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Everything We Learned From The Genshin Impact Version 3.8 Special Program

Before Genshin Impact players leave behind the golden sands of Sumeru for the fjords of Fontaine, HoYoverse has prepared one last desert adventure for the Traveler to undertake in Version 3.8, meaning that this year there will be no sojourn to the Golden Apple Archipelago that has traditionally brought players so much joy every summer since the game’s launch. Still, we’ll have a new map to explore for a limited time that will provide rich rewards ahead of Fontaine’s release, a grandly whimsical Event Storyline which we can safely assume will segue into the upcoming nation’s Archon Quest, a main cast of four seemingly random characters with entire chapters worth of hidden lore between them, and a voice cameo from the Hexenzirkel’s mysterious leader, Alice. So it’s basically the Golden Apple Archipelago, in all but name and aesthetic.

A screenshot from Genshin Impact Version 3.8. A small wooden vessel, shaped vaguely like a boat with helicopter blades on top, propels itself forward along a slender wooden track suspended in mid-air above a jungle.
Adventures in Bottleland | gematsu.com

“Bottleland” is perhaps not the cleverest name for the setting of this summer’s cornerstone Event, whose participants have been personally selected by Alice to fill the roles of archetypal characters in an in-game series of short plays collectively titled The Magic Bottle, but the area itself is visually distinct, an emerald-hued oasis encircled by the desert, where an abandoned theater and carnival rides in various stages of dilapidation are linked by the circuitous track of a treacherous roller-coaster that I can’t wait to climb onboard. The Traveler has appropriately been cast in the prominent role of the “Adventurer” seeking the Magic Bottle of legend, with Paimon, Collei, Eula, and Sangonomiya Kokomi joining the ensemble in bit-parts, but the stars of the show are Alice’s own daughter, Klee, playing the “Little Mage”, and Kaeya, the “Dagger Thief”, who are also the only two actors who have made any effort to get into-character with new outfits, soon to be available as alternate skins (Klee’s can be purchased in the shop for roughly $30, while Kaeya’s is a reward for collecting tokens scattered throughout Bottleland).

Other activities in Bottleland include minigames galore, and if tons of easily obtainable Primogems aren’t incentive enough for you to shoot balloons with a water-cannon, dance in the spotlight to burn up enemies on the theater’s stage, or play pinball with finches (I didn’t fully understand that last one, either, it’s not just you), then a free copy of Layla might sweeten the deal. No new characters will join Genshin Impact‘s roster in Version 3.8, but players will have the extremely rare chance to pick up Cryo claymore-user Eula, who holds the record for the fewest reruns of any five-star character (exactly one, over five-hundred days ago) in a game that has the ability to rotate character banners either more frequently, or consistently, but won’t, for whatever reason. If you don’t pull on Eula’s banner now, there’s no knowing when she’ll come back, if ever, but is it worth it when Fontaine is right around the corner and even in Version 3.8, other tantalizing options include Sangonomiya Kokomi, who synergizes beautifully with Bloom-reaction based teams, Wanderer, an exceptional Anemo unit, and Klee, who is not great but might see more use with her new alternate skin coming out?

Version 3.8 will wind down with a couple of smaller-scale Events – Shared Sight, in which players will use an experimental device to locate animals by seeing through their eyes; Perilous Expedition, a classic combat Domain; and a rerun of Adventurer’s Trials, a really fun Event where specific characters’ special abilities must be utilized to complete challenges tailored just for them (for instance, using Heizou’s unique combination of punches and high kicks to play soccer with Slimes). Additionally, a Hangout Event for Kaeya was announced, but very little of the story was teased. It’s not much, but there’s never much to do in the last few weeks before a major update, which I figure is intentional as it encourages players who didn’t speed-run an entire nation upon release to go back and finish up outstanding quests.

A screenshot from Genshin Impact. Melusine, a diminutive pink creature wearing a blue police uniform, strolls down a wide boulevard between rows of tall, elegant buildings advertising, among other things, fine clothes and whimsical mechanical toys. Outside the stores, colorfully-dressed aristocrats are window-shopping, small dogs wearing wigs and hats wait for their owners, and golden robots trudge along carrying heavy bags for their owners. The atmosphere is one of lazy opulence.
Fontaine | Twitter @GenshinImpact

