Genshin Impact, an open world RPG by Chinese developer Mihoyo, made waves when it was announced last year, with many complaining that the game looked like it had plagiarized Zelda: Breath Of The Wild’s most distinctive features. Now that the game is out for free on multiple platforms, you can decide for yourself how close it is to the Nintendo epic.
Available now on PC, PS4, and mobile, with a Switch release coming later, Genshin Impact’s biggest point of difference is that it’s free-to-play, with the game hoping to pull a profit through gacha mechanics. Due to being developed in China, which has strict loot box regulations, Genshin Impact’s gacha pulls are at least transparent about their drop rates.
This is true.
China first started to regulate loot boxes in 2009 and the gaming regulator introduced new updates in 2017.
– The odds must be disclosed on the company website
– Loot boxes cannot be purchased with real money
– Limits on the number of loot boxes per day https://t.co/DnrilVUVPx— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) September 28, 2020
Like Breath of the Wild, Genshin Impact features an expansive open world, climbing and running governed by a stamina bar, and even a similar graphical style. It adds more playable characters to the mix, however, as well as co-op gameplay and a combo-based combat system.
Cross-saves are available between PC and mobile, while cross-play is supported for PC, PS4 and mobile. The Switch release is coming at a later date, so no details about cross-saves or cross-play for that platform are available yet.
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