Genshin Impact, on the surface, seems to be a heroic journey filled with victorious battles and exploring a fantasy world. But every world has its dark corners, and even travelers online share strange experiences they’ve had with the game. To celebrate the month of horror, what are strange and eerie moments in Genshin Impact that chilled its player base?
One moment that vividly stands out released in Version 1.4. The game is built on seven nations, and each nation has a statue depicting the god that rules over them. These statues are seen as sacred, imbued with elemental power and rarely touched. A few months after the game was released, travelers were introduced to Dainsleif and a breadcrumb to find the main character’s sibling. Following clues, travelers are brought to a strange place – dark, isolated, and filled with traps.
At its center kneels a man, head bowed down as if in deep prayer. And what he bows before is a statue of the Anemo Archon, an Archon depicted with wings. It is wrapped in chains, hanging from the ceiling upside down with a chaotic, purple swirl of power hiding away the face of the statue. When travelers approach the man, he collapses, dead on the ground.
This was the first time that a dead NPC (non-playable character) was even shown on-screen in the game. And to this day, travelers aren’t entirely too sure why the statue was desecrated in this manner. To what ends? For what purpose? It’s a moment that stands out in which travelers are left with the horror of realizing there is more to Teyvat than the heroic story players have been enjoying.
Now, many players have agreed that, overall, the dialogue choices in the game don’t impact the storyline to a large degree. It often leads to the same conclusion with only bits and pieces changed (although recently that has taken a turn for players to enjoy a few different scenarios based on their responses). But the dialogue truly became something eerie during the Archon Quest of Sumeru.
Travelers are enjoying the birthday of the Archon, a festival in her name to celebrate this god that has ruled for the past 500 years. It’s a great experience, and travelers go to sleep. They wake up the next day to the birthday of the Archon. Of course, it’s a fun festival where they get to enjoy Sumerian culture and try out some games like guessing which candy is what flavor. Travelers return to their inn and sleep with fond memories of the day. The next morning, travelers are preparing to celebrate the Archon’s birthday.
The quest became a loop that travelers were forced through several times. I remember the first time I went through it, I was a bit startled, but chalked it up to a possible glitch with the newest patch. It happened again, and I was left wondering why I was looping. As more loops progressed, the traveler in-game feel a sense of deja vu. They reach the candy selecting game where travelers are given several options to guess the sunsettia flavor. Their options were candy number four, candy number four, candy number four, and candy number four.
Truly, a moment in Genshin Impact where the dialogue choices didn’t matter and for the best reason. It came out of nowhere for most players and highlighted the unsettling nature of the looping story.
A great way to enjoy Teyvat and its storyline is through the World Quests. Inazuma introduced the first big series of World Quests that encapsulated what made Genshin Impact feel like a much larger world.
On an island to the far South, travelers are enshrouded in a mist. It seems impenetrable, and travelers are urged through a ritual to clear the mist by the people of the island. But as travelers continue the ritual and piece together the story, they realize that what they thought were people were ghosts. And the ritual they were completing the “save” the island to clear the mist was to sacrifice a child.
It’s a moment of horror that had really only existed through flavor text rather than in-game experience. It also is one of the more tragic stories of Genshin Impact, and one that lives in my head for a long while because of that.
The last memory that came to mind with eerie Genshin Impact moments wasn’t one that most players experienced. In fact, it was a single player’s experience that steamrolled into one of the game’s cultural phenomena. It all started with a player getting the game from a non-official site.
This traveler was exploring Mondstadt when all of a sudden, they noticed a character in their world. It was Ayato, a five-star limited character that a brand new account obviously wouldn’t have. They weren’t in co-op mode either, so there shouldn’t be other characters just wandering around. And drawing nearer, they noticed that Ayato’s model didn’t have a face but instead a gaping black hole. Thus began the creation of Faceless Ayato, a community-driven horror story. The things the Genshin Impact community created around this event terrified me, and it has lived like a tenant I cannot evict in my mind.
Genshin Impact has several moments in its storyline that unveil dark tales and eerie vibes. Whether it was a story, a specific player’s experience, or a book in the game that retold history, the game has scared its players in many different ways. What moments in Genshin Impact have unsettled you? What part of Teyvat has caused you to check over your shoulder, just in case? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below or in our Boss Rush Discord!
Image Source: HoYoverse
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