Author: Trafficblast

When you hear the words “free-to-play,” you probably think of very specific kinds of games: mobile time-killers, first-person shooters with loot boxes, MMORPGs. However, a story-driven, open-world action-RPG in a similar vein to Zelda: Breath of the Wild is probably not what springs to mind. But that’s exactly what Genshin Impact aims to be. It delivers a large, lore-filled, graphically lush world with nuanced combat, character-building, exploration mechanics, and co-op crossplay across multiple platforms at the most appealing price point possible–free! And while it succeeds admirably for the most part, it stumbles in a few key ways that remind you that there’s no such thing as a fully free-to-play game.

Genshin Impact makes a great first impression. The anime-inspired visuals are inviting and colorful, and the fully voiced, nicely choreographed cutscenes give the game the feel of a premium product. It also gets you going with the gameplay very quickly; thanks to solid control design, you’ll be running, swimming, climbing, dodging, gliding, fighting slimes, and slinging spells just a few minutes after the intro cutscenes wrap up. And once your first additional party member officially joins your posse, things start to get very interesting, as you’ll start to learn the ins and outs of the elemental interactions that make Genshin Impact unique.

Each character in Genshin Impact has one of seven elemental properties tied to them, which greatly affects what they can do for combat and exploration. While systems of strong and weak elements are extremely common in games, Genshin Impact takes things a step further, introducing unique and interesting ways for multiple elements to interact with objects and enemies. It starts with simple interactions: an object aligned with Dendro (nature) like a wood shield or structure burns with damaging flames when exposed to Pyro attacks, while pools of water can be frozen with Cryo element skills or used as a conduit for causing Electro damage in an area. Experimenting with other elemental combinations will yield more interesting results; setting an enemy on fire and following up with an Electro attack overloads them with energy and causes area damage, while using a windstorm can blow another source of elemental damage like Pyro or Hydro elsewhere while augmenting its strength.

You can swap between four active characters with a tap of the D-pad, giving you the ability to strategically chain attacks to great effect. The system makes party formation interesting: Do you double up on elements for bonuses or field a team of different elements, just in case you run across unexpected challenges and puzzles where they could be useful? It’s a fun and creative system that adds a lot of enjoyment to exploring Genshin Impact’s world, Teyvat.

And there’s plenty to do here, too. Even though many areas of Teyvat haven’t been made available to explore yet, there’s still plenty to do and see. There are chests to find, teleportation spots to activate, all kinds of raw materials to accumulate, side quests to complete, and big baddies to try and slay. If you want to stop exploring and relax a little, you can try your hand at cooking food, forging weapons, and even conjuring up rare items through alchemy. If you’re feeling particularly adventurous, you can even explore certain dungeons with others online using co-op play–and, thanks to cross-platform compatibility, it’s easy to join up with others no matter what they’re playing on. Setting up elemental combos with a team of players is very satisfying indeed.

You’ll get more party characters, weapons, and loot as you play through the game normally, but there is a way to get some extra goodies: by opening up your wallet. [Editor’s note: Everything written here refers to version 1.0 of the game. As Genshin Impact is an ongoing games-as-a-service title, monetization methods and drop rates can change as the game evolves.] Genshin Impact’s monetization revolves primarily around “gacha,” a Japanese term referring to a loot box-style system. You spend in-game currency on a “wish” that will get you either a weapon or a new character, and buying 10 wishes at once guarantees a character or weapon of four-star or better rarity. While you can obtain said currency in-game for free in various ways, you can also buy it directly with real money. You can also use real money to buy upgrades like item sets or a Battle Pass that yields better rewards for your questing endeavors.

Besides utilizing a confusing currency conversion system (you buy Genesis Crystals, which you can convert to Primogems, which you then convert to Fates to spend on Wishes), the gacha can be very punishing. If you’re going for the top-tier gacha rewards, you’re either going to need to be really lucky or prepared to spend a lot of time and/or money. The drop rate for the coveted five-star characters is a mere 0.6%. Fortunately, every 10-wish roll comes with at least one four-star weapon or character, and these are more than sufficient to take on the game’s tougher challenges. It’s also possible to not spend at all–if you carefully save the Fate and Primogems you acquire in-game, you can still assemble a formidable team. With a 10-wish costing about $20-$30 (depending on how many Genesis Crystals you buy at once), opening your wallet to try for the best stuff can get very pricey very fast.

