Genshin Impact Dev Responds To Breath Of The Wild Clone Comments, Insists It's A "Very Different" Experience

I wonder if the guy who smashed his PS4 because of this game will do it again by smashing this game and another PS4. 🤣

Looks fun! Will def give this a go

I can tell that combat-wise, it will be very different...but everywhere just looks SO similar to the point where if you removed the characters, I would think it actually WAS botw. The grass, villages, particle effects, lighting, general open landscape just seems too much to not be a coincidence. It does look to be an enjoyable experience in it's own right, I wouldn't say it's a bootleg since it clearly seems to be well put-together. A tough case this one is, but I hope some people do find enjoyment out of this despite the glaring similarities.

Fair enough.

I'll probably try this out. Assuming I have the space for it.

Ehn, no! All i see here are elements of breath of the wild.

So... you like Breath of the Wild, but you get upset when other games are the same? I don't really get it.

This is pro marketing. Anyone who threw a fit over this game is directly to blame for its success.

Hey if you cloned Scarlett Johansson I would still crawl through broken glass to root her.

I smell Bullsh*t from every angle; also micro transactions are a cancer in this industry. I hope this project completely fails.

It does take a lot from BotW, gotta agree. I doubt this one has had nearly as long development time, and it's probably made by fewer people with a smaller budget, so don't expect it to be as good.

@matdub 'root her', and they say romance is dead.

I'm gonna give it a go.

Outrageous, the game is totally different! I for one look forward to playing as Loop whilst I rescue Princess Telda and liberate the land of Lowrule from the tyranny of Banon and his minions.

“Imitation is the greatest form of flattery.”

Will it have a PC version? I'd prefer to buy there

@DoktorTotenKopf What a dumb response. It's not even out and you are hoping it fails because "I'm a psychic and I know it'll be bad" smdh. I'm not saying it won't be, all I'm saying is give them a chance before hoping their title will fail.

Free to play games are pretty cynical I think, and I can't see much to appreciate outside of 'BotW was very popular, let's make that and monetize it.'

@RCGamer
Buy it? It’s a free-to-play game with microtransactions.

Margaritas ante porcos. The differences from BotW have been obvious from the start and the alleged similarities have been nothing BotW particularly invented, but fans gonna fan.

Just wait until another actventure comes out to give off the vibe and lure away the drama hounds in the audience. It's a perennial relay race among fiction works.

@Kid_Sickarus wasn't "Lowrule" or something an actual thing in A Link Between Worlds already?

If you come up with such an original story and unique gameplay why would you bother to make it look like a clone of another game then? You‘re telling me creativity was enough to make an excellent game but not to come up with your own artstyle? Anyway it is that‘s some good marketing right there.

Hey guys! You know what I do when I don't like something? It's a mind blowing idea really!

I don't buy it, and move on with my life!

In this world today, with so much going on, is it really worth getting so angry that one video game dev copied another? Seriously?

It really works very differently, if you bother to actually watch any video showcasing combat or other activities.

Not sure if it'll be any good, but calling it a clone is just part of the noxious culture of pitting everything against the one popular thing that came before - just like this site does with Pokemon and any new RPG that involves monster taming.

Microtransactions and the character type usage. Yeah, very different

This will probably be better than Breath of the Wild, since it seems like this game actually has a story

don't care... I just hope a good game

Well yes. I don't think anyone looking at the gameplay would be in doubt that it's different from Breath of the Wild.

And it's not like Breath of the Wild is NOT trying to look like Studio Ghibli's 'Princess Mononoke', so their visual flair is not exactly a protected form of expression.

I will say that to me Genshin Impact appears considerably less visually developed. Looks very "first idea was good enough".

I totally missed the free to play part. Yikes! How will they implement micro transactions?

@dugan
It's a gacha system where you roll for new characters, who are rated according to rarity (five stars, four stars and so on).

It remains to be seen how generous or restrictive they'll be with the freely obtainable premium currency needed to roll for characters, or how unlikely you'll be to get anything good with free attempts.

Good thing is, though, that as far as I can tell you don't need those extra characters at all to progress through the story, explore and so on. It's at least worth a try, I guess.

@dugan : You use your local currency instead of rupees... probably.

@DoktorTotenKopf that's because you have poo still on your hands from the last time you went to the toilet.

@Duffman92 the artstyle in Zelda is really pleasing to the eye and simple so why not use it.

@RCGamer Yeah, it'll be available on 28th september and it'll be free, only microtransactions for skins and things like that

Free to play with microtransactions? Not a chance I'm wasting my time with this

@Anti-Matter
Just watch he smashes a PS4 again BEFORE the announcement of a Switch version of a game.

