History VideoGame / GenshinImpact

[[caption-width-right:350:[[{{Tagline}} Step Into a Vast Magical World of Adventure]][[note]]From left to right: [[LadyOfBlackMagic Lisa]], [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure Jean]], [[GuileHero Kaeya]] and [[ArrowsOnFire Amber]]. Not featured: [[TheHero The Traveler]] and [[NonHumanSidekick Paimon]]... and over 80 notable (playable) characters.[[/note]]]]

You play as the "Traveler", one of two [[DimensionalTraveler dimension-hopping siblings]] who traveled to Teyvat on a whim, only to find yourselves in the middle of a world-shaking cataclysm. When you tried to leave, an unknown god stripped you of your powers and spirited away your sibling, [[TrappedInAnotherWorld then dumped you back onto Teyvat]]. An unknown number of years later, you awaken from a deep slumber to find a world at peace, your sibling nowhere in sight. Now you must travel the length of Teyvat to regain your elemental powers, track down The Seven and discern the identity of the Unknown God, and reunite with your lost family.

[[caption-width-right:350:[[{{Tagline}} Step Into a Vast Magical World of Adventure]][[note]]From left to right: [[LadyOfBlackMagic Lisa]], [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure Jean]], [[GuileHero Kaeya]] and [[ArrowsOnFire Amber]]. Not featured: [[TheHero The Traveler]] and [[NonHumanSidekick Paimon]]... and [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters over 80 notable (playable) characters]].[[/note]]]]

[[caption-width-right:350:[[{{Tagline}} Step Into a Vast Magical World of Adventure]][[note]]From left to right: [[LadyOfBlackMagic Lisa]], [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure Jean]], [[GuileHero Kaeya]] and [[ArrowsOnFire Amber]]. Not featured: [[TheHero The Traveler]] and [[NonHumanSidekick Paimon]]... [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters over 80 notable (playable) characters]].[[/note]]]]

[[caption-width-right:350:[[{{Tagline}} Step Into a Vast Magical World of Adventure]][[note]]From left to right: [[LadyOfBlackMagic Lisa]], [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure Jean]], [[GuileHero Kaeya]], [[ArrowsOnFire Amber]]]]

The world of Teyvat is that of seven elements, each ruled over by one of the god-like "Archons" collectively known as The Seven. When an ordinary person meets great peril and frustration at the limitations of their mortality, there is a chance the gods grant them their favor in the form of a "Vision": an elemental focus which grants that person the power of magic, and potentially the means to ascend to divinity themself.

[[caption-width-right:350:[[{{Tagline}} Step Into a Vast Magical World of Adventure]]\\
[-Left to right: [[LadyOfBlackMagic Lisa]], [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure Jean]], [[GuileHero Kaeya]], [[ArrowsOnFire Amber]]-]]]

''Genshin Impact'' (原神, ''Yuánshén'') is a {{fantasy}} Free-to-Play [[WideOpenSandbox open world]] [[ActionRPG action RPG]] developed and published by Creator/{{miHoYo}} for PC, console and mobile. It released for PC, iOS, Android, and UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 on September 28, 2020 and for UsefulNotes/PlayStation5 on April 28, 2021 in multiple languages and regions, with a UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch port planned for a later date. The game is available in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, English, Spanish, German, French, Portuguese, and Russian, and it continues the tradition [=miHoYo=] set in ''VideoGame/HonkaiImpact3rd'' of localizing into South East Asian languages: [[UsefulNotes/{{Vietnam}} Vietnamese]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Thailand}} Thai]] and [[UsefulNotes/{{Indonesia}} Bahasa Indonesia]]. It also has full English and Korean voiceovers, on top of the usual Chinese and Japanese ones.

Please refrain from adding leaked content on any and all sub-pages. While it's understandable that a sub-set of the ''Genshin'' community relies on leaks to prepare for upcoming characters and other future content, ''troping'' the leaks themselves is against TV Tropes policy and any entries involving leaks will be removed. For more information, visit the ContentLeak and Administrivia/UpcomingWorkPolicy pages.

''"Tropes"? Ah, those fictional rules used to push the plot forward, yes? They're definitely effective in achieving a distancing effect.''

[-Left to right: [[LadyOfBlackMagic Lisa]], [[AuthorityGrantsAsskicking Jean]], [[GuileHero Kaeya]], [[ArrowsOnFire Amber]]-]]]

Version 3.3 introduced ''[[VideoGame/GenshinImpactGeniusInvokationTCG Genius Invokation TCG]]'', a virtual Trading Card Game found at the Cat's Tail tavern in Mondstadt that can be played online with [=NPCs=] or other players.

The world of Teyvat is that of seven elements, each ruled over by one of the god-like "Archons" collectively known as The Seven. When an ordinary person meets great peril and frustration at the limitations of their mortality, there is a chance the gods grant them their favor in the form of a "Vision": an elemental focus which grants that person the power of magic, and potentially the means to ascend to divinity themselves.

