Genshin Impact turned six years old this September, and it’s still one of the most-played and highest-earning games on the planet. That kind of longevity raises an obvious question for anyone eyeing it for the first time in late 2026: is a six-year-old gacha RPG, with hundreds of hours of story and dozens of playable characters already released, actually a good game to start now — or is it too late to catch up?
With Version 7.1, “A Rekviem for the Underworld,” having just gone live on September 23, 2026, and the long-awaited Snezhnaya finale still fresh from its August 12 launch, this is actually a great moment to jump in. Here’s an honest, up-to-date look at what Genshin Impact is, what’s changed, and whether it’s worth your time and (potentially) your money in 2026.
What Is Genshin Impact, Still?
Genshin Impact is a free-to-play, open-world action RPG developed by miHoYo and published globally by HoYoverse. It launched on September 28, 2020, on Android, iOS, PS4, and Windows, later expanding to PS5 (2021), Xbox Series X/S (2024), and HarmonyOS NEXT (2025) — making it one of the few genuinely cross-platform live-service games with save data that follows you between phone, console, and PC. Worth noting for existing PS4 owners: HoYoverse is ending PS4 support in April 2026, so that platform is on its way out.
The core loop hasn’t changed since launch: you explore the vast fantasy world of Teyvat as the Traveler, searching for a lost sibling while building a roster of elemental heroes and fighting your way through a mix of open-world puzzles, story quests, and boss fights. What has changed dramatically is the amount of world there is to explore and the number of characters available to build a team around.
The Big Story Payoff: Snezhnaya Has Finally Arrived
For years, Snezhnaya — the Nation of Cryo, home to the game’s central antagonist, the Tsaritsa — was the region every long-time player was waiting for. It finally arrived on August 12, 2026, as the centerpiece of Version 7.0, “Everwinter Without Mercy.”
This isn’t just another biome. Snezhnaya was built as the culmination of plot threads that have been running since 2020, resolving the Tsaritsa’s true agenda and the fate of the six Gnoses that have driven the story’s core conflict. The region leans into Slavic-inspired art direction and even introduces train travel as a new way to move through its snowbound landscape — a first for the series’ traversal systems.
If you’ve ever bounced off Genshin because “the story takes forever to get anywhere,” Snezhnaya is the payoff that finally justifies the wait. And crucially for new players: you don’t need to have played since 2020 to experience it. The Archon Quest system walks you through the story in order, so starting fresh in 2026 means playing through six years of narrative buildup in a much more compressed, binge-able timeframe than the people who lived through it update-by-update.
What’s New Right Now: Version 7.1
Barely a week old as of this writing, Version 7.1, “A Rekviem for the Underworld,” pushes the story even further with a climactic Archon Quest that has players confronting the Tsaritsa directly, alongside new figures referred to as “the Ruler of Death” and “the Ruler of Life.”
New playable characters in this patch include:
Vesna, a 5-star Anemo Sword user whose kit converts Cryo Swirl reactions into a new “Stellar Swirl” effect, with the added novelty of letting players fly during exploration. Vodyanitsa, a 5-star Hydro Catalyst user styled as a “Water Imp” with healing and enemy-resistance-lowering utility.
The update also adds Ronova as a new Weekly Boss, and — timed to the game’s sixth anniversary — hands out a free event-exclusive 5-star character, a standard 5-star selection, 1,600 Primogems, and 10 Intertwined Fate to everyone who completes the new quest. On the lighter side, the Moonchase Festival has returned to Liyue for the first time in five years, bringing three new mini-games and a craftable 4-star sword.
For a brand-new player, this all matters less as “content to catch up on” and more as proof the game is still being actively supported at a high production level, not coasting on its early years.
Is the Free-to-Play Model Still Fair in 2026?
Genshin Impact remains fully free-to-play. Progression, exploration, and the entire story are playable without spending a cent, funded instead by an in-game currency called Primogems, which players can earn for free or purchase to perform “Wishes” — the game’s gacha pulls for new characters and weapons.
This is also where the game draws its sharpest criticism. The monetization system is a genuine gacha model: pulling for a specific new character isn’t guaranteed on your first try, and dedicated players who want every new 5-star character as they release will need to spend real money or grind currency carefully over time. It’s a fair trade for what you get — miHoYo has generated an estimated $6.3 billion in lifetime revenue by the game’s fourth anniversary, and the game still averages roughly 57.3 million monthly active users — but it’s not a model everyone is comfortable with, and it’s worth going in with clear expectations rather than discovering it mid-playthrough.
The good news for a 2026 starter: new accounts get generous early rewards, several playable characters for free just by progressing through the story, and enough starting currency to experiment with the gacha system without spending anything, before deciding whether it’s worth investing in further.
The Verdict: Should You Start Genshin Impact in 2026?
Critically, Genshin Impact has held up well. It carries “generally favorable” Metacritic scores in the 81–86 range depending on platform, and has picked up major recognition over the years, including Best Mobile Game at The Game Awards 2021 and the Golden Joystick “Still Playing” Award in 2022 — an award specifically for games that keep players coming back years after launch.
If you enjoy open-world exploration, elemental combat that rewards experimenting with team compositions, and a story that’s now reaching one of its biggest payoffs yet with the Snezhnaya arc, there’s genuinely no better time to start than right now. You’ll walk into a game with more regions, more characters, and more polish than it has ever had, and you’ll experience the story’s biggest twists in a fraction of the time it took original players to get there.
The only real caution is the same one that’s always applied: know that the gacha system exists, decide upfront how much (if anything) you’re comfortable spending, and treat every early free pull as a bonus rather than an expectation.
Ready to jump into Teyvat? Genshin Impact is free to download on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, iOS, and Android — and with Version 7.1 live right now, there’s no better moment to see what six years of world-building actually looks like.
Sources: Version 7.1 details (Gachago), Snezhnaya region reveal (RPGamer), Genshin Impact (Wikipedia)