I'm only waiting on the review and then start thinking about of i'm gonna download it

This game looks good. No matter what they say though, it’s creatively bankrupt. It’s a couple of Zeldas and Ōkami smashed in to a JRPG.

@LinkSword Cool, thanks for the explanation.

Ha, when I looked at that screenshot I thought it was BoTW for a second, But I actually prefer how this game looks over BoTW so...

I have breath of the wild and I'm not judging ill give it a try all ways willing to play a game and see how similar it may be or not looks way different evan thow the lay out of the game deos look like breath of the wild

@Savino just free to play games are always designed with serious compromises to accommodate them, yes Ubisoft have even made their recent games a bit grindy to add microtransactions too. Free to play is just not a model that interests me regardless of where it is made or what game it resembles

F2P? So loaded with micro transaction crap? No thanks I'll pass! I don't care how good it may be, but I hate MT's and will never support them so I won't touch this game! I'd rather pay for a game and not be gimped if I don't break my bank for MT's.

I don't like Ubisofts way with AC Odyssey but still was better than any F2P games setup. I never touched an MT in Odyssey and was just fine.

As for the hate because of the graphics, I don't care cuz I liked how botw looked and if others wanna go the same route then great, I enjoyed botw for its art style and visuals overall so I'm looking forward to Immortals Phoenix Rising. Was with this till I now realized its F2P unfortunately.

If they had just said it was a gatchatron at the beginning they could have saved a ps4. What a shame.

Much joy in micro transactions huh?

@Savino wth is immoral rising?

Sorry but I went from highly interested to below zero once I found out this is going to be free to play. The combat system sounds amazing but every FtP follows one format: Perfectly achievable to get through a quarter to half the game solo (just long enough to get reviews advertising how the game is beatable without spending money) to suddenly needing 50-100 dollars just to complete ten minutes worth of content. I'd have been more than happy to drop sixty bucks on the title. But not gonna get into a game that eventually stops every ten minutes and says, "Now I need another fifty from ya."

Hard. Pass.

Similar, or even clone, games are nothing new. Big deal. Who cares?

@Strumpan guy who smashed PS4 needs to get laid

@matdub Scarlett Johansson is a bit too far to the crazv on the hot crazy scale for me lol

I actually think it looks quite good ... but that might be because I absolutely loved BotW ... and this, well this is a shameless clone 🤷🏼‍♂️

I would be happy to see a breath of the wild clone but I normally do not like free to play games. I would rather pay for the game and have everything available.

I see different looks different game mechanics and you can play more then one character. They use the same strategy of Open World designs and nothing wrong with that. Now if they had any character name similar to BOTW that would different.

I see some similarities, but this game looks so different than Breath Of the Wild. Since its free, I will pay more attention. Though, if it's free to play, but pay to advance, I will give up on it.

Played the beta on PS4, and it has different play mechanics. It was lots of fun.

It did not run well at all on PS4, so have little faith for Switch version. Going PC on this one.

Funny, tons of Indies are basically clones of games from the 80s and nobody seems to care 🙃

Anyway, Pre-Install is available on PC. It is 12GB if you want to get a head star.

I mean... the reason it looks so good is because it's a BotW clone and that game is amazing.

Eh, it's free to play? I'm glad to see games inspired by BotW, even if it's a bit on the nose, but it being F2P actually kills it for me. Would rather pay $30-60 up-front and not think about money while playing.

Lol I'm old enough to know that EVERY game is an inspired decscendent of legend of Zelda (and not Zelda botw, it goes much further back). I just have to smile and move on at stuff like this. I remember reading a passionate series of posts about how Metroid Prime series was a rip-off of Halo....yes I'm serious, that really actually happened and was complete with laugh inducing screen shot comparisons of Federation troopers and Master chief. I'm not even gonna bother to explain why that is funny if you don't know already. Just gotta ignore and move on...life far to fragile and short for this lol.

I would be interested but microtransactions put me off and I still have stuff to do in Breath of the Wild.

@Lordplops lol

Well, I have already nearly 100% BotW, just never did all the seeds. So why would I need to play this? Seriously, I would be inclined to give it a try but I hear you need to spend moneys to be good and have a capable character, at which point I'd rather just buy the game out right.