Despite this, Genshin Impact generally manages to dodge a lot of “pay-to-win” issues. Even if you get good characters and weapons, you still have to learn to use them well and gather materials to improve their abilities, which can only be achieved through gameplay, and the items you can buy aren’t an immediate gateway to becoming overpowered.

However, like many free-to-play titles, Genshin Impact is built around getting you to invest time in the game every day. You’ll need to explore to find hunting and harvesting spots for materials needed not only for crafting and cooking, but also upgrading your characters and weaponry and increasing your Adventurer’s Rank. The Adventurer’s Rank in particular can be rather frustrating, particularly early on. Many features like co-op play, certain regions of the map, special dungeons, and even the ability to start crucial story quests are gated behind certain rank numbers, which restricts your play in an otherwise open-world adventure. While plenty of activities in the game yield experience points for the Adventurer’s Rank, it can be tedious to spend time doing side quests and exploring areas you’re not particularly interested in to open up parts of the game that you do want to see.

Another major issue is that, while Genshin Impact is certainly a very nice-looking game, its world doesn’t offer much that’s all that interesting to see. The landscapes, dungeons, and enemies are generic and samey, with little in the way of interesting areas or architecture to make the world feel distinct from many other anime-inspired fantasy environments. The character design has a similar problem; while the characters certainly aren’t unappealing, most of their designs don’t really stand out as being particularly striking or memorable.

One more important factor that might turn players off is that, because developer MiHoYo is located in mainland China, Genshin Impact is subject to rules imposed by the Chinese government regarding online chat, which means certain politically sensitive terms (like “Taiwan” and “Hong Kong”) are censored in conversation during co-op play. While this is an issue that affects all games from China, some players will understandably not be comfortable playing a game that’s subjected to such heavy government censorship.

Overall, Genshin Impact is a solid game hampered a bit by the restrictions its free-to-play model imposes. The overall production values are high, and the core gameplay is solid. In particular, the elemental interaction system is a ton of fun and gives the game a distinct personality. But while there’s a lot to do, having several chunks of Genshin Impact gated off until you’ve reached a higher rank is an obnoxious restriction for an open-world game to have–and once you finally do see what lies in those unexplored areas, it’s often a bit underwhelming. Still, it’s a solid start, and I’ll certainly be interested in seeing how Genshin Impact continues to evolve in future updates.

So you’re interested in trying out Genshin Impact, but there’s something you’re a bit worried about. While Genshin Impact is a free download, you’re told it makes money from something called “gacha.” And judging from what you’ve heard about other free-to-play games, you assume gacha is suffering. You’ve witnessed tales of woe on social media, of people spending hundreds of dollars in hopes of obtaining rare characters with nothing to show for it. You’re afraid of getting sucked into a vortex that invites you in for free but will proceed to empty your wallet and your soul.

Well, there’s good news for you–it’s very easy to enjoy Genshin Impact and take part in its gacha system without spending much, or anything at all! In fact, this may be one of the best gacha-driven free-to-play games for gamers on a budget. Even if you don’t get the luckiest results, you can enjoy exploring and questing through the game for free. To help you figure out how best to spend your resources, we’ve made a guide explaining Genshin Impact’s gacha mechanics and what to look out for. If you’ve any further questions about how it all works, be sure to leave them in the comments below. Otherwise, be sure to read our full thoughts about the game in our Genshin Impact review.

What is “Gacha”?

Gacha (named after popular toy-dispensing machines) is a popular monetization scheme that’s akin to loot boxes and often found in free-to-play games developed in East Asia. In games with a gacha system, the base game is offered as a no-cost download and is playable without spending money. However, you can choose to buy special in-game premium currency and spend it to “roll” for randomized elements that have an effect on gameplay–usually weapons, equippable items, and even playable characters. The system is especially popular in mobile games like Fire Emblem Heroes, Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, and Fate/Grand Order.