But I can’t blame any player for having their sights set on Fontaine, to the exclusion of all else, especially today, following our first (official) look at the upcoming Nation of Justice, where colorfully-dressed ladies and gentlemen waited on by servient automatons flaunt their exorbitant wealth on the wide, straight, boulevards and in the plazas, for the most part blissfully unaware or deliberately ignorant to the fact that their pride and joy, their beautiful, modern capital city, stands precariously poised above a seething crowd of lower-class laborers who make their cushy lifestyle possible, but are forced to live in the sewers that sunlight does not breach. Why does the Hydro Archon allow the scales of justice to be unbalanced, and who does she serve; her people or the gods who reside above Fontaine? Perhaps she is to them what her nation’s poor and oppressed are to her, barely of note? Whatever’s going on, one thing is for certain: Fontaine’s glittery façade hides ever-widening cracks in the nation’s foundations that could swallow all of its people, rich and poor, gods and mortals alike.

Also, mermaids. Fontaine has mermaids. Specifically melusine, a lesser-known sea-spirit from Western European folklore that has as much in common with descriptions of dragons as with mermaids, typically being depicted as a woman with a fish’s tail and wings, often with the ability to shapeshift. The Melusine of Fontaine are a diminutive species like the Aranara and Pari of Sumeru, not particularly humanoid but fully integrated into human society and working alongside them, and I can’t wait to find out how that came to pass, and whether the connections between the French melusine and dragons implies a similar link between the Melusine of Fontaine and the dragons that once ruled Teyvat.

Screenshot from Genshin Impact. Melusine, a diminutive pink creature in a blue police uniform, creeps through the dimly-lit sewers of Fontaine, where underpaid laborers in aprons toil away at dangerous jobs. In the distance, a circular window lets in a little natural light.
Sewers of Fontaine | Twitter @GenshinImpact

But now you know what I think, I want to hear what excites you about Version 3.8 and about Fontaine, as well as what worries you, like the possibility of some infuriating oxygen mechanic hindering endless underwater exploration, or of squid enemies that hit you with ink and leave you blinded, hopelessly disoriented, in the dark (can you tell I have thalassophobia, a fear of the deep ocean, and teuthiphobia, a fear of squid?) As always, I’ll ask you to refrain from discussing leaks regarding unreleased content, but feel free to share your own thoughts, theories, and opinions, in the comments below!

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Baizhu And Kaveh Revealed For “Genshin Impact” Version 3.6

If you thought the two-year wait for playable Scaramouche was unbearable, just think of how Baizhu mains (to be) have been suffering since before Genshin Impact was even released, when the green-haired, Dendro Vision-wielding doctor was among the characters first introduced in the game’s early closed beta tests – only for him to be a quest-exclusive NPC upon launch. Now, it’s not uncommon for a future playable character to appear in the game shortly before their release, giving them a chance to develop a fanbase, but few characters have had as long an interval between their introduction and their official release as Baizhu, or disappeared for so long during that interval period. Even Scaramouche became a major antagonist whose story spanned several Events and two Archon Quests. Baizhu, by contrast, has only appeared a few times, and it is still unclear if he’s actually all that relevant.

Baizhu from Genshin Impact, standing against a white and green background. He is pale, with long blue-green hair, spectacles, and a white snake wrapped around his throat.
Baizhu | videogames.si.com

But it seems that HoYoverse has finally remembered Baizhu exists, or else he has some role to play in the story yet to come that requires him to be playable, because in Version 3.6 the long wait ends and Baizhu will join Genshin Impact‘s ever-growing roster alongside Kaveh, another Dendro character. We know next to nothing about either character’s kit and playstyle, so today’s post will be brief, focusing exclusively on the characters themselves (of course, there are the usual number of leaks going around, but I won’t be discussing any of that or entertaining discussion of leaked content in my comments section…what I will say, however, is that every leak I’ve seen pertaining to Baizhu has directly contradicted another, so take them all with a grain of salt until the Version 3.6 beta test begins).

Baizhu, from what we currently understand of his backstory, was born frail and sickly, and has spent his entire life working as a doctor in the hopes of one day stumbling across a treatment to his own relentless maladies. At some point, however, he became discontent with surviving and started aspiring to live – forever, that is. I imagine this is about the time when Baizhu received his Dendro Vision, although the green gemstone has probably proved less useful to his pursuit of immortality than the whispered advice of the magical white snake named Changsheng, who remains loosely coiled around his neck, and his study of the undead child Qiqi, who is something like an adopted daughter and apprentice to him now. Baizhu manages Liyue’s Bubu Pharmacy with assistance from Herbalist Gui, and has established a reputation for being one of Teyvat’s greatest doctors – though in early appearances of the character, it was suggested that he might be overcharging or even swindling his patients. I believe HoYoverse abandoned that idea, for there is no trace of Baizhu’s deceitful side in more recent months.

