Genshin Impact features an expansive assortment of unique playable characters to choose from, each of whom can be further outfitted with special Artifact Sets and weapons. While the game provides many cheap and easily obtained weapons for Travelers to choose from, higher level players have started to take note of the crème de la crème options, so to speak, and it seems they all share one requirement: Northlander Weapon Prototypes.
Travelers have access to numerous three-star (and below) weapons thanks to the game's series of quests and storylines, but generally speaking, four and five-star weapons are reserved for special Wishes, which all require some form of premium currency. That said, Genshin Impact provides players with a small workaround to these difficult-to-obtain rarities, namely in the form of forgeable four-star weapons, all of which can only be crafted with the aid of a Northlander Weapon Prototype.
Each of the five types of weapons available in Genshin Impact currently bears two distinct forgeable four-star options. That is, players can currently forge two different four-star Swords, Claymores, Catalysts, Polearms, and Bows, with the help of either of the game's two master blacksmiths. These four-star weapons are unavailable from Wishes, so players won't have to rely entirely on luck to upgrade them, however, the materials they require are on the rarer side of things.
To craft these four-star weapons, players will need a hefty sum of 50 Crystal Chunks, along with 50 White Iron Ore, but more notably, each of these impressive Genshin Impact weapons also asks the player for a Northlander Weapon Prototype of its particular kind. The Northlander Weapon Prototypes come in five varieties (one for each kind of weapon), the Northlander Bow, Catalyst, Claymore, Polearm, and Sword, Prototypes, and they can all be received as rewards from the game's current Weekly Boss fights: Andrius, Dvalin, and Tartaglia (Childe).
These Northlander Prototypes can be used to craft powerful support equipment like the Mappa Mare and Prototype Malice, which are indispensable to DPS mages and healers respectively. Alternatively, they can lead to powerhouse weapons like the Prototype Animus, which offers what is basically a super-powered version of the three-star favorite, Debate Club.
Unfortunately, Weekly Bosses are the only current consistent source of the Northlander Prototypes, and every weapon requires an additional copy of itself per level of Enhancement. So, in other words, players may find themselves on a glacially paced hunt to Enhance their best four-star weapons. Their drop rate is currently unconfirmed, but most players report going multiple weeks without earning a single Prototype. Also unconfirmed-but-accepted is the fact that their drop rate slightly increases along with a player's World Level/the chosen difficulty of the domain. Given that the rarity of Artifact drop functions in the same way, this would be unsurprising. Now, bearing these unsavory details in mind, players should also be aware of one small exception.
Travelers can buy exactly one of each Northlander Weapon Prototype from the Souvenir Shops found in Teyvat (aka where players spend their Anemo/Geo Sigils). The Mondstadt Souvenir Shop only offers the Northlander Sword Prototype, while its Liyue sister site offers the remaining four Northlander Prototypes. They're available for 225 Sigils each, which is actually much more reasonable than the triple-digit number implies, considering that players will need little else from these shops. Players also hope that future regions, like Inazuma, will bear their own Souvenir Shops, each with its own chance to purchase a new Prototype.
Genshin Impact is available now on the App Store, Google Play, PC, and PS4, and is currently in development for Switch and PS5.