If you haven’t checked out Genshin Impact yet, you must be living under a particularly massive rock. Developer miHoYo’s huge open-world action RPG is currently taking the world by storm. It’s totally free-to-play, as well, so if you haven’t yet gotten around to playing it, we’d strongly recommend you do so. It takes gameplay and visual cues from Breath of the Wild, but to claim that it’s a ripoff would be to do a disservice to all the things Genshin Impact does that are unique.
Recently, the developers of Genshin Impact posted a roadmap for the game that detailed what would come in the first few major updates. Originally, the update was posted entirely in Chinese, but miHoYo subsequently uploaded a version of the development roadmap that had been translated, so we now know roughly what’s coming in Update 1.1 – the game’s first major update since its release in September. This update is coming in November.
According to miHoYo, Update 1.1 will arrive on November 11th and will add the “Unreconciled Stars” event. While miHoYo doesn’t elaborate on what that event may contain, luckily, we have leaks from the Genshin Impact community in order to flesh out some of the details. It looks as though the Unreconciled Stars event will add new characters, a new flight-based challenge, and other new features to the game when it drops next month.
A post on the official miHoYo blog details some of the things that could be coming to Update 1.1. Unfortunately for non-speakers, the post is entirely in Chinese, which is why the good folks over on the official Genshin Impact Reddit page have provided a handy translation. If they’re on the money, then some very exciting things are coming to Genshin Impact in Update 1.1. Here’s everything that Reddit user Zlunlu identified in the miHoYo blog post.
- Updated Encyclopedia – the in-game encyclopedia will be revamped and will contain more information on the game’s world, including animals, plants, and monsters
- Report Function – Genshin Impact will be getting the ability to report toxic or uncooperative players, meaning your online sessions are less likely to be disrupted
- Equipment Lock – you’ll be able to assign certain pieces of equipment a “lock” function, exempting them from the enhancement “auto-add” feature and making sure they don’t get tampered with
- Medicine / Food System – right now, you have to manually go into your inventory and select a healing item each time you want to heal. In Update 1.1, we could be seeing a new system that allows you to instantly heal without opening your backpack
- God Detector – a new item that will allow you to easily detect Anemoculus and Geoculus, allowing you to make offerings more easily to Statues of the Seven and obtain more in-game rewards
- Weapon Refinement – when you’re refining or enhancing weapons and equipment, you’ll be able to keep the extra experience as ore instead of it being lost
- Elemental Combo Fixes – we’re expecting some fixes to the elemental combo system within Genshin Impact so that certain elements gel together more successfully
Unfortunately, many of the Reddit posts detailing other things coming with Update 1.1 to Genshin Impact have been removed by moderators. According to Reddit user Veritasibility, content from the Chinese test server for Genshin Impact is subject to a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), which means anyone leaking content from that server could be sanctioned and the content could be removed. In the case of Genshin Impact’s Update 1.1, it seems like that’s exactly what happened. We’ll have to wait and see what else is coming in the next update.
As well as some information about Update 1.1, miHoYo also revealed some of the things we can expect from Genshin Impact Update 1.2 and 1.3. The timeline for those is a little more consistent; Update 1.2 will arrive on December 23rd, with Update 1.3 coming in February next year. This gives the team roughly six weeks to work on each update, which – given the scope and content up for inclusion – makes a lot of sense. It’s a shame it’s taken this long for Genshin Impact to get a regular update schedule, but the game is certainly better for it.
So, what’s coming in Update 1.2? Unfortunately, we don’t have a huge amount of information about this just yet. According to miHoYo, we can expect “the Dragonspine area and its related event” to be rolled out in Update 1.2. The name Dragonspine implies a mountainous or perhaps glacial area, but we’ll have to wait and see if that’s what miHoYo has in store for the next Genshin Impact update after 1.1. Of course, we’ll also likely see plenty of more minor balance changes and updates.
Finally, there’s Genshin Impact Update 1.3, which is scheduled to arrive in February 2021. With this update will come the in-game Lantern Rite event series, which promises to bring plenty of new challenges and options for players. Again, we don’t have a lot of information about this update yet, as we’re still a fair way off from its deployment. We’ll bring you more on this – and on other developments in Genshin Impact – as we get them. Until then, happy exploring!