Kaveh, dubbed the “Light of Kshahrewar” by students of that Darshan which studies technology, is Sumeru’s most in-demand architect and interior designer – although you wouldn’t guess it from his current living conditions, which leave much to be desired. Conned by an elusive client out of his fortune, a frantic Kaveh had no other choice but to ask for help from Alhaitham of the Haravatat Darshan, his financially well-off rival. As roommates, the two men do everything in their power to avoid each other during the day, because when they absolutely must interact, one of them always finds something trivial to quarrel about (redecorating Alhaitham’s apartment, in particular, poses a challenge for two people so fundamentally at odds on the matter of interior décor), but that hasn’t stopped players from shipping them – quite the opposite! And you know I don’t even like Alhaitham all that much, but him and Kaveh both being so goddamn irritating is exactly what makes the “frenemies-with-benefits” trope work in this instance.

Kaveh, a character from Genshin Impact, sits at a table with a goblet in his hand, smiling. He is pale, with short blond hair, red eyes, and wears a red-and-brown shawl over a loose white tunic with a plunging neckline.
Kaveh | pockettactics.com

Assuming that Baizhu and Kaveh will debut together on the first banner of Version 3.6 (technically, it’s not officially confirmed that Baizhu is a five-star and Kaveh a four-star, but it’s pretty likely), will you be pulling for them or skipping their banner entirely based on what you know of the two characters thus far? In time, we’ll start to see kit leaks, and then there’ll be all the usual discourse about whether you should pull for either one, but which one do you want? Share your own thoughts, theories, and opinions, in the comments below!

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Everything We Learned From The “Genshin Impact” 3.5 Special Program!

Having spent the last four months dutifully collecting Primogems and stockpiling Intertwined Fates in preparation for the release of Dehya in Version 3.5, I was cautiously optimistic that the 3.5 Special Program would give us new details about her character that would finally put a rest to the pervasive rumors that her kit is one of the worst ever designed by HoYoverse. I was not expecting HoYoverse to instead throw a wrench into my plans for obtaining the five-star Pyro claymore user I’ve been waiting for since Sumeru’s characters were first leaked by announcing without warning that she’s headed to the permanent Standard Banner in Version 3.6, joining such undervalued characters as Diluc, Keqing, Jean, and Qiqi. It’s practically tantamount to an admission that Dehya’s kit is indeed as bad as has been speculated all along, and that HoYoverse doesn’t foresee players spending enough money on her banner to make successive reruns worthwhile. You’d think they would just…improve her kit, but apparently not.

Dehya, a character from Genshin Impact, standing in the desert and swinging a giant black-and-gold claymore. She is wearing ripped black jeans and the upper half of her outfit is comprised of red and black flowy fabric that trails behind her.
Dehya | gosunoob.com

As for how this affects me, well, I’ve always intended to get Dehya on her debut banner, and that hasn’t changed. I didn’t pre-farm all of her Ascension Materials for nothing, and I’ve already got a Burgeon team where I think she’ll fit nicely. But my motivation to collect at least one additional copy of her character (the first six of which are referred to as Constellations in Genshin Impact, and provide upgrades that Dehya in particular needs to be viable) has admittedly dwindled somewhat now that I know I’ll probably get her randomly at some point in the near future…though with that said, I’ve been playing Genshin Impact for over a year at this point and I’ve only ever obtained two of the six Standard Banner five-stars currently available (Keqing and Jean). Going after her event-exclusive signature weapon, Beacon of the Reed Sea, might be a better investment.

Fortunately, for those of us who have had never had much luck on the Weapon Banner, Dehya can make use of the new four-star claymore, Mailed Flower, that will be available for free in Version 3.5 as a reward for participating in the Windblume’s Breath Event held annually in Mondstadt to celebrate love and romance. The highly-anticipated Event will feature a minigame based on Pac-Man where players will run amok in the Knights of Favonius Headquarters (yes, even the building’s out-of-bounds upper floors) collecting balloons and evading floating enemies, and a rhythm game in which players can perform pieces of the Genshin Impact original soundtrack on three sonically distinct instruments. The Event’s main storyline will reunite Outrider Amber and Trainee Forest Ranger Collei for the first time since the events of the semi-canonical Genshin Impact manga where Collei visited Mondstadt as a child.