I played a bit of the Chinese Open beta. There are similarities in the climbing and gliding, but outside of that it's very different

@PBandSmelly I have a very similar viewpoint as you on this one. In my opinion although the mechanics are extremely different from breath of the wild they do look the same except for the anime girls wearing short shorts (which does nothing but make me cringe lol not my kind of game not shaming anyone that's just me) running around breath of the wild almost copied of the environment from a visual aspect. I would say that if this game had a chance at becoming huge this is what made that chance so low: it will be viewed as just another boring looking clone of breath of the wild. I feel that immortal whatever game has it's own identity in its art style and gameplay while this game is oh s**t I know what they want let's slap some anime on a great game they'll go nuts! Funny thing is that if this didn't look so much like breath of the wild it could hold it's own identity much better maybe a darker tone and colors. It just looks like it might be a quality game bogged down by copying an art style overall making it forgettable. And also microtransactions and ftp are obviously meant for people who can't afford botw just get this lol

@Anri02 is it good? I'm curious. Although I'd never get it lol

@Ghostchip I did like it and will get the global version, but there is quite a bit of grinding for Adventure Ranks

@Anri02 cool not my thing but I'm glad it's not just hot garbage and people can enjoy it lol. I just wish the art style was different because it makes it more forgettable than a unique one. Hope it does well

@UndercoverPneuma It's the final name for the game that used to be called Gods & Monsters from ubisoft... No idea why they went with this as the final choice, it just happened.

I am not getting it, not because of the similarity to botw but because it is full of microtransactions

Honkai Impact is a very generous F2P game. Not to the point where you can ignore it, but that's a ton of characters there are unlocked simply by completing certain levels and challenges... like a normal game.

Hope that's the same here.

Listen, FPSs all look identical to me, and plenty of fighting games do too. If this team wants to make something with the same aesthetic of BotW, while also doing what looks to be a lot of their own thing, then have it. Just make it fun to play and well made and I'll be happy. I'm definitely willing to give this a shot.

@Strumpan I don't either
people can be strange

Also l don't care what annoying Nintendo is saying. I'm still going to get this game.

Yall are upset about this but Gods and monsters gets a free pass?

I'm downloading this game day one. I think it'll do well as long as the game isn't horrible.

"This is totally different from BotW! We changed the characters and story, and added janken elements!" lol

@Cia 6 years in development, 100 million dollar budget 400 developers. Pretty invested game made by a really solid company in Mihoyo. I never played BOTW but I play JRPGs and this game is pretty amazing.

Seems like people don't know what the game format is even about.

The game is a gacha game. Sure, they are micro transactions to buy currency to attempt to get better characters, but as long as the game is playable with what the game gives you with time, it's fine.

Also, gacha games are never meant to be completed/100%
Think of it as a marathon (or like Animal Crossing). You play a bit each day, get rewards for doing missions (which these rewards could give you items/currency to attempt to try to get better chars/weapons that might not be completely necessarily if you want to play casually)

The game is ramping up to have a lot of active players, so expect new content to be added for the game to last for years.

Nintendo fans don't have alot of experience with open world games. They never played Spiderman on ps4 or witcher 3 or kingdom come deliverance or Final fantasy XV because those are 3rd party games and nintendo fans don't do 3rd party games. That's why they think BOTW is the best game ever even though it's not, and it's actually very mediocre by 3D open world game standards and deserves a 7/10. That is also why when another open world 3D game comes out and it has a similar art style to BOTW, all of a sudden people are screaming it's a "clone" of BOTW. Nintendo fans are something else.

All these people who are going 'hurr durr this game is f2p and filled with microtransactions so i will skip' probably don't know that this game is an eastern type of f2p, which completely differs from western f2ps;

Yes, they both still have some form of grinding for premium currency, but trust me, eastern f2ps are WAY more forgiving in terms of game progress and grinding than western ones. You can practically spend 0 pence and still survive until late game. Of course you can still pay if you want faster progress, but there's no harm in not spending any.

Also, considering this is miHoYo, it'll be gacha-based; you can roll for certain character/equipment that you like/is powerful, and not completely be screwed over if you miss them.

Paying for microtransactions in these kinds of gacha games just extends the probability of getting the item you want (since you'll have more pulls), not necessarily amplifies your luck getting it; that's why people can still spend 0 pennies and still be covered in high-tier gear, considering if they're lucky enough.

As for the graphics, as 'clone-y' this to BotW is, I don't really care, since they both still look really good, and I'm not complaining about that.

Game looks fun, has a different aesthetic than BOTW, and the gacha elements are optional and only add to the game imo. On top of that, it runs at 60 fps, unlike BOTW

The guy/Nintendo who smacked a PS to the floor actually made a free commercial for Sony,
Just saying

I give this game a try

@jbreez00 Ubisoft changed the name because Monster Energy was suing them.

They thought the name "Gods and Monsters" was infringing on their name and people might confuse the game for the energy drink.