Please refrain from adding leaked content on any and all sub-pages. While it's understandable that a sub-set of the ''Genshin'' community relies on leaks to prepare for upcoming characters and other future content, ''troping'' the leaks themselves is against TV Tropes policy and any entries involving leaks will be removed. For more information, visit the ContentLeak and Administrivia/CreatingAWorkPageForAnUpcomingWork pages.

''Genshin Impact'' (原神, ''Yuánshén'') is a {{fantasy}} Free-to-Play [[WideOpenSandbox open world]] [[ActionRPG action RPG]] developed and published by Creator/{{miHoYo}} for PC, console and mobile. It released for PC, iOS, Android, and UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 on September 28, 2020 and for UsefulNotes/PlayStation5 on April 28, 2021 in multiple languages and regions, with a UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch port planned for a later date. The game is available in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, English, Spanish, German, French, Portuguese, and Russian, and it continues the tradition [=miHoYo=] set in ''VideoGame/HonkaiImpact3rd'' of localizing into South East Asian languages: [[UsefulNotes/{{Vietnam}} Tieng Viet]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Thailand}} Thai]] and [[UsefulNotes/{{Indonesia}} Bahasa Indonesia]]. It also has full English and Korean voiceovers, on top of the usual Chinese and Japanese ones.

Please refrain from adding leaked content on any and all sub-pages. While it's understandable that the ''Genshin'' community relies on leaks to prepare for upcoming characters and other future content, ''troping'' the leaks themselves is against TV Tropes policy and any entries involving leaks will be removed. For more information, visit the ContentLeak and Administrivia/CreatingAWorkPageForAnUpcomingWork pages.

[-Left to right: [[LadyOfBlackMagic Lisa]], [[AuthorityEqualsAsskicking Jean]], [[GuileHero Kaeya]], [[ArrowsOnFire Amber]]-]]]

->''You and your sibling arrived here from another world. Separated by an unknown god, stripped of your powers, and cast into a deep slumber, you now awake to a world very different from when you first arrived.''
-->--'''Google Play Store'''

An anime adaptation by Creator/{{Ufotable}} has been announced on the 16th September 2022.

[[folder:O to S]]





[[/folder]]