In fact, characters from all across Teyvat will be in attendance, including Cyno and Tighnari from Sumeru (Tighnari’s disgraced English voice-actor, Elliot Gindi, appears to have already recorded his lines for the Event, and will not be recast quickly enough to spare players from having to hear his voice, so consider switching languages or simply muting); Ying’er, a fan-favorite NPC from Liyue (who at first glance seems rather out-of-place in this particular Event, though it seems there’s something going on between her and a Mondstadt NPC, alchemist Timaeus); and of course, practically everyone from Mondstadt (with the possible exception of Kaeya, who is occupied elsewhere).

Paimon, Traveler, Kaeya, and Dainsleif, characters from Genshin Impact, seated around a wooden table outside. Kaeya sits facing the other three, and is the only one whose face is visible. He has brown skin, dark blue hair, and an eyepatch covering his right eye.
Paimon, Traveler, Kaeya, and Dainsleif | gematsu.com

Specifically, players who have completed Requiem Of The Echoing Depths can expect to find Kaeya hanging out in Sumeru, where Genshin Impact‘s overarching story will continue with a new Archon Quest titled Caribert (seemingly a reference to Charibert I, the name of a 6th Century Merovingian king who was the first of his dynasty to be excommunicated – for having four wives simultaneously, but I doubt that’s relevant). Kaeya, the long-lost heir to the even longer-lost throne of Khaenri’ah, and Dainsleif, a morally ambiguous survivor of the Cataclysm that destroyed Khaenri’ah five-hundred years ago, will accompany us on an expedition deep into the bowels of the earth in search of answers to our questions regarding the Abyss Order (of which our protagonist’s sibling is a high-ranking member), whose stated purpose is to resurrect Khaenri’ah and usurp the gods responsible for wiping it off the face of the earth. Unfortunately, that’s everything we know for sure about the Archon Quest so far, but anyone who’s familiar with Kaeya and Dainsleif’s extensive lore knows that these two characters meeting onscreen could have game-changing consequences. When we’ve met them individually in the past, they’ve always avoided saying too much about themselves, shrugging us off when we press them about it, so having Kaeya on our side to help grill Dainsleif (and vice versa!) will hopefully force everyone to be a little more forthright.

The first chapters of Dehya’s Story Quest and Faruzan’s Hangout Event are also set to be released in Version 3.5, and I have a feeling from the brief synopses provided by HoYoverse during the Special Program that I’ll enjoy both – Dehya’s Story Quest in particular, as it will see the return of Dunyarzad, a beloved NPC who had a significant role in the Sumeru Archon Quest and was originally responsible for getting Dehya tangled up in the plot to rescue Lesser Lord Kusanali from the clutches of corrupt scholars at the Akademiya, because even though Dehya might have been hired to be Dunyarzad’s silent and stoic bodyguard, she’s too much of a big softie to turn her back on her friend (or girlfriend, depending on how you interpret their relationship dynamic). Anyway, with Dunyarzad now cured of the debilitating illness that required her family to hire a bodyguard for her in the first place, I’m excited to see how their relationship will evolve, and what new adventures they’ll go on together. Faruzan’s Hangout Event, by contrast, will primarily take place in the heart of the Akademiya, and explore the distinctions between the six Darshans and their conflicting philosophies.

As intriguing as this sounds, I still do not understand why Faruzan, of all the four-star characters from Sumeru, is first-in-line for a Hangout Event while Collei and Candace are still waiting months after their release, and Mika, the new four-star Cryo polearm user being introduced alongside Dehya in Version 3.5, is apparently going to be dropped into the game without any accompanying story content to remind players why they should want to pull for him besides the fact that he buffs ATK Speed and Physical DMG while providing a little bit of healing, making him a good support for characters like Eula (and Xinyan, especially if you’re using her as your Main DPS, the way I do). If only it made sense to run Mika on Eula’s banner, given that she’s canonically his commanding officer…or, you know, rerun Eula in general, seeing as it’s been over a year and there’s a Mondstadt Event in Version 3.5 and the aforementioned reward for participating in said Event is a claymore, Eula’s weapon…nope, definitely the logical choice by HoYoverse to slap Mika on a banner with Kamisato Ayaka and Shenhe, two characters with whom he has no real synergy, making for an inharmonious Mono-Cryo medley in the latter half of Version 3.5.