I was able to play in the beta for Genshin Impact. There are plenty of similarities. But there are similarities with breath of the wild compared to, say, Gears of War. There is melee combat and jumping and shooting projectiles. You can pick and choose the minute details and say someone is ripping someone else off. But while the art is very similar, I felt the experiences between Genshin and Breath of the Wild were definitely different enough there should be no confusing the two when you get to playing it.

@VrginX Aw man, I heard something about that but didn't think anything of it because it's pretty ridiculous. Especially when you have monster hunter, monsters inc/university, an entire 80+ episode anime called monster, and several others using the word . Who ever at ubisoft convinced them to change their name must really be a piece of work.

@matdub

At least that would give her plenty of time to run away whilst laughing hysterically.

You may consider copying a game but in truth, this is just a sincere form of flattery of a game that I really want more of its kind.
This game has elements like climbing, physics engine (I think...), fire spreading... Many of these elements are just part of any big open-world experience. You just didn't saw them being used this console generation too commonly. The CPU of the PS4 and Xbox One presented a big bottleneck on what kind of things could be done this gen in terms of world-simulation elements.

The only thing that I find too disturbingly similar is the art style. There are many graphical style you could choose to build a beautiful open world game. While this one looks indeed beautiful, maybe many of the world elements look too similar to BoTW...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ7DLe4OngU&ab_channel=rubhen925

The castles also reminisce me of the Bokoblin Camps. you can freeze the water...
Oof, wow... uh maybe this does have too much common elements with BoTW. But please don't think too much about it. In fact, the story-related elements are much more of its own. Just think of this as...

An JRPG story meets Zelda: BoTW's mechanics. If you loved Breath of the Wild, but also want to enjoy a japanese role-playing game story then you'll probably enjoy this one too

@BenAV of course it will, it's a free to play game. The game is already looking to be better than botw anyways

@DoktorTotenKopf <------mindless nintendo drone doesn't realize it's a free to play game

@Dizavid sounds like someone who hasn't played a single F2P game

"Last year, as you might recall, a Zelda fan smashed a PlayStation 4 in rage when miHoYo revealed its Breath of the Wild look-a-like, Genshin Impact."

^ this is why everyone blames video games whenever there's a mass shooting.

@Envy actually I've played several. They let you get at the most a third of the way into the story/chapters, then it all comes down to buying. Which again, I do not mind paying for video games. I wouldn't even mind if they limited it to a monthly subscription like MMOs do. But a vast majority of them require constant feeds of money, and usually for randomized returns, meaning progression may not even be possible after spending. They even call the big spenders whales; so use that as a way to determine just what they think of the people who keep spending. Sorry if you feel attacked due to spending hundreds to thousands on them, but long and short of it is vastly a scam. Arena fighters like Fortnite I suppose get a pass..you can't buy your way into being so super powered nobody can stop you. But F2P RPGs? The scams are rampant. I don't really care if you like it. Facts are facts; they don't give a damn about being liked.

@Envy huh, I notice you're responding to an awful lot of ppl. If you're not a paid shill, you should probably lie and say you are. Then you'd have an excuse at least.

If only Nintendo were original themselves I'd think angry fanboys would have a leg to stand on but elements of legend of Zelda were taken from other games. Much the same as everything borrows inspiration from something else. That's kind of how these things work.

@BenAV I do. I distinctly remember people whining about the amiibo gear being "bull shit" and describing them as "microtransactions".

@Anti-Matter He did it to protest censorship. It had nothing to do with the game, it was simply where he did it. We would ask him follow up questions about it if not for that aforementioned censorship.

@VrginX Ubisoft commented the name change was made to reflect the change in tone of the game. It's graphical style and story was made more realistic and less cartoony and so the old project name didn't fit any longer.

@Hzex
Which game are you talking about?

@Cia I was talking about Genshin impact you said it didn't have nearly as much development time or the budget that BOTW had yet it had more of both.

So this game is free?

As someone who have played this company's previous game, and tried the beta from my friend's beta access. I don't recommend it. Unless you want to spend 100+$ each month just to follow the meta or having even a bit of 'fun'. From my experience from this company's previous game, the first year will be very generous, then it will go microtransaction hell. Feel free to try tho, but giving money to games filled to the brim with microtransactions (in their previous game actually Macrotransaction since even 1 guaranteed gacha pull cost about 2800 crystal, equivalent of about 60$) is why we got companies like EA.

When the game was first shown off, it was obviously trying to be a Breath of the Wild rip-off, but on PS4.

Thankfully the developers have made some solid changes to differentiate it from Breath of the Wild, but the intent was clear.

