for me.
I want to give this a go but I’m quite the trophy hunter and have a backlog of games to plat before ps5. I would play it even without the platinum but it’s gonna have to wait. I would have downloaded it already if it did have a platinum though. Since I loved BotW I do want to check it out eventually
Such a beautiful game. The scenery looks like they took the concept art from their art department and went to town with all the details, color and landscape layouts. i feel like we got breath of the wild with better rendering.
Im waiting for the catch.
@Powerpellet - It's a Gacha, there's your catch. If you want the very best characters then you might well have to pay and gamble for them. That said, it does give you a full team with one of the best DPS characters in the game and also an amazing healer. The best weapon for the healer can be crafted and you can craft a top tier weapon for the DPS char.
It gives you all the tools to beat all the content as a free player and you might even get lucky with the free pulls too. I know I did.
Edit: Couldn't make it up, after posting I started playing and did a single free pull and got another five star character. I've had crazy good luck with this game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BceU6owaamE
$100M! It always amazes me how much people pay for free games. I saw an article where someone spent $4000 trying to get a certain character (I didn't click, sorry, who knows if they ever got it).
I feel Genshin Impact is a really well designed F2P game in that you don't feel the need to spend money. You're never really blocked from proceeding in the game with paywalls to continue. The free characters are certainly good enough. If you really liked another character then you definitely get enough free primogems to try the gacha every once in a while. Maybe I'm just not far enough where the different characters actually matter (AR25), but I'm enjoying my time in Teyvat and will not be spending any money on this game
Fantastic game with great gameplay and exploration. I wonder how much you can play "free" in the end before you need to pay, however some outlets suggest up to 50 hours which isn't bad.
I play most nights so if you're stuck for co-op: you can probably guess my ID
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