Mika, from the game Genshin Impact, standing in a wooded landscape surrounded by white stairs and snowflakes. He is short, with shaggy blond hair, and a large book levitates over his hands from which he is reading.
Mika | dexerto.com

Beyond that, a few small adjustments and improvements are being made to the game in Version 3.5, of which the simplest and most popular by far is the new system of rewarding players for completing currently released and upcoming chapters of Genshin Impact‘s main storyline with one Intertwined Fate – exchangeable on any limited-time banner – for every Archon Quest. Whether generous or merely exploitative, I will be taking those Intertwined Fates, thank you very much. Dehya will come home to me, and that’s final. But how about you? Pulling for anyone in Version 3.5, or skipping the patch entirely? Share your own thoughts, theories, and opinions, in the comments below!

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Everything We Learned From Genshin Impact’s Version 3.3 Special Program

My fellow Ittorou shippers, our time has finally come.

What’s that? You thought I’d start off by talking about the long-awaited gameplay preview for Scaramouche, who graces the thumbnail of the Genshin Impact Version 3.3 trailer (above)? Well, if it’s commentary on Scaramouche’s redesign and unique gameplay mechanics that you’re looking for, allow me to redirect you to a post from earlier this month where I went over most of the information that was only officially revealed in yesterday’s Special Program, including what I would consider to be a far more concise description of his Elemental Skill than what was offered on the livestream, which got a little bogged-down with ornate names for everything under the sun. Seeing as that post has not yet been outdated by any new information from the game developers, there’s actually not too much more to say about Scaramouche – I mean, besides the fact that he’s getting his own Archon Quest, apparently. Don’t worry, we’ll go over all the details in due time.

Arataki Itto in Genshin Impact
Arataki Itto

But first thing’s first, and the thing in question is Ittorou – which I suppose is its own kind of ornate term, so let me explain. “Ittorou” is the nickname for a popular queer ship in the Genshin Impact fandom that involves the characters of Arataki Itto and Gorou. The one is a Geo on-field Main DPS, the other a designated Geo support, and they are apparently both at their best when played alongside each other (I wouldn’t know, having never gotten my hands on a copy of Gorou, despite him theoretically being the easier of the two to obtain as a four-star character). They debuted simultaneously in December 2021, and Gorou has only ever received a drop-rate boost on Itto’s limited-time banners; in fact, he is likely to reappear on a banner next month when Itto gets his second rerun. Yet despite their obvious synergy, they’ve never interacted onscreen.

Until now, that is. For the main Event of Version 3.3, Akitsu Kimodameshi, characters from all over Inazuma have been invited to participate in a “test of courage” organized by the Yashiro Commission…and the trailer confirms that Itto, Gorou, Heizou and Yoimiya are amongst the champions hoping to venture into Chinju Forest on Narukami Island, where malevolent spirits roam under the cover of eternal darkness, and come out the other side unscathed both physically and mentally. Now, as much as I hate to see my favorite characters suffer, just think of the potential interactions we could see – Itto cowering behind Gorou at every strange sound, Gorou leaping into Itto’s arms in a moment of weakness, Gorou’s fur bristling and Itto trying to comfort him by patting his head like a dog. Even though we know damn well that MiHoYo has no intention to put any of its characters, straight or queer, in canonical relationships, they’re giving me what I want, which is a canonical basis for the very much non-canonical fanfic I intend to consume in massive quantities after the Event.

And to be fair, despite never having interacted with each other previously, Itto and Gorou are already about as blatantly queer-coded as the male characters in Genshin Impact can get (it’s a very different situation for female characters: although they’re just as unlikely to ever state that they’re queer, it’s no secret that Jean and Lisa, Ningguang and Beidou, and Ei and Yae Miko are more than just extremely close friends). The reason fans started shipping Ittorou in the first place is because Itto has a voice-line where he talks about the warm, fuzzy feeling that he gets around Gorou, and also because he has a massive crush on Gorou’s alter ego, the advice columnist “Ms. Hina”, who is depicted on posters and standees as Gorou wearing a dress. But we still don’t know how Gorou feels about Itto, so this new Event is sure to be very illuminating in that regard.

As an additional incentive for participating, one of the limited-time rewards obtainable through the Akitsu Kimodameshi Event is a new weapon named the Toukabou Shigure, technically classified as a sword but more closely resembling an umbrella with a claw-like handle, a leering mouth, and a single eye. The weapon’s distinctive design is based on depictions of the Kasa-obake, a type of yōkai or demon, found in Japanese art and literature dating back to the Edo period. And looking at the amount of research that went into this one weapon, I can’t help but again be reminded of the stark difference between how MiHoYo lovingly takes inspiration from Japanese culture when expanding the region of Inazuma and its accompanying lore, and how they grabbed a bunch of random, orientalist stereotypes of Southwest Asia and North Africa when it came time to do the same for Sumeru.