@BenAV oh, has it really got microtransactions? Such a shame, I'm out.

A copy is a copy🤷‍♂️

@ZombieGoober 'microtransaction hell' or maybe you're just not the grinding kind of person?

Here I am, was playing since launch, and still playing that game with ZERO money spent and still have decent luck getting meta chara/equips. I just think that I'm not obligated to microtransactions if I don't want to.

Have people never heard of Cel Shading before breath of the wild? This has been this devs art style for years, long before BotW. BotW''s art style isn't as original as all of you are acting like.

@arabiansanchez or, you know, the Dev's art style that they've used for years. Long before BOTW.

@westman98 how exactly? The art style? Which they've used for years? Even before BOTW even existed?

@Hzex
As far as I know, the game's development started after BotW (because it took influence from that) and that would be 2017. How is that 6 years? It's 3 years. BotW took 6 years. And where did you get the info this Genshin game had 400 developers, and how do you know it's more than BotW had?
Can you link all this info?

@ZombieGoober 2800 crystals is 10 pulls, not one in Honkai

I mean you can copy it's style and put in stuff to make it feel similar but at the end of the day people who want to play BOTW just buy the real game. No one is going to think it fits the bill as a replacement and most likely this is the most coverage it is ever going to get. Once it's out it'll be yesterday's news and ignored

@TerrakStarsurge
Early trailers of the game showed assets and models that were copied over from Breath of the Wild and slightly modified as to avoid homework-copying.

This "Zelda didnt invent cel-shading" damage-control shtick is as old as it is predictable.

@TerrakStarsurge Please show me examples of the developer using this exact clone of BotW art style years before BotW came out. I wait with baited breath.

@arabiansanchez Honkai Impact 3rd 2016. Maybe should do your own research? Same cel-shaded art style but with more grass this time. What a sin.

@TerrakStarsurge Okay, I’m looking and we’re gonna have to disagree on that one. A lot.

You can’t just say ‘cel shaded’ as a catch all term either. It’s not proof of what you’re claiming. Wind waker used cel shading and has a very different style to BotW. Sega’s Jetset Radio used cel shading before that too.

It’s nice that you’re such a big fan of free-to-play Chinese RPGs but you’re kidding yourself if you think they arrived at their latest style by their own volition. You’re also ignoring that the developer straight up admitted their game is heavily influenced by BotW.

But it’s also evident that you’ve got some inexplicable stake in believing what you believe so I’m now realising this has been a waste of typing time. Peace out ✌️

@arabiansanchez this specific art style is the exact same as Honkai, denying this fact that would just be a straight up lie. I've never played any of these games, looking at gameplay for both the art styles are THE SAME, Honkai is just more sci-fi compare to Genshin, the same cel-shaded ANIME art style. Being heavily inspired is why in early builds they had used similar animations to BotW as placeholders hat have now changed, so why are you still whining like a damn child? Being inspired does not mean ripoff. You and all of you other people are just being toxic whiners about an issue that doesn't exist. Taking some small elements from as an inspiration, but overall having everything be completely different is completely different from being a ripoff. League of Legends a ripoff of DOTA? Valorant a ripoff of CSGO? Is EVERY battle royal or fps a ripoff of each other? What about turn based jrpgs? Are they all ripping off Final Fantasy? No? Then why is THIS a ripoff, and those aren't? When this is FAR more different than ANY of the things i listed.

It definitely feels like one of those free to play game that were made on server for 3-5 years and then disappear forever once they got all their micro transaction money. I may check it out and play a few missions but probably won't stay for the long ride as I don't cherish free to play game like I do actual games.

@TerrakStarsurge SOME elements? SMALL elements? They straight up ripped it. The environments are BotW. It also looks quite different to this Honkai Impact game you kindly referred me on to. Maybe you lack a discerning eye.

I’d also seriously question who is sounding like a ‘damn child’ here; you or the author of the article, other commenters here and me? Be honest with yourself. Or just keep saying ‘toxic’. You do you.

I’d like to state, there’s no reason this game can’t be solid: even pretty damn good. I’m not questioning its potential in any way and I’m not saying it’s not visually beautiful. What I’m saying is it’s basically aesthetic plagiarism.

@Cia you can Google everything! This game is a pretty big deal.

@spacely_sprockets exactly, there have been clone games since the dawn of the industry in the 70s

Can confirm, better than BOTW. Better story, better combat, more I interesting environments. You do NOT have to pay microtransactions to enjoy this game. You get a base party of characters just from playing, and can completely ignore the gatcha unless you are grinding for end game stuff.

Looks like BoTW but with more effort put in.