[[folder:T to Z]]
* TactfulTranslation: During the Summer Fantasia event, [[{{Chuunibyou}} Fischl]]'s TranslatorBuddy Oz frequently gives a more polite translation when Fischl gets snippy. Eventually, this is {{Lampshaded|Trope}} by Fischl, at which point Oz replies she's simply trying to keep Fischl from fighting with her friends during her vacation.
* TakeThat:
** The game is absolutely merciless towards [[TrappedInAnotherWorld isekai]] stories. One of the equippable catalysts is a book called "Otherworldly Story" which is described as having no value whatsoever. A daily commission in Inazuma has you accompany an author as he visits various shops for inspiration, with the end result always being him [[NewPowersAsThePlotDemands giving his protagonist new abilities seemingly at random to progress the plot faster,]] which exasperates his publisher. And then finally during the Raiden Shogun's character quest, they come upon a light novel called "[[OverlyLongTitle The Good Thing About Being Reincarnated as a Hilichurl Is That I Only Need to Eat Sunsettias to Become Stronger]]", with [[spoiler:Ei]] noting the impractically long title. Later during that same quest, you find ''another'' novel about a LoserProtagonist being reincarnated as the Raiden Shogun, which the Traveler internally criticizes for leaving no room for development by immediately making the protagonist an InvincibleHero.
** Hues of the Violet Garden takes a potshot at merchandise collectors. Sara absolutely insists that the statue of the Raiden Shogun is '''not''' a "figurine". Her principles for maintenance include making a shrine for the statue that has to be ''[[CargoCult worshipped]]'', it requires meticulous cleaning and its maintenance has to be regularly done by a craftsman... and that was just the first principle. Oh and according to her voicelines, Sara already had a statue... ''five'' of them.
* TakeYourTime:
** In general, quests won't advance until you enter the quest area or talk to a certain character.
** Players need to grind more Adventure Ranks to continue Archon Quests no matter how urgent the situation is. One of the more noticeable examples is when Venti tells you to hurry to Liyue else you'll miss the Rite of Descension... except you might need to spend a while grinding before you can attend.
* TagTeam: Your party is organized this way - one active character and three reserve characters that you can swap with mid-battle. To take advantage of the ElementalRockPaperScissors system is to make good use of your characters' elemental skills, so you'd often see yourself swapping between characters mid-combat.
* TalkingAnimal: Excluding the physical forms of mystical beings, there are Oz the raven and Changsheng the snake.
* TalkingIsAFreeAction: Zig-zagged when it comes to conversing with [=NPCs=] and having enemies around.
** If you've aggro'd nearby mobs before you can talk to the NPC, if you attempt it (e.g. with the "talk to" prompt), you'll get a message that says that you're not in a situation to talk.
** If you get to talk to an NPC and then nearby enemies get aggro'd, the conversation will still continue even as the enemies beat your character up.
** For cutscenes that are triggered by just walking towards the designated NPC/location, the conversation/scene will still continue whether the enemies get aggro'd before or after the scene is triggered, and they'll beat your character up.
* TalkToEveryone: Certain [=NPCs=] may give something to you when you talk to them the first time. Some of them may also sell some certain things without having a "shop" icon above their heads.
* ATasteOfPower:
** Accompanying each limited character banner are "trial stages" where you can use the featured characters to test their strengths.
** The Story Quests can also let you use a "trial" character during certain sections of the quest, even if it's a high-rarity character you haven't got yet.
* TechDemoGame: The game's top-notch graphics and WideOpenSandbox nature means that, on mobile, high-end devices are recommended to have a smooth and stable experience even at lower graphic settings. To give this some context, at launch the game's [[https://genshin.mihoyo.com/en/news/detail/5284 minimum recommended specs]] for Android phones were at least 3GB RAM and Android OS version 7.0. This meant that something equivalent to a Samsung Galaxy S7 - a benchmark many budget phones fell ''short'' of, even in 2020 - was the absolute ''minimum'' required to play the game at all. Since it's also free-to-play, it quickly became a popular choice for tech reviewers stress-testing new phones.
* TechnicolorBlade: Certain weapons have colored blades, such as Skyward Blade and ascended Aquila Favonia (cyan), Blackcliff Longsword (crimson), The Alley Flash (dark blue), Prototype Rancour (golden), etc.
* TeensAreShort: For the most part, both male and female teenage characters are about a head shorter than the adults. There are some exceptions such as Mona who is seemingly an adult yet no taller than the standard teenager model (not counting her massive hat, of course).
* TemporaryOnlineContent:
** Events and gacha banners are only available for a limited time unless they have reruns.
** The Golden Apple Archipelago was a special tropical-themed region set on its own map, with unique features and quests. The location was only available during the 1.6 patch, which was {{Hand Wave}}d in-universe as being difficult to get to because of changing tides and winds.
* ThirdPersonShooter: Ranged characters have a dedicated button that toggles this control scheme, allowing players to manually aim their weapons.
* ThrivingGhostTown: Mondstadt's capital is relatively large, however, compared to Liyue Harbor and two of Inazuma's cities, there is no background pedestrians to accomodate the city's size, resulting in the city being populated by small amounts of residents. While justified during the Stormterror Crisis, it becomes rather strange after the crisis has ended.
* TimedMission:
** Some open-world challenges, daily commissions or quests require you to accomplish the task within a given time, such as gliding/running to the finish line, destroying specific objects, or killing all enemies in the area. Events aren't exempted either; "Unreconciled Stars" uses the time-limited "kill-em-all" quest type by a huge margin.
** All repeatable Domains have time limits once they're initiated.
** The Spiral Abyss floors are time-limited, and they reward the player depending on how fast can they clear the floors.
** Bounty missions in work this way. In Mondstadt and Liyue, you have 10 minutes to find 3 clues of the target bounty and then to find and fight the target bounty itself. In Inazuma, the enemy is spawned from the get-go and the time limit is just for defeating them.
* TimeSkip: The prologue shows the two Travelers being sealed by the Unknown God. From the playable twin's point-of-view, they no longer know how many years passed after that incident, although they still recall waking up in Teyvat and meeting Paimon two months prior to the main story. The character stories of the Traveler also suggest that the world was changed compared to the time before they met the Unknown God. And then by the end of Prologue Act 2, [[spoiler:it's revealed that the missing twin became the leader of the Abyss Order]].
* TitleDrop: What the English translation calls "allogenes" (people who hold Vision) is called "Genshin" in the Japanese dub and "Yuánshén" (which is the game's original title) in Chinese.
* TogglingSetpiecePuzzle: Enkanomiya is built around this mechanic. Several switches are found across the region which control its artificial day and night cycle via the Dainichi Mikoshi tower, and whether it is day (Whitenight) or night (Evernight) will determine the accessibility of barrier puzzles. For example, some barriers will only be active during the day but disappear during the night, and the same applies vice versa as well, prompting the player to cleverly use the day/night switches to their advantage in order to progress through the puzzles for rewards.
* ToiletHumour: Nahida suggests that the Traveler and Paimon take a [[UnusualEuphemism "dook-dook"]] one night, catching them off guard since she was saying profound things just a moment beforehand. When it doesn't appear to have any effect, they call her out on it the next morning. In response, she explains that she suggested it to help them relieve stress. It's vaguely reasonable (in a way {{Cloudcuckoolander}}s often are), but very silly nonetheless.
* TokenAquaticRace: The Oceanids are a race of pure Hydro lifeforms that originate from Fontaine; the domain of the Hydro Archon. According to lore, they operate as spies and use vast water networks across all seven nations in order to relay information back the Hydro Archon, and the World Boss, Rhodeia of Loch (which is required for Hydro user ascension materials), used to be one of their spies before she fled to Liyue in exile. You could also get a travelling Oceanid companion named Endora if you participated in the temporary "Wishful Drops" event back in Version 1.4.
* TooAwesomeToUse:
** Fragile Resins. They can only be acquired from Adventure Rank rewards, or from certain limited events. They can be used to refill 60 Original Resin immediately, but they are often saved up for the endgame because higher World Levels and harder Domains drop more loot even if the Resin costs are static.
** High-rarity consumables such as the stat-boosting food are often saved up for boss battles, especially if their boosts are great, and if the food requires a lot of ingredients to create in the first place. The Adeptus' Temptation is an example of this since it is a 5★ food that temporarily increases all party members' attack and CRIT Rate for 5 minutes.
** The Crown of Sagehood is required--in addition to weekly-boss drops--to max out a talent level. Problem is, it's only available in extremely limited quantities, most of it coming from limited-time game events. Every character has 3 talents, so choosing which one(s) to use this on could be rather difficult, especially since you could get a new character later who needs it more.
* TowerDefense: Version 1.3 has the "Theater Mechanicus" event, in which you can plant different kinds of "towers" to defeat waves of incoming enemies. The enemies won't attack you or the towers, but will keep walking towards the "exit" which you have to defend. You can attack the enemies, but they'll take no damage from your attacks, nor will your energy get charged; however, you can still exploit elemental effects and reactions to support your towers. This can also be played with another player. Completing a level unlocks materials you can use to upgrade the towers, as well as higher difficulties.
* TrailersAlwaysSpoil: Even before the game launched, the official [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SO__VQZirJ4 "We Will Be United"]] trailer outright warns and shows a twist wherein [[spoiler:the twin Travelers are going to be on opposing sides after being separated. The missing sibling would be the one leading the Abyss Order]].
* TrademarkFavoriteFood: Each playable character has "favorite food" listed in their voice-overs. They also have [[DoesNotLikeSpam the inverse]] listed there, as well.
* TrappedInAnotherWorld:
** A particularly interesting variant as your player character is posited as being a veteran [[DimensionalTraveler other-world traveler]], and the world upon which Teyvat rests was just one stop of many you and your sibling were making. You ran afoul of the "unknown god" while transiting, however, and ended up robbed of your powers of world-travel and with your sibling seemingly kidnapped. The nature of the player's homeworld has not yet been addressed; their voice-over entries occasionally hints about what existed in their homeworld.
** Fischl claims to hail from an otherworld as well; [[{{Chuunibyou}} this claim is somewhat more questionable, however]].
* TrickArrow: Some archers' charged shots can provide various additional special effects apart from the usual imbuing of elements in the arrow, such as marking enemies to inflict additonal [=AoE=] damage (Tartaglia), perform a follow-up attack if the arrow is charged longer (Ganyu and Tighnari), homing in on targets (Yoimiya), and exploding (Yelan), to name a few.
* TrueSight: The "elemental sight" ability can reveal some hidden objects during specific quests, particularly those of the PixelHunt variant.
* UndergroundMonkey: Enemies can have alternate versions or {{palette swap}}s. For example, there are [[CuteSlimeMook Slimes]] for every 7 elements, while Abyss Mages come in Pyro, Cryo and Hydro variants, etc. Hilichurls in Liyue have stone shields instead of wooden ones, and their mages use Geo instead of Anemo. The Dragonspine update added Cryo versions of Lawachurls, Cicin Mages, and Hilichurls, plus a stronger variant of the Ruin Guards.