In Genshin Impact, the gacha system is called “Wish.” Each wish costs a certain number of Fate items (either Acquaint Fate or Intertwined Fate). You can trade for these Fate items using an in-game currency called Primogems, and they can also be earned as in-game rewards and gifts. You can use either 1 or 10 Fates at a time for your Wishes. Each Wish rewards you with a weapon or character of 3-star or greater rarity, and the rarer the item or character, the better it is. The odds are definitely not in your favor for getting 4- and 5-star results; however, you have 5.1% odds of a 4-star pull and a mere 0.6% for 5-star stuff. But there are ways to get what you want eventually, which we’ll explain later.

So How Does Real Money Factor Into This?

As you play, you can choose to buy an item called Genesis Crystals, which can only be acquired through real-money purchases. While they can be used for other things besides rolling (such as buying special in-game item bundles), the primary use for most players will be trading Genesis Crystals for Primogems, which can then be traded for more Fates to Wish with.

Can I Wish Without Spending Money?

Yes. You earn a lot of Primogems just by playing the game normally. Exploring, completing quests, defeating enemies, opening chests, and even checking your adventurer’s handbook when prompted are just a handful of things you can do to get Primogems without spending a penny. It takes 160 Primogems to acquire a single Fate item, so you’ll have to earn quite a few for a Wish, but by playing regularly, you’ll earn enough for many rolls on the gacha.

I’m Willing To Spend Money. What Offers Me The Best Value For My Dollars?

If you’re willing to spend larger amounts at once, your money will go a bit further. For example, buying the 1,980-Crystal pack once at $29.99 is a better value than buying the 60-crystal pack for 99 cents. You’d need to buy the 60-pack 33 times to get the same amount of Crystals at the cost of $32.67. (Also, each first-time purchase of a particular Crystal bundle games with extra Crystals, which are not included in subsequent purchases.)

The minimum you can spend for a single Wish roll is $2.97 by buying three 60-Crystal packs at 99 cents each. This will get you 180 Genesis Crystals, which you can convert into enough Primogems to get a Fate with 20 crystals leftover.

One helpful option for those willing to spend money–but not too much–is the Blessing of the Welkin Moon. This item costs $4.99 and gives you 300 Genesis Crystals upfront, along with an “allowance” of 90 Primogems every day for 30 days. Basically, by the time its benefits expire, you will have the equivalent of 3,000 Primogems for a fraction of what buying them all at once would cost. (For reference, a 3,280-crystal pack is $49.99.) Unfortunately, only one Blessing can be purchased every 30 days.

Is There Any Way To Influence The Wishes To Get What I Want?

There are a few things you can do to increase your chances of getting higher-quality items. While you can’t increase the odds with your in-game accomplishments, you can aim for specific items and characters by spending your Fates on “banners.”

When you go to the Wish screen, you can scroll left or right to see different banner images advertising available characters and items. Each of these banners offers a slightly different item and character pool that it will pull your goodies from, with different odds for each. Some banners focus on weapons, while some focus on characters. There is always a “default” banner you can spend Acquaint Fate on that offers a curated selection of characters and weapons. This banner never rotates out, but does have new items and characters added to its pool periodically.

The banners to look out for are time-limited “promo” banners that advertise a specific character or weapon. After a while, these banners are not permanent and will rotate out to be replaced by banners with new characters and weapons. Generally, if you roll a 4-star or 5-star character on a promo banner, the odds are 50% that it will be a featured character. Also, many promo banners have exclusive characters and weapons you can only obtain on that banner. So if you see a banner featuring a character or weapon you want, you should spend your Fate items there–while you are not guaranteed to get them, if you do get a high-quality roll, your odds of getting what you want in particular will be better.

