Genshin Impact is an action role-playing game developed by Chinese developer miHoYo. The game is an anime style open-world game and has an action-based battle system. The game is free-to-play with a gacha system. While developed after Honkai Impact 3rd (2016) with a similar title naming, Genshin Impact is not a sequel of Honkai Impact 3rd.

Gameplay 
Genshin Impact allows the player to control one of four characters in a party. Switching between characters can be done quickly in combat. That allows the player to use several different combinations of skills and attacks.

Each character has two unique combat skills: an elemental skill and an elemental burst. The elemental skill can be used at any time except for the cooldown period immediately after use. The elemental burst has an energy cost, requiring the user to save enough elemental energy by defeating enemies or make elemental status effects. Characters' attacks are one of seven elements: Cryo, Dendro, Pyro, Hydro, Anemo, Electro and Geo, which correspond to ice, grass, fire, water, wind, electricity, and rock, respectively.

Story 
Genshin Impact takes place in the world of Teyvat. Teyvat has seven distinct nations, each of which is tied to a different element and ruled by a different god. The story follows the Traveler, who has traveled across countless worlds with their twin siblings before becoming separated in Teyvat. At the beginning of the game, players need to choose one of the twin siblings as a player character and give them a name. The official names for them are Aether (male) and Lumine (female).

Development 
Genshin Impact began development as early as late January 2017. The initial team had 120 people and grew to 400 by the end of that year, and reached 700 by February 2021. miHoYo revealed the game in June 2019 at E3 2019. The game was developed using the Unity (game engine). The game has voice-overs in four languages (English, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean), and 13 different languages for text. The game was designed as a cross-platform title. Developing the game for PC and PlayStation platforms allowed the developers to raise graphical quality for the game, like rendering realistic shadows.

Music 
Yu-Peng Chen of HOYO-MiX composed the game's original score, which was performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO), the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, and the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra.

Release 
Genshin Impact was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Android, and iOS in September 2020, PlayStation 5 in April 2021, and is planned for future release on the Nintendo Switch.

Reception 
Genshin Impact received "generally favorable reviews" according to review aggregator Metacritic.

Awards 
Apple awarded Genshin Impact with "iPhone Game of the Year" in the "App Store Best of 2020 and the 2021 Apple Design Awards for Visuals and Graphics". The game won Google Play's "Best Game of 2020" and was nominated for "Users' Choice Game" at the Best of 2020 awards. At the TapTap Game Awards 2020, the game won "Game of the Year". The game was also nominated for Best RPG and Best Mobile Game at The Game Awards 2020, and for Ultimate Game of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards. The game was nominated for Best Ongoing game and won the Best Mobile Game at The Game Awards 2021.

References 

Video games