@ritouf There are a bunch of devs in China who try to make their titles appear Japanese to avoid any international stigma. It's sad they feel they have to do that. Hardcore Mecha is another that comes to mind- even the voice acting is done in Japanese.

@Hzex
I didn't find anything via Google, except the fact this game hasn't been in development 6 years like you stated. According to Wikipedia: "miHoYo announced work on a new project using the Unity development platform at the end of January 2017."

BotW was released about 2 months after that, which is the point I assume they have started taking influences from it to Genshin Impact.

@NinjaWaddleDee
How are you able to confirm all that? Did you somehow play the game through despite it not being released yet?
I bet some genius is soon turning everything upside down and going: "Actually! BotW is a rip off from Genshin Impact!"

@Cia Why yes, I have. I've played over 30 hours of it in the closed beta that was released a few months ago.

@Cia There’s been 3 closed betas, and for the last week, the Chinese server has had an open beta that’ll roll in too release.

@NinjaWaddleDee
Cool What I'd like to know, how are the physics in the game?

@Cia honestly not what I was expecting. Visually it absolutely reminds me of BOTW, but it also looks a lot like a Tales of game as well. It doesn't really use the same physics as BOTW though, as there aren't any puzzles to solve really. Mostly combat dungeons

It's simple: I'll definitely try it because it's free. If the micro transactions get in the way, I'm out. If it's fun and has an actual story (which BotW didn't) I'm in.

I hope this fails miserably.
It's nothing more than a shameless copy.

Clone or not, it's not like Nintendo is innocent of clones. After all, their first video game ever, the Color TV Game 6, was a Pong clone.

I might play this, clone or not, if only so I can experience the world, characters, and story for myself.

@Jhomesjones
Every game? Keep believing that
@arabiansanchez
You know you can't own an artstyle right? Just wanted to make sure if you knew or not because you seemed confused

@PBandSmelly breath of the wild landscapes and effects with your standard mobile game anime characters. I think it's going to be plenty different but I see why people felt that way

Oh boy, yet ANOTHER article about Genshin Impact from Nintendo Life where the similarities and criticism of it being too similar to BotW are brought up.

Yawn.....

miHoYo. That's all I have to say about this. Hard Pass.

Just because it has lot of grass and is cel shaded doesn't mean it rips off Breath of the Wild. Gameplay looks entirely different.

It is out on the PSN store now. Time to try this system smashing disaster

@BenAV I played this game, In beta, and yes they are there but it doesn't really get in the way of the main game much till the grind till you drop ending...

Every single person that talks about this game in a good light has no idea what's coming their way. Check your pre-registration emails folks. Watch them try to sell you ingame currency already like a mobile game. "10 wish sets are 20% off, you can get Noelle" , "Get double Genesis Crystals for your first TOP UP" etc. This isn't a game you can stick with. This is a GACHA game where you need to seriously shell out A LOT of money like a WHALE if you want clans and guilds to recruit you and do dungeons with you and PVP etc. IF this is your first gacha game then I'm sorry for you. You'll find out the hard way just how much mobile style gaming doesn't care about individual player experience and drive everything towards ONLINE activities, ONLINE PVP, ONLINE EVENTS, and pretty much everything reflects your wallet and how much you pay a week to stay on top and actually be relevant. PVE and individual player experience is minuscule and they couldn't care less about that. No matter how much you try, you can never join or compete with top players who spend thousands monthly. But you'll learn how you need same character x9 times to lvl up to 5 stars, or same weapon drop x9 to lvl to 5 stars, with every said character or weapon or skill drop being a 0.5% chance to get from WISH - like loot boxes.

Without spending a lot of money, you'll be very limited in what you can actually do. Without weekly subscription you won't even have enough materials to finish all the weekly events. You'll be just short but not quite there. That is done on purpose so that you shell out more money. I've been playing quite a few gachas and I know too well what this style of game is like. And the really sad news is that if the game doesn't make increasingly more money every week, the events will slow down and stop all together because your region doesn't even deserve updates. Just like in Astral Chronicles, game is dead. Hasn't had an update in months, when at first the game was updating every 3-4 days and events were daily and weekly. Now nothing at all.

Also hope you have enough free space. The PC download is 26 GB, The PS4 download is about 12GB. The download speed is extremely STELLAR as well with a grand speed of 0.49 MB/s. Speaks volumes for their servers already. https://genshin.mihoyo.com/en/news/detail/5738

Oh wow; Internet and angry (...) fans never fail me in disappointing me, but oh well... , i have popcorns, another day in the internet.