It is likely that, at some point, banners focused on specific elements and weapon types will be added, making it easier to get characters and weapons with particular alignments. Other gacha games often have a period of a few days each month where roll rates for high-rarity items are increased. Genshin Impact is still very early in its life, however, so it may be a while before these sorts of banners are implemented–if they ever are.

Still, the best way to increase the chances of getting a specific weapon or character is to save as many Primogems and Fates as possible, then wait to spend them all on a banner that offers higher drop rates for what you’re looking to get. This also makes it easier to utilize mechanics like collecting Masterless Starglitter/Stardust and “Pity rolls.”

What Are Pity Rolls?

Many gacha games offer a feature where, if you roll a certain amount of times but still don’t get the item you want, you’ll be able to get the item anyway through alternative means. This prevents people from spending absurd amounts of money chasing after a single thing and getting frustrated. It’s not a complete safeguard, but it does mean there’s a finite spending cap.

In the case of Genshin Impact, if you roll nine times on a promo banner and don’t get a 4-star, your next roll will be 4-star or better. If you roll 89 times on a banner but don’t get a single 5-star, the 90th roll will be a 5-star. So if you save up and roll enough, you will get a 5-star eventually. If you’re rolling on a banner featuring a specific character and roll a 5-star that isn’t that character, the next 5-star character roll will be the featured unit. Taking all of this into account, it makes sense to pool your resources and repeatedly roll on a promo banner if there’s a specific character you really, really want–or if you just want a 5-star character/weapon in general.

Also, with every roll, you’re given either Masterless Starglitter or Masterless Stardust. You can trade these under Paimon’s Bargains in the shop for rare items, characters, and more Fates for rolls. There’s a limited number of trades per month, and characters rotate in and out, so it pays to keep track of when the shop’s options renew.

Who Are The Characters I Should Aim For?

It really depends. Each character you can get from wishing offers a unique mix of abilities to aid you on your quest. While there is more to each character that makes them desirable beyond gameplay utility–appearance and personality are big factors–some of the available cast are comparatively very powerful. Also, more characters will be added into the mix as time passes, so the tier-list meta is likely to change, making any assessments we make here outdated in time.

Generally speaking, 5-star characters are superior in terms of stats and abilities, but there are many great 4-star team members. Here are some of the best characters to aim for if you’re just getting started:

• Diluc, 5-star: Generally considered the best character in the game as of this writing. He’s a Pyro-wielding, Claymore-slinging pretty boy whose elemental affiliation makes it easy to tear down enemies’ defenses. He can then go to town with regular and charged strikes before making everything toasty with a big elemental burst.
• Venti, 5-star: This bard of the wind is currently on the promo banner as of this writing. Venti’s offensive draw is an elemental burst that traps enemies and can be powered up through elemental reactions. But perhaps more useful are his exploration boosts: a 20% reduction in stamina usage and an attack skill that also sends him skyward are phenomenal aids in a game so heavy on field exploration.
• Keqing, 5-star: A shocking beauty who excels at slashing up foes. She has a robust, easy-to-learn offensive skillset that is great early on and only gets better over time.
• Fischl, 4-star: Fischl is a long-range Electro fighter who specializes in archery. Her main gimmick is a crow familiar who acts as an independent damage dealer and sticks around if you swap characters, letting you pull off lots of fun element interactions easily. Plus, she’s a 4-star, which makes her much easier to obtain.

But let’s be clear here: All characters in Genshin Impact are useful! Getting a big roster involves a substantial investment of either time or money, so most players have a more limited selection. Even a comparatively “weak” character can put in the work for you if you invest time in building them up. Also, if you have a limited pool of characters to pick from–say, you only have one Hydro user–they’re automatically going to be more useful to you than if you had every Hydro user.

One thing to note is that ongoing games like Genshin Impact tend to buff characters that appear to be lagging in the overall metagame after a while. So even if you get a character that seems to be lackluster now, there’s a good chance that sometime in the future, their abilities will be augmented significantly. It’s worth your time to put some effort into keeping all characters–including your lesser-used teammates–in top shape, particularly if they get improvements down the line.