* UndignifiedDeath: Combined with YetAnotherStupidDeath, you will want to pay close attention to your Stamina meter when you are swimming around. Nothing quite as embarrassing as "Here lies The Traveler, Honorary Knight of Favonius, Hero of Mondstadt, drowned in a waist-deep fish pond in Liyue." Thankfully, DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist.
* UnexpectedlyRealisticGameplay: While a subtle detail, a character's height will affect their overall speed in-game and how they interact with the world. For instance, characters with the child body type are among the slowest at running, climbing and swimming and will not be able to fight in most shallow waters due to being the shortest characters in-game; whereas taller adult characters like Kaeya or Jean end up being the fastest overall with no difficulty in shallow waters.
* UnexpectedShmupLevel:
** Both times you face off against Stormterror, you're taken into a RailShooter-type sequence where you must follow him on your glider and shoot at his weak point. The second fight also involves some BulletHell showdown mixed with [[PassThroughTheRings passing through rings]].
** The "Outrider Style" quest has a section where regular combat mechanics are temporarily disabled. Instead, it forces you to drop bombs on enemies while flying above them with the Wind Glider.
* UniqueEnemy: Two cases of this, to the point that they don't even have an Archive entry. Both cases involve soldiers from governments the Traveler is initially on bad terms with, but eventually befriends so the soldiers have no reason to go after the Traveler anymore.
** The Millelith soldiers are only fought twice in the Liyue Archon Quests; the first time at Qingyun Peak when they pursued the Traveler over there after being branded a potential suspect in Rex Lapis' assassination, and the second time at the Guizhong Ballista when the Traveler [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext tried to use it to launch themselves to the Jade Chamber]], and the soldiers were just doing inspections on it at the moment they arrive.
** While the Shogunate soldiers are fought more often, like the above, they only appear on Archon Quests and don't appear in the overworld; these are inside the Police detention center, and during quests involving the resistance. They also show up on Yoimiya's story quest and one World Quest from Shizuru.
* UniquenessDecay: In one of the early quests, you and Xiangling find frozen meat from an extinct species of boar, and use it to win a cooking contest. At the time, it seems like that was the only [[HumanPopsicle boar-popsicle]] in the world. But the Dragonspine update added an entire mountain full of them; they even come back to life when thawed, and there's also a gigantic boar boss that drops a whole bunch of the stuff.
* UnusuallyUninterestingSight:
** In freeroaming, if a fight breaks out between you and the enemies, any [=NPC=]s who happened to be near the battle won't so much as blink or cower at the sight of violence. Obviously not the case for certain [=NPC=]s who are being attacked by enemies as part of a quest's story.
** One egregious case of this is during the quest "Will of Stone", where you have to chase after a little girl named Little Liu, who inadvertently leads you past a group of monsters. When she stops moving, she will simply stand and watch you get thrashed by a Stonehide Lawachurl and some Hilichurls without so much as panicking or cry out in fear.
* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Huachu, a seemingly innocuous NPC hanging out at the Stone Gate near the Mondstadt/Liyue border, turns out to be a lot more involved with the main plot than the game lets on. Reading into her backstory and some lore reveals that she is the daughter of Gentry De'an; the former manager of the defunct Minghua Company. At the time, Huachu was dating a man named Jianqiu of whom Gentry De'an disapproves of, so in order to elope with him, both her and Jianqiu conspired a plot to fake her suicide by using an already dead body of another person and dress them up as her, throwing the corpse into a well (which poisoned it) and then running away from home. To prove that he's not responsible for his daughter's supposed death, Gentry De'an had to sell his entire Minghua Company to pay for the funeral expenses. However, this allowed the Fatui to come in and take over the Minghua Company's place by establishing the Northland Bank, setting the plot of Chapter 1 into motion. Huachu ended up being indirectly responsible for the Fatui's involvement in Liyue, and by extension, [[spoiler:Childe summoning Osial in an attempt to draw Rex Lapis out for his Gnosis]].
* UpgradeArtifact: A variant-- unlocking the third and fifth constellation of a character will add three levels to their Elemental Skill and Burst respectively.
* TheUsualAdversaries: Most of the main factions of enemies--the hilichurls, the Abyss Order, the Fatui, and the Treasure Hoarders--qualify for this. When someone's causing trouble, it is almost always one of those four, and they never stop attacking the player on sight no matter how many the player has killed.
* UseTheirOwnWeaponAgainstThem: If you're not careful, the Dendro Cores you create can end up damaging you[[note]]Unreacted Dendro Core explosions and Burgeon technically do minor self-damage[[/note]] if the enemies' Electro or Pyro attacks hit them first.
* UtilityPartyMember:
** All characters (except for the Traveler) have passive skills that help with non-combat situations (except for Tartaglia[[note]]His passive skill increases the normal attack talent level by 1 for the whole party[[/note]]). For example, Barbara can have a chance to cook twice the amount of health-restoring dishes, Kaeya can reduce the stamina usage of sprinting, etc.
** All characters (except for Raiden Shogun [[LethalChef who can't cook]]) also have a chance to make a special dish from a standard dish. For example, Amber can make an improved Steak.
* UtilityWeapon:
** Claymores, and thus their users, can smash iron, crystal chunks and [[SuspiciouslyCrackedWall breakable walls]] quicker than other weapons. Some chests are also covered in rocks, which are easily broken by Claymore wielders.
** Ningguang and Klee can also break ore veins quickly with their launched stones and bombs. Zhongli can also do this with his Elemental Skill Pillar
** Pyro users can burn brambles or melt ice in order to unlock some paths or treasure chests.
** Anemo users can activate pinwheels, which often lead up to secret paths, treasure chests, or upward wind currents.
** Cryo users can freeze water surfaces, which allows them (and the party) to cross bodies of water without having to swim.
** Some Geo characters' elemental skills create {{Improvised Platform}}s which can be climbed up and stood on, mostly for platforming purposes. The Geo-elemental Traveler can crate a small meteor made of rock, Zhongli can create a tall rock pillar, while Albedo can spawn a flower platform that floats after a short delay.
** Bow users can charge their shots with elements. Aside from combat, this helps in activating Elemental Monuments and torches from a distance without relying on elemental skills (which come with a cooldown).
* VagueAge:
** In general, they have official birthdays, but not ''ages''. You can't necessarily tell by looking at them, either, since [[spoiler:Venti and Ganyu]] are ReallySevenHundredYearsOld, and the same is true of Qiqi, who looks like a child but is actually an immortal ''jiangshi'' zombie, and we've only been given a somewhat vague timeframe for ''when'' that happened ("several hundred" years of being sealed in a crystal, and then an indeterminate amount of time between being unsealed and the Traveler meeting her).
** Not even body type or animation set help that much. One of the most common body/animation sets in the launch game, the "Medium Female" set[[note]]used by Lumine, Amber, Fischl, Xiangling, Sucrose, Noelle, Barbara, Mona, Keqing, Ganyu, Hu Tao, Xinyan, Yun Jin, Yanfei, Ayaka, Yoimiya, Kokomi and Aloy[[/note]] features characters that run a whole spectrum of possible ages; they range from explicit {{Chuunibyou}} teenagers (Fischl) to characters of ''deliberately'' vague age for self-insertability (Lumine) to seemingly young adults who are still talented working professionals, albeit in the early days of their careers (Amber, Sucrose and Xiangling) and then all the way up to explicitly adult characters who are experts in their fields and even have major positions in governments (Keqing and Kokomi). It becomes incredibly difficult to put a number on these characters as a result — folks like Keqing and Sucrose ''feel'' like they should be adults from their backstories and character traits, but it's not hard to notice they're the same height as Fischl, who must still be in her mid-teens ''or'' is a young adult who is not yet of drinking age.
** All the characters with the "Short Female" set[[note]]used by Klee, Qiqi, Diona, Sayu, Dori, and Nahida[[/note]] seem like they should be the exception, but with the exception of Nahida (who is [[spoiler:a 500-year-old archon]]) and possibly Diona, they all have factors at play that make their true age difficult to tell. Klee is the only character with elf-like ears and is [[spoiler:confirmed via a message from her mother Alice to be part of a long-lived race.]] Qiqi, as stated above, is untold hundreds of years old and will never age beyond a child. Sayu ''is'' a child, but her fixation on growing taller to match all her friends implies she may actually be closer to a teenager than her appearance would suggest. Meanwhile, Dori owns a bunch of money as well as owning an entire palace with the implications being she got all that money from her job as a merchant which would be unlikely if she was just a child.
** Diona is a strange case; as a bartender, real world laws dictate she would have to be able to legally consume alcohol, and the Knights of Favonius Handbook says not to let minors inside taverns, [[FrequentlyBrokenUnbreakableVow but nothing prevents the Traveler (who everyone believes to not be of legal age) from stopping by the Angel's Share whenever they like]], and during an event where the Traveler is asked to brew drinks, the reason why they're limited to brewing non-alcoholic drinks isn't that the Traveler doesn't look old enough for the job, but rather that a previous mixer ended up making a GargleBlaster by mistake. Diona is actively trying to sabotage the alcohol industry, so she definitely doesn't drink wine, and the fact that she looks too young to drink is never dwelled on. This suggests that there's no law that actually prevents a minor from serving alcohol, so given that Diona is otherwise never implied to be an adult, it's probably safe to assume that she's as young as she looks.
* VariableMix: The deeper parts of The Chasm: Underground Mines has a unique take on the soundtrack. Rather than cycle through context-dependent tracks like the rest of the overworld, it instead has two versions of the same tracks: an ambient version for exploration and an intense version for battle, and they seamlessly switch with each other in-between enemy encounters. For example, "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZc4QWfTDpU Stories of Remote Antiquity]]" becomes "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFSnm6OTi-Q Inevitable Conflict]]" when enemies are encountered and vice versa once out of aggro range.
* VersionExclusiveContent: [=PS4=] players receive exclusive items like the Sword of Descension and Wings of Descension.
* VideoGameCaringPotential: In one of the caves on Dragonspine, you'll find a note by a lost adventurer saying that the snow foxes native to the mountain kept him company as he was trapped there, asking anyone who read the note to feed the foxes. From there, you can place berries in a basket near the note. Come back the next day and the basket will be empty with a snow fox hanging around the area, though it will flee if you approach. Feeding the foxes five days in a row without killing them will result in a treasure chest and the achievement "Untellable Tale".
* VideoGameCrueltyPotential:
