Genshin Impact is an enormous open-world free RPG that keeps on coming with new characters, regions, stories, and gameplay features being added all the time. It is an incredible game–however, it can be quite overwhelming when first getting started. This Genshin Impact beginner guide will educate you on all the essential facts.
What Is Genshin Impact?
It’s a huge fantasy open-world with an action combat system that revolves around different elemental abilities. You control a team of four characters, swapping between them to dish out powerful elemental combos by mixing abilities like fire, ice, electro, etc. It’s kind of like Zelda: Breath of the Wild meets Pokemon.
There’s a full storyline to follow, but the game is honestly just as much about exploring the open world, fighting epic bosses, solving puzzles, and collecting loot and new characters through the gacha (lottery) system. Using real money to pull for new characters is totally optional though.
What to Do First
Play through the prologue story quests to get a grasp on the basics. Once you hit Adventure Rank 12, daily quests called Commissions will unlock, which you’ll want to complete every day for rewards like Primogems (premium currency), exp, and more.
Simply explore and stumble across teleport waypoints, open any chests you find, and follow the blue spirit guides to hidden rewards. Don’t worry about optimizing anything yet, just familiarize yourself with the game’s systems like combat, crafting meals, equipping artifacts, and managing your inventory.
The Daily Grind
Once you’ve got the hang of things, here are some key daily activities to focus on:
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- Daily Commissions
- Expeditions
- Spending Original Resin
- Battle Pass missions
- Checking for login bonuses on HoYoLAB
Complete limited-time events whenever they’re running too, as they always have great rewards like free characters and resources you’ll need loads of later.
How to Get New Characters
While you’ll unlock a few characters naturally by playing through the story quests, the main way to build your character roster is through the gacha system. You’ll accumulate the premium currency Primogems through all sorts of activities, which you can then spend on Intertwined Fates to pull for new 4-star and 5-star characters and weapons on rotating banners.
It’s a typical gacha with pity systems, first-time bonuses, and that sort of thing. Just know you’ll gradually acquire more characters over time through casual free playing. Managing what characters and gear to build and invest in is a big part of endgame planning.
Characters, Weapons, and Artifacts Explained
Speaking of investing, each character levels up, ascends, and equips unique gear like weapons and 5-piece artifact sets to boost their stats and abilities. Early on, just use whatever decent equipment you get from quests and chests.
Once you hit the mid-to-late game at around Adventure Rank 45+, you’ll want to start artifact farming to really maximize your main damage dealers. Focus on leveling talents that scale well with each character’s abilities too.
Important Resources
Some key resources you’ll constantly need a stockpile of:
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- Character and Weapon Ascension Materials
- Talent Level-Up Materials
- Artifact experience items
- Mora (gold)
- Original Resin
Complete weekly bosses as soon as you can to farm the talent books. The resin system gates a lot of the best farm locations, so just spend it on whatever progression materials you need most.
Don’t Forget the Extra Activities
Genshin is absolutely packed with stuff to do beyond just the main story quest lines. Some systems won’t unlock until higher Adventure Ranks, but keep these in mind as you play:
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- Spiral Abyss combat challenges
- Hangout quests
- World quests
- Fishing
- The card game event
There are literally achievements for almost every activity, so just playing 90% of what the game has to offer will earn you tons of primogems and other free rewards over time.
Have Fun and Take Your Time
The most important tip is to not treat Genshin like it’s a race. It’s a dense game, but that also means there’s an almost endless supply of new content to experience at your own pace. Don’t fixate on meta-team compositions or hardcore grinding until you’ve had a chance to just immerse yourself in the world first.
Take some time away from the main story quests to just screw around in the open world hunting for secrets. Getting lost in Teyvat’s gorgeous environments and stumbling into unexpected moments is what the early game is all about. Plenty of time for the no-lifting later! It is better to follow this Genshin Impact Beginner Guide to be able to master the game.
