After almost 6 years after the release, the open-world RPG Genshin Impact reached the long-awaited final region. Of course, it’s not a game over yet, but many players have waited for Snezhnaya since the day its existence got revealed. This snowy land promised to solve many mysteries and present the truth behind Teyvat and the main plot. And, finally, about a week ago all Travelers set foot on the white plains of the northern region.
We won’t ever know if the Snezhnaya delay was planned from the start. Maybe the entire year we’ve spent exploring Nod-Krai and dealing with issues in other regions became a window for Hoyoverse to tweak some ideas and change the concepts. After all, through the entire 6.x the game itself kept changing in many aspects, including technical side and visuals. It even reached the point where the developers had to stop the support of older generation consoles.
So, did Snezhnaya meet the expectations after release? The answer to this question is very hard to find. For some players, it can look like a peak of Genshin development, but for others a true downfall.
Let’s look at what Version 7.0: Everwinter Without Mercy brought to the game and see how it changed the experience.
First things first. We waited for Snezhnaya because of the main quest. The Fatui Headquarters stationed here, the Archon who steals the Gnoses that belong to others and opposes Celestia’s rule over this land, the finale of the Travelers’ journey was meant to reach this point from the very beginning. Version 7.0 had to become a presentation of both the new place and the old lore pieces we waited for years.
The text ahead might contain some spoilers but I’ll try to refrain from major ones.
As the quest starts, the tension appears right away, not because of the cold and snow, but the fact that Paimon doesn’t feel well in this area. At first, it looks like a simple attempt to show the cruel nature of the northern region, where frost touches the bones and blizzards steal people from the world. However, the reason behind it is much deeper. It becomes clear when Pierro, the Director of Fatui, appears of of thin air just to see Paimon and cover her with a blanket.
But this meeting becomes but a story hook, quickly brushed aside for future references. From here on, the story quest switches to the region introduction. We meet random characters, both NPC and playables, and through their stories learn how tough the life in Snezhnaya can be.
Aside from this region being covered in snow the entire year, we soon find out that people struggle with access to heat supplies, the Kresnik Crystals. Unique to the region, it carries the same idea as the Phlogiston from Natlan, or other unique energy sources in other nations. So, while Fatui distribute the resources, there is still not enough for everyone. People steal, lie and resort to fraud for profit and survival.
The first part of the introduction, probably the first 2 parts of the Act 1, manage to keep the attention and present an info which is interesting to learn. However, soon the focus moves to the playable characters, and here the story begins to lose its consistency.
White at first we get exposed to the regional problems, this part becomes more of a castrated character quest. The tendency to entwine the characters into the main quest began long ago across all of the HoYoverse titles, but the authors still didn’t master this art. The entire first Act of the main Snezhnaya quest is unnecessarily long and contains the scenes and information that can be even completely cut without any damage to the plot.
For example, take Odette and her struggles with the past. It’s nice to meet her, learn about her and the problems she faces after Signora’s death. However, soon it starts to give a vibe of entirely irrelevant or separated questline, which would exist more organically as a stand-alone Character quest. That would give the developers more space for both adding relevant region lore to the main quest and separate development of Odette.
Meanwhile, it looks more like an attempt to push her story onto players, as if the authors are afraid everyone will just skip her story. Even the final scene of her story plugged into the finale of the Version 7.0 main quest feels like an unnecessary expansion, even while it’s a fairly great scene.
This is the first issue of the main story of Snezhnaya so far. Compared to Nad-Krai, the narrative drags too many things in at once, and half of them feel either irrelevant or just unjustifiably long. The quest creates the impression of something grand, while the true value remains really humble until the very final part.
The action began to speed up in Act 2. This part of the story began to introduce another problem of Snezhnaya – the ever-watching eyes of Ronova. The entire piece in the theater has a unique vibe of a mystery drama with a tint of horror. People die, nightmares persist, and a quiet realization of no escape slowly settles over the characters.
However, once again the quest loses some consistency quite fast, and the mystery gets ruined by tiny holes in the set-up. While characters bravely ignore them ‘til Mitya’s grand speech, for a player it swiftly becomes obvious that it’s all fake. Surely, Genshin isn’t a horror and not AAA game, but when you know that there is no real danger, the entire quest loses the edge and drags slowly to the logical conclusion. Moreover, in the end this entire part of Act two turns Ronova into a psycho idiot, who does nothing but lie. And the finale of Act 2 adds to this feeling significantly.
