Genshin Impact captivated millions of gamers with its vast world, cool cast of playable characters, and wealth of story content. With the game close to unveiling its fourth main region, it may be time to double down on the main quests’ style of storytelling.
First released in 2020, Genshin Impact is a gacha game that has players explore the world of Teyvat. It is composed of seven nations, with three currently open and explorable. The rest will be unveiled along with their corresponding Archon Quests, which comprise the main story of Genshin Impact.
The Story of Genshin Impact
In Genshin Impact, players take the role of the Traveler, who has the ability to visit different worlds alongside their twin. The story begins when an unfamiliar god steals one twin away and casts a spell on the Traveler, sealing them for an unknown amount of time and preventing them from traveling to another world. When the Traveler wakes up, they make it their quest to seek out their lost twin.
This is the player’s driving force in Genshin Impact — find the unfamiliar god and save their twin. To accomplish this, they start seeking out The Seven Archons, the gods that rule over the world of Teyvat, to find answers. These goals come in the form of Archon Quests, which focus on the Traveler and their dealings with each nation’s god.
What’s Holding Genshin Impact Back
So far, there are three main arcs in the main story: The Prologue in Mondstadt, Chapter One in Liyue, and Chapter Two in Inazuma. While these present enjoyable questlines for the players to experience, the game’s story is generally a hit or miss with its playerbase. Some find it to be very well-crafted, especially when compared to the narratives of other gacha games, while others think it’s nothing special.
There are countless reasons why Genshin Impact players may find the story to be mediocre, but there’s one in particular that stands out in the community — the sheer amount of exposition. Genshin Impact has a fun and innovative combat system, but players feel that this is underutilized in many of its quests. Archon Quests often boil down to: Talk to this NPC, travel to this area, talk to another NPC, engage in a quick combat sequence, before talking to the NPC again. For instance, Chapter One, Act Two makes use of this formula, with the Traveler going on a number of fetch quests with Zhongli. Following this formula repeatedly makes for monotonous gaming.
It’s this quest structure that makes up most of Genshin Impact’s Archon Quests, and it no doubt takes away from the experience. That said, miHoYo has already shown that it can break away from this mold to create a questline with less exposition and more action and exploration. This is seen in the game’s character-driven Story Quests, such as Zhongli’s “Sal Flore” and Venti’s “Should You Be Trapped in a Windless Land.” While these quests still have quite a bit of dialogue, they’re interspersed between sections of exploration, puzzle-solving, and combat, making for less repetitive gameplay.
It’s no easy feat to write a compelling story with equally engaging quests. However, if miHoYo wants to level the divide between those who like Genshin Impact’s story and those who don’t, it may be worth rethinking the structure of the game’s Archon Quests. Substituting it with a formula that promotes more player interactivity, similar to those from the characters’ Story Quests, would help. Doing so would likely make Genshin Impact’s main narrative more engaging and earn more praise from the wider playerbase. Hopefully, miHoYo’s next installments to the growing gacha game will do its lore and world justice.
Genshin Impact is available now for Android, iOS, PC, PS4, and PS5.