Genshin Impact’s first major update is coming up in a couple of weeks and bringing with a whole deluge of shiny new toys to play with. Down below we run through each and every one of the significant changes and then wrap it up with an exploration of what this means for you and Genshin Impact moving forward.
A large thanks to Redditor u/polonoid75 for translating and collating the massive amount of sporadic information leaked in the leadup to this update (how to install guide).
Beware that there are major story spoilers included in this article and the original leaks in the Reddit post above.
Genshin Impact Update 1.1 New Characters & Story Content
Childe (5 Star)
Hands down the character to be most excited about, Childe is a Hydro Bow wielder whose elemental skill is actually used to switch between ranged and melee modes. Activating his elemental skill replaces his equipped bow with a melee attack combo using elemental knives and a polearm.
Related: Genshin Impact New Characters, Release Date, and How to Get Them
Xinyan (4 Star)
A Pyro, Claymore wielding tank who scales with DEF, Xinyan is apparently a literal Rockstar whose elemental skill is a swing of her bladed Guitar that gives her a shield. She also has a passive with a 12% chance to double the benefit received from DEF food buffs.
Diona (4 Star)
Diona is a cryo/bow user who, considering her ult is a bomb that damages enemies and heals teammates in an AoE, seems to be something like a support of some variety.
Zhongli (5 Star)
A Geo polearm tank, Zhongli scales with HP and is a strong counter to Geo enemies with his ability to insta-shatter Geo shields in an AoE around him.
Genshin Impact Update 1.1 New Weapons
Update 1.1 is set to introduce five new five-star weapons to the game (i.e. one of each variety of weapon) and three of which will share the same buff-proccing ability.
Genshin Impact Update 1.1 New Items
Portable Teleporter
A personal waypoint that can be placed anywhere you want, where it will stay for up to a week. Unclear if it’s fixed in place or whether it can be picked up again.
Anemo Bottle
A bottle that can be used to store anemograna you come across, allowing you to spawn Wind Domains wherever you want.
Food Bag
The Food Bag is a much-needed tool that lets you hotkey two food items and which auto replenishes itself as long as you have food in your inventory. This should certainly make Paimon happy.
Cooking Pot
Another much-needed function cloaked as an “item” that lets you cook anywhere on the go. Like the Food Bag, this is a feature that should have existed long ago.
Regional Talismans & Compasses
Talismans and Compasses are region-specific items that point the way to Oculi and Treasure Chests respectively.
Genshin Impact Update 1.1 Design Tweaks and Improvements
Resin Can Now Be Stored
One of the most significant changes coming with the new update is without a doubt the introduction of Condensed Resin. 1.1 onwards, players will be able to store unused Original Resin for later use — massively good news for F2P players.
You Can Also Double Domain Rewards
Another great quality of life Tweak players can look forward to in 1.1 is the ability to pony up 40 Resin to double the rewards from a domain run. This means you can max out your daily domains in three runs instead of six.
Expedition Changes
1.1 onwards, players will be able to use characters they’ve sent on expeditions in their party — a change that will no doubt please many a F2P player.
Item Locking
Item Locking to protect specific weapons and artifacts from being disbanded accidentally. This is especially great for lower level players who don’t have any Four or Five-Star items and can easily trash a blue they’ve been curating.
A Genshin Impact Pokedex
Essentially a self-updating encyclopedia that stores information on the materials and monsters of Teyvat. It won’t actually be called a Pokedex but it will certainly come in handy.
Camera Lock
Camera Lock so that mobile players can stop throwing their devices across the room every time they get hit by an ability from an off-screen enemy.
XP Overflow Exchange
Or something like it. From 1.1 onwards, the new system will convert excess XP generated during item leveling into ore instead of simply consigning it to oblivion.
Genshin Impact Update 1.1 New Features
A Regional Reputation System
One of the most notable changes coming to Genshin Impact in update 1.1 is the regional Reputation system. Similar to faction or influence systems in other games, as players explore, complete quests, and otherwise play, they will gradually accrue Reputation within the region, unlocking all sorts of perks and bonuses there.
Alongside the Reputation system are new tracking stats that show the extent of a player’s regional exploration (including everything you’d explored and collected before 1.1).
The biggest relief that comes with this change is that players who missed an Anemoculus or Geoculus here or there don’t have to embark on an existential crisis-inducing quest to locate them.
New Weekly Boss
SPOILER ALERT: Along with 1.1 will come the overdue finale of Genshin Impact Chapter 1 in which players will be fighting Childe. Apart from being the standout new Five-Star Character joining the ranks of the playable roster, Childe will also somehow be joining Boreas and Stormterror as a weekly boss for players to compete against — likely to get their hands on some of the new weapons.
Referral Rewards
Players will now eligible to receive free Mora by referring players to the game who use their unique referral code. The amount seems to be 10,000 Mora and it reportedly works retroactively for any player who made an account before 1.1 and has yet to reach AR Rank 7.
Glider Races
The new update will bring with it a series of seven racetracks for players to engage in the Genshin Impact equivalent of the Ratchet and Clank hoverboard races using their gliders.
What These Changes Mean for Genshin Impact Players
The major takeaways from the update are that it should really have been called the 1.0 update. Indeed, many of the changes, from the Food Bag to item locking to the Reputation System to the finale of chapter one are all elements that one would have rightfully expected to see in the first “complete” version of the game.
Add to that the XP overflow refunds and Flora/Fauna reference data and you now have what can truly be considered a fully polished Genshin Impact. Considering the game has already accrued a playerbase tens of millions strong, we have good reason to be excited for the changes emerging from this new update, overdue or not.
For anybody who dabbled with the game and didn’t exceed AR Rank for one reason or another has good reason to make use of the game’s referral rewards and give it another shot.
Moving forward, as new characters are introduced to the game, we should start to expect to see a lot more retrospective tweaking moving forward. As any League of Legends or Dota 2 player can tell you, when it comes to games that hinge on multiple characters, nobody is safe. Favored OP characters like Diluc may see nerfs, and otherwise underpowered Characters will see buffs as more balance tweaking becomes necessary.
For help on installing the update or making sure you have your device ready to automatically install it the moment it’s out, check out our Genshin Impact update guide! For any other Genshin Impact info like guides, walkthroughs, tier lists, even memes, check out our bursting-at-the-seams Genshin Impact archive.
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