Let’s look back at the time we spent chasing Dottore. The crazy man stole the moons’ authority, made tweaks to the world for an experiment, and hacked Irminsul in Sumeru. Not to mention that the real moon got dragged through the fake sky. And what reaction did it get from the Shades? They only came to Nahida and gave her a warning.
Meanwhile, Snezhnaya suffers from Ronova’s curse every day. People die and then resurrect again, forgetting what they were doing. And the reason behind it is research of energies that can threaten Celestia. So some mortals’ research and thoughts are more threatening than the crazy man trying to reshape the entire world or the Hydro Sovereign regaining his authority. At the same time, the Ruler of Death can’t just kill a few people, she even fails her own job to guide souls to the Ley Lines.
Ronova exists like a joke with all her creepy tricks and eyes. Sure, Heavenly Principles likely set rules she can’t break, but all the time we were told that Death is the only permanent thing in the Teyvat that can’t be avoided, only delayed. Yet now, in Snezhnaya, we see that it’s but a weird tool of control, and everyone is just eager to defeat death and continue the research.
And it leads to the second issues of the Snezhnaya lore and narrative. Everything exists by the “just because” rule, forbidding players to ask any question and demanding logic. The weird supercomputer and the Fornite mechanics? Just fae tech. Take it and shoot it, don’t ask unnecessary questions. Legendary sword of the White Tsar in random ruins? Well, it was here all along, you are just the first to see it. Take it and enjoy. The entire train no one ever saw appearing from thin air by the Traveler’s call? Just fae tech again. Enjoy the moving base.
As separate things these game elements and items serve the purpose of expanding the game experience. But the main problem is that they look like randomly splashed things, added only because developers created them and story writers somehow plugged them in the lore.
Snezhnaya introduces many new game features, including the constructs and even entirely new game modes. However, some of these mechanics turned out as a strange feature, which were implemented into the game because game designers didn’t have any better ideas.
For the beginning, the game introduces the constructs, which help to explore the snowy lands of Snechnaya. The Idea itself isn’t bad and can be even entertaining or interesting, serving as a part of environmental puzzles. However, it cuts the purpose of the creative usage of older usable items we gathered through the other regions and the platforms created by geo. Sure, no one forbids using them, but often they just won’t help at all now.
Another problem with these constructs, or maybe a cool feature for some players, is that they leak into everyone’s worlds. Imagine one person places a cube to path through the obstacle, and then it appears in everyone’s worlds at the same place.
But now imagine that dozens of players place these things, and not only in a useful way. They spam it for fun, or ruin things for other players on purpose.
Some constructs just have dumb texts on them, while others literally ruin cut scenes and prevent from opening chests or gathering loot. Thankfully, the developers made an option of removing this trash from your own world and preventing it from appearing, but the function isn’t as easy to find.
When it comes to the shadow realm and shooting mode, it can simply be annoying. Half of the world quests require passing through this mode, turning Genshin into bootleg Fortnite. This can turn away the players who don’t like shooters, they simply won’t do the world quest. Many loved Genshin for its medieval fantasy vibe, but with this feature it lost it completely.
However, there are still nice new game features. For example in the main quest we get a chance to play as Alyosha’s dog. This becomes a nice fresh take on the game experience, expanding the immersion into the story. Another nice addition is mini-games and events, even though they have some game design issues. Even the train is a relaxing experience, when you don’t think of the logical side like where it comes and why it doesn’t interfere with other local trains.
Snezhnaya probably became the heaviest region in terms of game graphics. And it finally explains why the developers cancelled the support of the old generation consoles. Snow, architecture, characters – everything there exists with grand scope. Comparing playable characters from 7.0 to 1.0 or even 4.0 shows off the huge step the game graphics made through the years.
However, this beauty came with a price of performance. Playing on HDD now can result in slight stuttering and glitches. Even though the developers did a lot of optimization, including NPC fading, low grade systems can struggle with loading everything properly. But the main downgrade can be seen on some mobile devices. The city looks like a cupboard diorama, with white paint splashed over the walls and ground. Thus mobile players can probably lose the beauty of the grand lands of Snezhnaya.
It’s still early to judge the entire region by only one released part, but for now Snezhnaya provides a mixed experience. While it brings so many things at once, it struggles with consistency in every aspect but graphics, yet still remains the most ambitious region released yet. The experience with this land strongly depends on the player, their feelings towards the local culture, and how picky they are about the lore and gameplay.
