A few days ago, I spent some time at Gamescom with a pre-release build of the next Genshin Impact Update, numbered 5.0, giving me a chance to explore the new nation of Natlan and try out the new playable characters.
Natlan is definitely beautiful, quite different in flavor compared to the existing nations of Teyvat. We could perhaps draw some similarities with Sumeru, but Natlan certainly has its own unique characteristics, offering a brand-new experience for Genshin Impact players.
Like the other nations, it’s very colorful, but it comes with color palettes that set it apart, with striking, earthen hues of the cliffs contrasting with the luscious greens of fields and the bright blue of water and sky.
It also comes with a lot of verticality, which certainly is designed to interact with the traversal means introduced by version 5.0, but also gives Natlan the impression of a more untamed and untainted land in which humans live in close connection with nature.
This is amplified by the soundtrack, which comes with tunes that are certainly among the best in Genshin Impact as a whole. It’s obvious that, as time passes and the success of the game continues, its developers have honed their creative processes, and I wouldn’t be surprised if budgets for production values have increased as well.
Interacting with the rugged nature of Natlan’s terrain are new traversal mechanics introduced by the ability to “indwell” within the friendly Saurians and acquire their form and powers.
For instance, indwelling with a Tepetlisaurs will let you basically travel under the surface of the ground, regardless of whether said ground is horizontal or vertical. These traveling abilities are used during quests in some clever (and at times pretty challenging) traversal puzzles.
One particular quest will require you to hit a sequence of spikes all over an area before time runs out, protruding both from the ground and the surrounding cliffs. The only way to achieve that is indwelling, which lets you seamlessly transition between horizontal and vertical traversal.
The characters coming with version 5.0 are pretty much a perfect representation of the three tribes that appear in Natlan.
Mualani of the People of the Springs and Kachina of the Children of Echoes are the first that we’ll encounter when the update launches on August 28, while Kinich of the Scions of the Canopy will have us wait a little longer as his Event Wish (the game’s version of gacha) comes with phase 2 of the update.
Luckily, all three were unlocked and available in the build I tried.
Mualani is likely my favorite, simply because of her “Sharky Surfboard” which does basically what it says on the tin. The best part is that it doesn’t just work on water, but everywhere.
You can’t use it infinitely, but you can pull it out basically at the press of a button, receiving a massive velocity boost. Not only is it great for simply traveling around quickly, but it’s fantastic when you’re fighting a boss and you want to have an easier time avoiding attacks.
On top of that, when she’s on her surfboard, her attacks deal plenty more damage, pretty much turning her into a safe bet in many situations. I’ll be honest with you: she almost feels overpowered, but we’ll have to see how she behaves in the final build before judging.
Of course, her element is Hydro, if you’ve been wondering.
Kachina is a Geo character and like Mualani she has her own “vehicle” named Turbo Twirly. While it doesn’t feel as effective as Mualani’s in terms of pure movement speed, it still gets Kachina around faster and lets her climb walls quickly.
It’s also a very effective offensive item as it can be left to bounce on the ground independently, acting basically like a pulsing landmine, or while Kachina herself is riding, turning normal attacks in continuous AOE damage that is very easy to land.
Kinich is a Dendro character equipped with a grappling hook that allows him to swing around with ease pretty much over every terrain, even if it requires a bit more micromanagement compared to Mualani’s surfboard.
Its most interesting aspect, though, is when you connect it to an enemy and can use it to swing around said foe, combining greatly improved avoidance and attack power at the same time.
I fought one of the expansion bosses, the Gluttonous Yumkasaur Mountain King, at the end of my demo. By using the three new characters combined (mostly Mualani and Kinich), I was able to make pretty short work of it, despite the fact that it was a quite fun challenge (and looked absolutely hilarious).
While the content offered by the update was simply too much to fully experience in the couple of hours I had with the build, version 5.0 appears to be another very relevant chunk of content to a game that has already grown way beyond what I initially expected. It was a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to seeing more when it officially releases in a couple of days.
Genshin Impact is free-to-play (with optional microtransactions) and currently available for PS5, PS4, PC, iOS, and Android.
It’ll also finally land on Xbox Series X|S on November 30.