Honestly, hearing that it's different is kind of disappointing. I wanted a Breath of the Wild clone, because Breath of the Wild is great and I wish there was more of it!

Most of the games so far that have supposedly been "inspired" by Breath of the Wild are either nothing like it, flat-out suck, or simply aren't out yet.

The bigger problem is that it will probably just suck thanks to the free-to-play business model.

I've had my eye on this game since last year and I can't wait to play it. PC then when it hits Switch, gonna be playing it on the go.

@Duffman92 There's nothing wrong with art styles being similar.

@ComposedJam I said ‘basically,’ therefore that was inferred. Everything I say is considered and deliberate.

Peace out little buddy ☮️

@Wickedspades I am and was always aware of that, yes.

@NinjaWaddleDee HOW can you confirm this? Cheers 🥂

I was a beta tester for Genshin Impact for the final beta about four months ago. I can confirm it is an incredibly different experience. That does not make it a BETTER experience, but it is definitely different. For one, puzzles are not physics based in the slightest. You won't be seeing collectible Korok seeds or have to worry about your Royal Broadswords breaking. There's not really any puzzles to speak of for the most part. Dungeons are entirely combat focused. The few puzzles that exist are either "shoot this item with this element", "do this obvious thing", or (rarely and easily the best) "follow these hints to find treasure." That isn't to say there aren't upsides to Genshin Impact. On top of being fully co-op save for story missions, the game also features spectacular combat that frankly trumps BOTW's basic and lackluster combat system. Item rewards from chests and exploration are often actually useful. There won't be chests filled with 5 rupees here! Armaments and EXP scrolls or enhancement materials are what you'll be finding so you actually feel that exploration is worth your time. The sense of progression's great initially. Once you get to around Adventurer Rank 11, however, it becomes a bit of a grinding chore. I've expressed views against this and hope that they've tweaked AEXP gain for the final release...

@arabiansanchez Played 30 hours of the closed beta.

I like this game better the breath of the wild.
I might get it for my switch depending on the age rating and pricing

Well it won't impact BOTW or its legacy at all since it won't sell anywhere near what that game sold, so who cares.

@DoktorTotenKopf yeah it's terrible a decent free to play game comes along and they are giving you a totally optional aspect to make some money. Shame on them.

@riki_sidekicks it sounds like the combat is different which is great because there was no depth to the botw combat

@RodSD64 yeah cause more botw type games is a bad thing 😂

@MegaVel91 No it isn‘t and it‘s not like Nintendo invented the whole cel-shaded look. But BOTW is a pretty recent game that had a great impact on the industry. If it had been ten years old you could see Genshin as a nod to the game but BOTW is still a well selling title.
I just wanted to say that if I was the art director of the game I wouldn‘t want people to see my creation as a clone in the first place. And there has to be ways to change it up a bit maybe with lighting or colour. There‘s nothing wrong with some inspiration but this just looks a little too similiar.

Totally up for this. Several mechanics in BoTW ruined the experience for me (such as breaking weapons), but I loved the style. This could be the game for me, for that reason.

Stylistically I love the look of the environments, but as always, the hugely over the top anime super duper ultra moves totally kill it for me, and I am really over the illogical choice of clothing.

Honestly, the game looks like they used Breath of the Wild as a foundation, then tore Hyrule down and built their own world. The game does look fun and since it is free to play, I'll give it a try.

"I mean, sure, we totally aped the art style, color palete, signposting devices, animation, feel, and world design of Breath of the Wild, I mean of course we did that. But other than that, it's a totally different game with pay-to-win mechanics, party building, and generic anime tropes and characters. You'll see how different it is once you pay it for yourself how different the game is, despite being a total copy paste job of the art design and environment building.

Also, we're headquartered in Shanghai, so can't touch us, no take backs."

Same boars in the woods, same look to the graphics, same icons for items, same climbing, same seeking out statues.

Other than that it uses magic powers right from the start. They're right it's a very different experience. One feels original and the other is an obvious knock off built around a different set of characters.

I don't think this is ever going to make it to switch. It chugs on my ps4 and doesn't look as good as BOTW in handheld mode.

I'm not sure it would qualify for being copyright infringement anymore than McKids was infringing on Mario 3. It is a knockoff game and some of the art styles have been used before in games from the Tales franchise. The climbing seems like fair game to use now for other games, as Nintendo have always been influential in common game mechanisms. It's just really kind of sad they are so uncreative they had to reverse engineer BOTW to make a game.

@Strumpan Only BotW is allowed to ripoff other games apparently

@LinkSword

Is the combat any fun, is it turn based? I hope not.. Any puzzle elements in the game at all?

