It’s high time that Genshin Impact introduces something new. The game has been running for two years, and yet, Hoyoverse continues to supply the same type of weapons. With so many existing characters, overlap between them is getting out of hand, especially with repeated kits. Dedicated followers and players have even created a list of remaining playstyles and elements that remain for Hoyoverse to match. And once they have ticked off the last of them, what then?
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Unique Characteristics to Present Arsenal
Hoyoverse has already created characters with similar elements and weapons: Yae Miko and Lisa, Ganyu, Aloy, and Diona, Sucrose, and Heizou, and many more. Players know all too well the horror of receiving Kokomi, another Hydro Catalyst and Healer on top of that. Ultimately, what has ended up occurring is four-star characters getting upgraded to the form of five stars. From Lisa to Yae Miko, Barbara to Kokomi, Xingqui to Yelan. Even without the similarities in weapons, the kits have now been usurped.
With the addition of Dendro within the last year, players have been given many new team compositions and combinations to try when organizing their party. However, with the recent release of the standard five-star Dehya, players are not impressed with the lackluster play style of the new Pyro Claymore. But this also highlights Hoyoverse’s unique ability to present personality through the character’s abilities. Diluc offers an aggressive play style that allows the player to deal damage through his Normal Attack, his Pyro Elemental Skill, and a sweep of damage with his Elemental Burst. Whereas Dehya fights more defensively as a tank to deal a steady onset of damage while keeping her health high. Her peculiar Elemental Skill also reduces Damage to the party as long as they remain in her AOE, and she’ll begin healing herself in case her health gets low.
Despite the shortcomings of the present weapons, they do at least present enough of a difference between the different weapons so that the style itself never feels too boring. But with Fontaine on the horizon, will these weapons continue to be enough to keep its fanbase entertained?
Sumeru’s Potential of Branching Out with Weapons
Updates 3.4 and the entire Sumeru region had provided Hoyoverse the unique opportunity to have introduced a new style of weapon. Instead, they created a different style of billets that, quite frankly, do not make any sense. If it was to prevent veteran players from having an easy time using their old-style billets, then why offer a transfiguration recipe at the Alchemy Table? It would have made far more sense for a new type of billet to be created for a new weapon. But we didn’t get that.
Instead of players getting new weapons, the Eremites have picked up new duds and, truly, have never looked better. With the introduction of the Floral-Ring Dancer, Hoyoverse has dropped one of the coolest characters that could have very well have been us instead. With our enemies having a wider range of weapons than us, Sumeru would have been the perfect time to have introduced a new weapon. Not only could Dehya have outright been given gauntlets, but Candace could have been given an actual shield. But the women sport a Claymore and Polearm, respectively, giving them a unique style in attacking and defending but a missed opportunity for an expanded arsenal.
Limitations of Multi-Weapon Characters
As fascinating as it is to have characters who can wield a diversity of weapons, it truly does come by as a case-by-case situation. Childe was said to have trained in all types of weapons, with his weakest being that of the Bow, so in his Elemental Skill, it makes sense to see a diverse range of weapons. Switching from Bow to a Polearm and Double Swords, which resemble the weapon he uses in Foul Legacy, makes sense for him to wield.
Another case is that of the Raiden Shogun; her Musou no Hitotachi is meant to be a Skill that can eviscerate any opponent that comes before her. After the Elemental Burst, she switches from a Polearm to a Tengen to represent the sword that is used when she delivers that move and the iconic scene of retrieving the sword from the Eternal Space she keeps.
Our latest character who will be arriving on the scene soon is Mika; he’ll be utilizing both the Polearm and, for the first time, a Crossbow, which will operate like a bow whenever he uses his Elemental Skill. This can be seen as a new weapon that in and of itself is exciting to multiple players looking forward to his release. Once again, this came from the idea that Mika had troubles with certain weapons and was recommended by Varka that the Crossbow be integrated for a more specialized style that Mika can support and utilize.
Having characters with multiple weapons is a fun niche, but not one that should be overused for both lore and gameplay purposes. This type of character weapon shouldn’t be one that is overused for the sake of not introducing a new weapon with new weapon billets and new coding. This can’t be too much of an issue in the first place when we see the Floral-Ring Dancer, the Fatui and their range of weapons, and even the Knights down in the Chasm.
Rival and Sister Games Weapons
Different circus, not my monkeys. I understand. But it’s not as if there are weapons that are in Honkai Impact that are not in Genshin Impact. We’ve seen Sumeru characters look eerily similar to some of the characters in Honkai, such as AI. If that code is able to be used for an Eremite enemy, then why not for the characters in players’ rosters? It truly may not be as simple as introducing a new weapon given that if they were to, they’d have to decide on the design and role of what the Three-Star Weapon would look like and the Four-Star Weapon. What would a Five-Star option be and would it be fair to introduce it given that there may only be a few characters who are able to utilize it?
It perhaps became one of the drawbacks when Genshin was first created but with Honkai Impact having a variety of different weapons given its more Sci-Fi genre and Honkai: Star Rail coming out with its own diverse range of weapons, it only goes to show that Genshin is lagging behind in doing something innovative. It’s become repetitive that even theorists can look at the banners and predict what may be coming next.
The Last Hope, Fontaine
Not to be confused with any Space-related series, players’ last hopes really reside within Fontaine. Not only is it meant to be more technologically advanced, but based on the countries that it’s meant to represent, it would make sense that the closer we get to Snezhnaya, the more we’ll see characters using weapons similar to the Fatui.
The community jokes about when Travelers get to have a gun eventually and will firearms actually have a canon place within the game. We clearly see the Fatui use rifles, powered-up fire extinguishers, and cannon blasters. These types of weapons have been seen in Hoyoverse’s Sister games so could it be that Fontaine is the country that they are waiting on before finally introducing a new weapon?
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The issue that Hoyoverse is faced with is that they introduced characters first with weapons as a lesser priority. In their other games, characters came preset with their own types of weapons and then there were banners that allowed you to advance your equipment to get something better. But for Genshin, they introduce both at the same time, making integrating a new weapon a very difficult task. We can only hope as players that through surveys and attention online that Hoyoverse will finally hear our thoughts and take them into consideration when creating new characters for the lineup.