Kaeya in Chinju Forest posing with a Tanuki, in Genshin Impact
Kaeya posing with a Tanuki in Chinju Forest

In fact, despite the region still being fairly new, Sumeru and its roster of characters are already being neglected by MiHoYo in favor of Inazuma, Liyue, and Mondstadt, with only one Sumeru-based Event announced for Version 3.3 and no Hang-out Event for the new four-star character, Faruzan, whom I was excited to learn more about after it was revealed during the Special Program that she’s over a hundred years old and knows a great deal of lore pertaining to Sumeru’s desert-dwelling ancient civilization, having spent decades trapped in the ruins beneath the desert. Unfortunately, it’s possible we won’t see or hear from Faruzan until some random side-quest or Event brings us back to the desert, and that could take a while. She was not mentioned in association with Misty Dungeon, a popular Event that will return in Version 3.3 with a desert theme.

Cyno posing in the desert of Sumeru, in Genshin Impact
Cyno in the deserts of Sumeru

Misty Dungeon first appeared in the spring of 2021 under the title Battlefront: Misty Dungeon, and was so popular it was brought back later that same year as Misty Dungeon: Realm Of Light. This year’s reskinned version of the Event is titled Misty Dungeon: Realm Of Sand, and will take place in Sumeru, but it will still follow the same general concept, requiring players to move through a labyrinth, completing puzzles and timed challenges until they unlock an encounter with a final boss. And it won’t be the only fan-favorite Event making a comeback in Version 3.3 – Windtrace, Genshin Impact‘s version of hide-and-seek for co-op mode, will also be returning with some cool new perks for both hiders and seekers, including giving players the ability to continue participating in the game even after being captured.

And if you don’t share in the nostalgia for Misty Dungeon and Windtrace, well, Genshin Impact has got you covered with Across The Wilderness, a brand-new Event where players run around rooftops capturing balloons. From the description and preview, it looks relatively stress-free, but there’s no doubt that having multiple Anemo characters like Venti, Xiao, Kazuha, and Scaramouche on your team will give you a literal boost while running, jumping, and climbing (if you needed any more reasons to pull for Scaramouche, he’s about to make exploration in this game ridiculously easy).

On that note, I guess it’s time we talked about Scaramouche’s Archon Quest: Interlude, which presumably picks up right where the final chapter of the Sumeru Archon Quest left off, with Scaramouche hidden away at the Sumeru Akademiya in the care of the Dendro Archon and making a full recovery from the traumatic head injury he sustained after falling from the cockpit of his giant robotic exoskeleton (long story). But of all things, an Akademiya inquiry into the events on the island of Tatarasuna leads the Traveler back to Scaramouche and forces the former Fatui Harbinger to begrudgingly sift through his scattered memories and construct a full account of what happened there roughly four-hundred years ago.

Scaramouche getting an Archon Quest in place of a Story Quest is interesting because Archon Quests aren’t optional, so whatever dark secrets are contained in Scaramouche’s backstory, MiHoYo wants us all to know this stuff. The only other characters in the game with that level of personal significance to the overarching storyline, besides the literal Archons of each region, are…honestly, maybe only Dainsleif and Kaeya, and they’re both so integral to the story of Khaenri’ah and its destruction that they literally can’t appear for too long or one of them will inadvertently spoil the game’s ending. I pray that we get a little more time with Scaramouche before he’s put in a similarly awkward position.

Genshin Impact Genius Invokation TCG gameplay
Genius Invokation TCG | pcgamesn.com

One more thing before we finish up here: new, completely optional permanent gameplay is coming to Genshin Impact in Version 3.3, in the form of an animated card game named Genius Invokation TCG, but for the time being there are no plans to offer rewards or allow players to track their progress in the game, and it’s subsequently unclear how MiHoYo intends to keep players from growing bored of this after the novelty of challenging friends and random NPCs to duels wears off, as I’m sure it will sooner rather than later. Until I sit down and actually read the rules, my first impressions of Genius Invokation TCG are neutral. Admittedly, I’m a little bitter about the absence of Itto – he literally plays Genius Invokation TCG! How is he not featured on a character card? – but the art and animations are the only things catching my eye in the gameplay preview.

Anyway, what did you think of the Version 3.3 Special Program? Will you be spending your hard-earned Primogems on Scaramouche’s banner, or waiting for another character? Share your own thoughts, theories, and opinions, in the comments below!