@Dizavid I've never spent a single dollar on gacha games before, on bleach brave souls I'm top 8% of players and 7DSGC I'm around top 10%. mmo games like warframe which I have 36 days in game time I've only spent 20 dollars and I'm sitting at the top 2% of players. I don't see this paywall you are talking unless it's from super ***** mobile/mmo games that are designed to milk players. Also, I'm not a payed shill, I wish I was because the game is amazing and deserves a chance just for the combat alone.

@Duffman92 Done no research like a true fanboy. Here some simple steps for you.

1. Look at the publicher.
2. Look at games they made (Hokai Impact 3rd)
3. Hokai has the same artstyle.
4. Look when Hokai Impact came out.
5. Notice it came out BEFORE botw.
6. Feel stupid.

Also every Anime game that came out also looks the same.

Edit: Also every cel shaded game is bound to look similar, so you have to look at the character design, world design, ect..
And if you are not blind you should notice, that the character design and world design doesn't look like the design in botw.

I doubt this game will be rated as high as BotW. Then again, I'm kind of tired of this conversation of Genshin ripping BotW. It is its own game after all. We'll see how well it do once it's released.

As with most free-to-play games, this one requires an internet connection, so unless they change that for the Switch, portability will be extremely limited.

On the PS4, the primary attack button is O rather than Square and can't be changed in the game (you have to use the console setting's accessibility options) which is kind of annoying, but it doesn't break the game. Also, as far as I know, once you choose your character, you're stuck with him/her. I haven't found a way to delete the character and start all over again or create a new one.

@ToastAzazine This thread is still going? True, I haven‘t heard of Hokai Impact and it seems to be, unlike BOTW, a pretty irrelevant game in the industry. After reading Nintendo Life‘s Hands-On for Genshin Impact I realized that it’s not only the artstyle but they also took serveral mechanics straight out of BOTW and according to NL they even felt unfinished.
See, I don‘t care who plays the game and who wants to defend it but I’d say why bother playing an unpolished copy when you can play the original? Why go see an AC/DC tribute band when the original band plays next door?

@Duffman92 When genshin impact is a copy of botw for only using gliding and climbing, than that would mean that the story and the rest of the gameplay like combat must be so bad in botw that it's not considered part of the game.

Also what i think is weird is that Riot pretty much just copied dota and cs and no one cares, but when a chinese company uses only 2 mechanics than it's a clone.

And I think the combat in genshin impact is better than in botw.

Edit: Also even if Honkai impact is irrelevant it still shows that the art style is not from botw and only a consistency to their own games.

@ToastAzazine I could agree to that just maybe don't be too harsh to the "fanboy". That is a bit mean for people who haven't done any research just saying lol.

@ToastAzazine YESSS! Finally someone actually has some solid evidence!

@k8sMum probably for the best. My wife would cut my balls off if I caught her.

@DoomGuyBFG I personally take the attitude that if it's free play it's not even worth trying.

The free to play on PC is great when you have a 2K@60fps GPU - that looks great but get ready for a heating effect from your GPU. Now if they can transfer all my achievements and stuff to my Switch when they release it that I Grinded for - I be even more enthusiastic about it. Hopefully they are using my online gaming as data point to improve on the game itself. I am playing the female Heroine. But as before getting used to the keys is sometimes a pain in the butte.

Found out your limited to level 20...what gives????

Genshin Impact has had some reviews. Currently, the PS4 version sits on 80 Metascore, albeit with just 4 reviews. Despite this, I don't think it'll get much higher number when all is said and done. Therefore, I have a very hard time believing it would be as good or even better than Zelda BotW, as some people here have suggested.

P.S It's not to say 80 would be a bad score. It just means it ain't gonna be a genre-defining masterpiece such as you know what.

@SwitchForce You have to Ascend your character with materials you find in the World/Domains and then you can level it to lvl 40.

What I'd also like to point out is that you can't buy any of these materials with real money so even with money you can not skip the grind.

@ToastAzazine Well it doesn't give me any quest options so I am at a lost there. She is at 19/20 level it doesn't say how I can increase the level or where to go next.

@SwitchForce First hit level 20 with the Character, then the "Level up" button gets replaced with an "Ascend" button.

@matdub That's your preference. I've found many games that are definitely worth playing that are free. League of Legends is a great free-to-play game. Path of Exile is another example. Heroes of the Storm too. These are just a few examples of a large list of great free games.

This game, however, is probably not something I'll keep going with. It's decent, but nothing spectacular.

@DoomGuyBFG Yes your probably right. Warframe has a good reputation, but I have nowhere near enough time to play the games I paid for. Hence F2P gets ignored.