** Played with. There is a daily commission quest where the player is tasked by Timmie to feed the ducks. There is nothing stopping the player from killing them after feeding them, but if you do, Timmie will exclaim that he "saw what you did to those poor ducks!" and that he would tell his mom on you. [[spoiler:Come back another day and you will receive another quest where his mother decides to call you out on this and you have to make him his favourite dish to make it up to him. Of course, you can be sarcastic about it too when you hand it to him. Either way, you'll get the achievement "Taking Responsibility for Your Actions" and 5 Primogems.]]
** The daily commission quest "Clean Up At Dawn II" requires you to help the Dawn Winery maids in cleaning up the piles of leaves that are mixed in with the haystack. Anemo abilities are the preferred way to do this, and the maids will appreciate your help. However, you can actually burn a haystack using Pyro abilities. While doing so instantly completes the quest and still gives you the rewards, the maids will call you out on it, fearing the possibility that they will be fired by Adelinde.
** You can also attack, but not kill cats, dogs, and kitsunes by freezing them or sucking them into the whirlwind and sending them flying. Most players tend to do this accidentally while trying to find a way to pet them, an option that doesn't actually exist in the game as of current. If you happen to drop them into the water, however, they'll [[VideoGameCrueltyPunishment never respawn again]].
** Some of the dialogue options for the Traveler can be quite cruel. A prime example of this is at the end of Childe's story quest where, after using his [[OneWingedAngel Foul Legacy Transformation]] to effortlessly defeat a horde of Ruin Guards in a CurbStompBattle, is left limp from the strain, and one of the options you can choose the Traveler to say is to [[KickThemWhileTheyAreDown off Childe right there]] simply because he's a Fatui Harbinger. It only takes family talk to convince them out of it, given Childe's own protective feelings towards his younger brother Teucer, but the malice is there for the player to choose at their own discretion.
** Just north of the Grand Narukami Shrine, you can find a Fatui Agent and Mirror Maiden standing on a cliff looking out to the sea, [[VillainsOutShopping as if going on a date.]] You can ruin their date by punting them both off the cliff and into the water to drown.
* VideoGameDashing: Characters have a quick dashing move akin to ''Videogame/HonkaiImpact3rd'' which they can use to evade the enemies' attacks. The dash move also allows the characters to sprint afterward.
* VideoGameFlight: The characters can glide from high places using special capes or Wind Gliders on their backs.
* VillainOfAnotherStory:
** In the past, [[PredecessorVillain there was a corrupt alchemist named Gold]] who created mutations or an army of monsters with alien blood. They rampaged over the lands, bringing forth destruction. The black dragon Durin is one of those monsters and is the same dragon who terrorized Mondstadt.
** Ursa the Drake is a recurring and prominent antagonist in the backstories. As mentioned in the webcomic, Vennessa and her clan were hounded ten years ago by this dragon, starving them for days in the winter. Even the tyrants of Mondstadt fear it for terrorizing the city over the years, to the point where they planned to "offer" their gladiators just to appease it. [[spoiler:With the help of Venti, Vennessa managed to defeat Ursa and force it to flee.]] From another story, it's also responsible for [[spoiler:attacking the Ragnvindr caravan, causing the incident that killed Master Crepus]].
* ViolationOfCommonSense: Some rewards and [[AchievementMockery achievements]] require you to screw up and/or do something awful. [[WhatTheHellHero Negative dialog aside]], it's worth doing these things for the extra Primogems. Counting ships incorrectly gets an achievement and a book for the archive; there's also an achievement and unique food item for killing Timmie's pigeons. Getting struck by lightning also gives an achievement--this is surprisingly difficult at first since thunderstorms are uncommon, and when they do occur, lightning strikes in random spots that are usually far away. That said, Yashiori Island is initially buffeted by perpetual thunderstorms where lightning strikes more frequently, as you must complete a World Quest in that area to remove them and get an achievement.
* VitriolicBestBuds: By the time of the Summer Fantasia event in 2.8, Fischl and Mona have graduated from TeethClenchedTeamwork in 1.1 to this trope. Fischl identifies Mona as her Court Archmage, and while Mona is still exasperated by Fischl's {{Chuunibyou}} antics, she's willing to play along and assist her. Mona also consoles Fischl when she becomes depressed. That said, the animosity is not always limited to snark on Mona's end, as they both have strong egos, which makes it easy for them to get into fights.
* VortexBarrier: The area to the north of Mondstadt's capital is a complex of an ancient ruined city, surrounded by a barrier of storms; the dragon Stormterror makes it his lair. If you try walking towards it, you'll get knocked back. It's only until you play the prologue's Act III wherein Venti uses his MagicMusic to dispel the barrier. Within the city (called Stormterror's Lair), you can find more of those barriers around the tower at the center. The barriers were apparently created by Decarabian, the god-king of Old Mondstadt. Another one of these barriers surrounds the topside area around the ancient treasure cache cave in the mountain north of Qingce Village.
* WakeUpCallBoss: After Stormterror, Andrius is the second weekly boss you can fight. Unlike Stormterror, his attacks come out a lot faster, he utilizes Cryo attacks and is immune to Anemo and Cryo. If you have not mastered dodging from fighting [[WarmupBoss Stormterror]], you are going to have a very bad time.
* WarmupBoss: Stormterror is the first major boss you fight through the story, and the easiest out of the weekly bosses introduced so far. All his attacks are ''heavily'' telegraphed, and it's quite trivial to fight him without taking any damage. Players should take this opportunity to master dodging, as [[WakeUpCallBoss later bosses aren't as merciful.]]
* WarpWhistle: Teleport Waypoints and Statues of the Seven enable instant warping on specific parts of the map after they have been activated.
* WeaksauceWeakness: Any application of water, including rain and standing ankle-deep in a puddle, will deteriorate Pyro shields on Abyss Mages or Fatui. And when their shield breaks for any reason, they become stunned for several seconds. Obviously, this makes fighting Pyro-shielded enemies in rain or near water (which they are [[ArtificialStupidity not smart enough to avoid]]) kind of a joke--they get stuck in an endless loop of getting stunned, regenerating their shield, and getting stunned again.
