After Tower of Fantasy’s release earlier this month, I really wasn’t expecting to find myself playing Genshin Impact again because of it. But that’s sort of what ended up happening.
Background: I’ve been playing ToF very casually (since launch, I haven’t even hit 10 hours on the game). I’ve managed to get my free SSR weapon box and met most of the newcomer rewards objectives (which ends after the first 21 days, i.e. around 2 more days). I already knew from the beta that this is something I wouldn’t be putting a lot of time in, and unlike other games that have an exploration focus, ToF just doesn’t give me that same dopamine fix (like the way early Genshin Impact or Guild Wars 2 did). So I play, quest a bit, explore a bit, and then logout. Which leads me to how that ended up getting me to log back into Genshin Impact again after not logging in since the Chasm was released.
This was that first weekend after ToF’s launch (so August 12th). And that’s when I learned the Golden Apple Archipelago was available again (and was near the tail end of what was nearly a 40 day run). During its first run during the summer of 2021, this temporary map was something that I had found incredibly enjoyable (everything from the short story quests, the puzzles, and the music). So I was sort of kicking myself for not partaking in this earlier (because I had been disengaged from the game for awhile).
That disengagement began in earnest towards the tail end of the Inazuma updates; I basically did not even complete the Tsurumi Island quest chain yet. So for the final week and half that the islands were available (the 3.0 update with the new Sumeru region went live on August 23rd), I ended up having to speed run the quest chains and puzzles. This time around, there was group of different story quests (the one I found most enjoyable was Fischl’s in terms of filling in her backstory) and puzzle mechanics (which I unfortunately had to rely on guides to quickly complete). IMHO, the new mirage domains for the character quests were amazing (and would’ve been more so if I had played from the time these islands actually went live again).
This again reminded me of the design choices that are made where so much of it is a one-and-done proposition, versus making use of them in the game as continuing content that players could utilize to farm materials (versus the small number of domains that are introduced for that purpose). But that is not the direction miHoYo has chosen for the game. And what that simply translates to is there are points in time with their content updates where you need to be engaged with the game so as to not miss these time limited events.
I did end up completing all of the story and world quests for the Golden Apple Archipelago, and got approximately 90% of the chests during those final 10 days. But what stuck in my mind again was how well done the story quests were done (and how characters are developed over time; this time, it was Kazuha, Xinyan, Mona, and Fischl) along with what I’ve always considered some of the best game OST’s.
As I’ve written recently, I’ve been becoming more disengaged from gaming in general. I was expecting to take up part of that slack with the leaked TERA server files (where tinkering with it would become a new side hobby). But after an initial stretch as the game officially closed on PC two months ago, I’ve stopped playing around with them (mainly since I just want time away from the later iterations of the game). Basically, the last time I booted up either of my offline setups was back in early July; and I came to the conclusion that I need time away from the game in order to better appreciate those versions, and the actual official closure. In other words, there’s been this huge vacuum since July, and the above sequence of events with the ToF launch and becoming re-engaged with Genshin Impact, helped fill that void.
Transitioning into the 3.0 update with the new Sumeru region, I already knew I was way back in the main story (not having completed Tsurumi Island, and just barely touching the Chasm; the only thing I had done when that launched was unlocked the waypoints at what I now know, was only the top level – more on this in a bit). The first thing I did though was hop into the new region to unlock waypoints, and learned just how huge the place is (when taking into account the amount of verticality that was being presented). And this is only a small part of the region when I read the information on their update cadence, where more areas will be unlocked). While I started the quest that rewarded Collei, once I got her, I decided to go back to do the Chasm (I decided to save Tsurumi Island for later). And boy am I learning just how huge that place actually is (I had no idea there was an Enkanomiya style of map instance deeper than what I had previously just barely touched).
This basically gets me caught up to where I am now at in the game as of this posting; I’ve been playing through the main and world quests in the Chasm since that area is the lead in to Sumeru. And I want to at least complete this content before I start delving into the Sumeru story line (and all of the new world mechanics in that region). Basically, being away from the game for several updates has re-grounded me on the good parts of Genshin Impact (the world/level design, the sheer amount of exploration it results in, the continual development of the story/lore, and the music). Yes, I am not a fan of the gacha business model, but part of that is paying for this part of the game that I enjoy (and have been reminded of by having stayed away from it for a period of time).
So I’ve been trying to rethink my own personal beliefs in this area. My stance is often times too rigid when it comes to supporting companies with questionable business practices (and I lumped the gacha business model into the “do not support” bin). Part of this rethinking involves how that affects the overall design and content. Lot of other games without this business model, you rarely see positive developments (looking at you ArcheAge and TERA as simple examples). And lot of games with this business model, also rarely put out this type of quality content. Basically, Genshin Impact sees some of that reinvested back into the actual design of the game. Yes, I do realize there are folks who get sucked into spending ridiculous amounts of money to pull characters (and dupes to max out their constellations), but I’m just looking at that now as their choice. Sure, a lot of these world maps are “one-and-done” where once you’ve completed the story and collected all of the chests, they are pretty much commission fodder. But it’s no different than most MMO’s where it’s even worse in this regard (Genshin Impact is a mostly single player game that puts a lot of other games world environment to shame).
In short, there really hasn’t been any other game recently that has managed to fill a growing void, and it turns out that Genshin Impact is re-filling it in a most opportune way where a new region (Sumeru) is just at the beginning of its release cycle. Where I am keeping myself in check is to place limits on my desire to keep exploring (which is too easy when the map is new and unexplored); that’s a surefire way to bump up against that “burned out” feeling when you keep pushing and playing.