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On this week’s episode of GameSpot After Dark, the team welcomes the arrival of legendary hero Steven S. Minecraft of Minecraft fame to Nintendo’s hit game Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. You may know Steven from his resource gathering and block building adventures in Minecraft, or from seeing what looks like his bits on Twitter.

Jake, Lucy, Kallie, and Tamoor also talk about Paradise Killer, Oculus Quest 2, and Rainbow Six: Siege. For the news portion of the podcast, the big topic of discussion is the rumored Mass Effect remaster. You’re probably tired of hearing and reading about it at this point, but this time it has appeared on a ratings board, and with N7 Day rapidly approaching, maybe there is hope? Fingers crossed.

Cyberpunk 2077 is the subject of a reader question on why developers and publishers announce games early and what it means when they’re delayed. The crew also talks about their dream guests for the podcast and, most importantly, talk about their experiences checking out a beautiful museum dedicated to GameSpot created by community member Daniel Moreno.

Below you’ll find all the necessary links to find the show on iTunes, Spotify, SoundCloud, and Google Play. We’ve also included an RSS link so you can put that into your podcast app of choice.

Where You Can Listen

Microsoft is just a few weeks away from launching its two next-generation consoles, the Xbox Series X and Series S. The two consoles differ significantly in terms of raw graphical power and price, but Xbox boss Phil Spencer expects the least powerful of the two to sell better.

In an interview with Kotaku, Spencer is asked about his thoughts on console sales during the upcoming holiday season. With stock limited and the appetite for new hardware outstripping potential supply, Spencer expects the Xbox Series X to take an early lead. He does not, however, expect that to be the case over the course of the generation.

“I think, over the generation, our expectation would be that price really matters and that you would see the Series S sell more,” Spencer stated.

Spencer also believes that at the outset, market share is going to be determined solely by the ability to supply enough consoles for the market. Referring to both Xbox and its main competitor this year, the PlayStation 5, Spencer says that early adopters will likely empty shelves faster than both Microsoft and Sony can stock them.

With regards to the performance disparity between the Xbox Series X and Series S, Spencer says he understands some comments from developers worried about its reduced RAM, but notes that the PC market is evidence of how games can scale well across a range of configurations. He also mentions how the Series S can sometimes load games faster, thanks to the reduced size and resolution of the assets it uses for games.

The Xbox Series X and Series S launch on November 10, for $500 and $300 respectively. A list of launch titles has also been released, with special mentions for titles making use of Microsoft’s Smart Delivery cross-generation program.

In just a few week’s time, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S will be available. We’re on the cusp of a new generation of gaming and it’s incredibly exciting. Unsurprisingly, both Sony and Microsoft are delivering new information about their hot new platforms almost daily, which means there’s plenty for the Generation Next crew to discuss.

This week, Lucy, Jordan, and Tamoor talk about the PlayStation 5 UI, which Sony finally unveiled. It’s a drastic difference from what we’ve become used to after years of gaming on the PlayStation 4. Crucially, it has been built with the gaming experience given the highest priority and focus.

Whether it’s the redesigned home screen, seamless integration of parties, messaging, and screen share, or the fascinating new control center and its activity cards, there’s a lot of interesting and exciting new features, as well as quality-of-life improvements, to chat about.

Microsoft, for its part, has been bolstering its efforts around messaging the impressive implementation of backwards compatibility on the Xbox Series X/S. It also pulled the curtain back on some of the other performance upgrades the powerful new hardware will enable.

GameSpot’s very own Michael Higham has published his comprehensive Xbox Series X preview, so the Generation Next crew comb through it and discuss his impressions. If you had questions about Quick Resume, how backwards compatibility might beef up the performance of older games, or how standard USB hard drives work with the console, we’ve got the answers.

Generation Next is GameSpot’s weekly video show all about the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. Each Friday, join PlayStation Pro Tamoor Hussain, Xbox Xpert Jordan Ramée, and Console Connoisseur Lucy James as they discuss the biggest stories about the new consoles.