It's taken 4 years and roughly $900 million, but Genshin Impact is a better open-world RPG than ever after update 5.0
Sep. 18, 2024Genshin Impact’s new Natlan region is the best this open-world game has to offer
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Even in an industry that’s increasingly struggling with ballooning production costs at the AAA level, $900 million is a borderline obscene, imaginary-sounding number. It’s made all the more extreme by another obscene, imaginary-sounding number: the $5 billion revenue threshold that Genshin Impact cleared faster than any other game. I say all this because these funny numbers have been lurking in the back of my mind as I’ve explored Genshin Impact’s new region, Natlan, after its expansion-sized 5.0 update. This is what $900 million can buy you, it turns out: the greatest version of one of the best and biggest open-world RPGs ever made, simultaneously free to everyone and disgustingly profitable.
More than more of the same
Natlan already feels like the best region in Genshin Impact. We only have four sub-regions to explore and the central Archon quest currently ends with act two, but what’s here is best-in-class. The soundtrack is an instant earworm rivaling the unforgettable tones of the Sumeru region, though its excellent integration of varied instruments and languages only makes the bizarrely fair-skinned people of Natlan, clearly based on African and Latin American countries and culture, seem even stranger by comparison. In the Archon quest and supporting world quests, Genshin’s storytelling benefits from additional, always-stunning animated cutscenes, tighter voice direction, and a focus on details that actually add to the tapestry of the region rather than distracting from it.
The big win for me is in the world design. Natlan is a platforming playground, aided by new dinosaur-like Saurian transformations which let you dig and grapple and swim with bestial power in a way that improves on Sumeru’s own grappling points and runs laps around the fun but limiting diving of Fontaine. It’s a gorgeous mix of reds and oranges and contrasting greens and blues – mostly warm colors matching the rhythm and life that crawls over every inch of the land. Most importantly, it’s the most organic region in the game.
Genshin Impact, on the other hand, will often just show you the fire. Here is a treasure chest with a ring of red light around it, a blue bloom effect that’s even more noticeable at a distance, and a group of enemies nearby. Put on your thinking cap, player, and see if you can’t puzzle this one out. I’m being a little mean here, but only a little. Not all of Genshin’s puzzles and encounters are this obvious, but a lot of them are. Andthistrains you to let the game do most of the thinking for you. The resulting journey feels less like an adventure and more like a Disneyland attraction. Still fun! But frequently predictable and unsurprising.
Thankfully, this is less true in Natlan, which is much more inventive and subtle about how it creates and places hundreds of little discoveries. How do you connect these gizmos? Where will you find the missing piece to this puzzle? What is this graffiti trying to tell you about your surroundings? Likewise, the Saurian abilities unlock new possibilities and even enable some sequence-breaking. My favorite cluster of discoveries is probably the new batch of Local Legends, souped-up bosses with combat challenges that unlock a special cosmetic name card. Finding and mastering all of these bosses is one of the most rewarding and motivating challenges in Genshin. It helps that a higher world level, which is basically a harder difficulty, was released with Natlan, meaning open-world enemies don’t just instantly fall over anymore. Combat, like exploration, is more satisfying with a little more bite.
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On a kinetic level, it’s more fun to move through the world, especially if you have either of the new 5-star characters, Mualani and Kinich, who can surf and soar in a way that echoes and often beats the aforementioned dino suits. And experientially, Natlan is just a more thoughtful and engaging open-world game. There is more to find and it isharderto find because exploration requires more input from you. To put that into context, I’m at 97% completion for this first chunk of Natlan and already hungry for the next area.
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