* WeatherOfWar:
** Rain constantly applies the Wet status effect to everyone, making Cryo and Electro significantly more dangerous--the former will [[HarmlessFreezing freeze]] and the latter will cause additional damage to both the target and surrounding monsters. Pyro, as you'd expect, is somewhat less useful in rain, since Dendro enemies can't be set on fire, but it can still be used for constant Vaporize reactions.
** The Dragonspine region has a subzero climate that affects certain gameplay mechanics. There's a Sheer Cold status meter that accumulates unless you're near a source of heat. When the meter is full, your characters will lose 2% HP every second.
* WebcomicOfTheGame: There’s an official prequel comic that takes place before the events of the game, as well as an AffectionateParody comic series that's posted on the official [[https://twitter.com/genshin_7?lang=en Japanese Genshin Impact Twitter]]. It follows the male protagonist Aether and Paimon and parodies the various events of the game. While the comic was translated from the Chinese to Japanese, it has yet to be officially translated into English.
* WesternSamurai: In the Sangonomiya Resistance camp on Yashiori Island, you can find an NPC from Mondstadt who joined the Resistance as a samurai. [[spoiler:His unusual foreigner status turns out to be a clue that he's a Fatui plant.]]
** Played straight by Thoma, a retainer of the Kamisato clan who was born in Mondstadt.
* WhamEpisode:
** Chapter 1 Act IV, "We Will Be Reunited". [[spoiler:The Traveler ''finally'' meet their lost sibling but their sibling refuses to rejoin them. Their sibling then tells of the destruction of Khaenri'ah 500 years ago, and reveals that Dainsleif is one of the royal guards cursed with immortality for failing to protect it, and how the Abyss Order is actually the people of Khaenri'ah bent on vengeance.]]
** Chapter 2 Act 3, "Omnipresence Over Mortals". [[spoiler:The Traveler manages to expose Fatui interference in Inazuma and force the Raiden Shogun to repeal the Vision Hunt Decree through a duel. The biggest wham though, is how La Signora is the titular Crimson Witch and Pale Flame of the namesake artifact sets, and that she got utterly ''obliterated'' by Beelzebul.]]
* WhamLine: The "Unreconciled Stars" event has two:
** In Part III, the heroes run into the mystery man they encountered in Part II only for Mona to suddenly teleport everyone away. It turns out she had a ''very'' good reason to.
--->[[MyNameIsQuestionMarks ???]]: The first time the Millelith were present. I had to forgo the chance to strike down Mondstadt's savior. This time was the perfect moment...I was mere seconds away...\\
'''[[BossSubtitles Scaramouche]]'''\\
''[[RedBaron Balladeer]]''\\
''[[QuirkyMinibossSquad The Sixth of the Eleven Fatui Harbingers]]''
** In Part IV, the heroes meet Scaramouche again as he's investigating the meteorite core in Musk Reef. He then tells [[spoiler:a realization that "the skies are a lie", or as Mona phrases it, "fake skies"]].
** Just to drive the point that the event unfolding moments ago is real, not a hallucination, and [[KilledOffForReal won't be undone:]]
--->[[spoiler:Signora... is slain.]]
* WhamShot:
** The end of Prologue: Act II. After the heroes plot their next course of action, the next scene shows [[spoiler:the Traveler's sibling with some Abyss Order mooks behind them. It's then revealed that the sibling is leading the Order]].
** As you try to get in touch with the informant during Sumeru Archon Quest, you are greeted by a mob of people who think you are a returning great hero. Then a well-dressed man that Nahida recognizes walks closer, explaining that he's mind-controlled them. [[spoiler:Il Dottore, Second of the Eleven Fatui Harbingers, has entered the building.]]
* WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer: Pretty much any time a quest requires you to track down someone or something, they/it will turn out to have some sort of elemental signature so you can use Elemental Sight to guide you. In some cases, like bounty hunts, it's not clear what element you're supposedly detecting.
* WhoWantsToLiveForever: Having immortality in Genshin isn't exactly a good thing. On top of outliving companions who either have shorter lifespans, immortals in Genshin are invariably afflicted with erosion of the soul, which wears away at their sense of self as time goes by. Those that do not lose their lives in combat often gradually lose their hearts and minds to the ravages of time, and may eventually succumb as Azhdaha did and betray all they once stood for.
* WillOTheWisp: "Mysterious Seelie" are small beings that look like floating blue orbs. Following them to their final destination (called "Seelie Courts") rewards you with hidden loot.
* WindmillScenery: Mondstadt has four large windmills, befitting a place that's known as the city of wind.
* WingdingEyes: The picture of Paimon being fished from drowning in the opening section has her with swirls for eyes.
* WolfpackBoss: The Clear Pool and Mountain Cavern domain pits you against 3 Abyss Mages from each element. At this point you must have killed them by the dozens in the overworld... but rarely will you face three at once, with all different elements. It's recommended to stay far away from their spawn and pull them using an Archer character, as fighting all 3 at once can get... [[ThatOneAttack interesting.]]
* TheWorfEffect: Raiden Shogun's immense power is first demonstrated in her HopelessBossFight, but to really make you terrified of her, she [[spoiler: mercilessly obliterates Signora, the prime Fatui antagonist up to that point, after Signora loses a duel to the Traveler, of which the penalty was death.]]
* WorldTree: As mentioned in the item description of Ley Line Sprouts, there is a great tree whose roots spread out to every corner of the world. This tree is named Irminsul, and it contains the collective knowledge and memories of the people of Teyvat. The power of [[GreenThumb Dendro]] is closely tied to wisdom because of the wealth of information that is retained by Irminsul.
* WorldOfTechnicolorHair: In the world of Teyvat, multiple characters sport many different unnatural hair colours across the color spectrum like red (Diluc), pink (Miko), green (Sucrose and Baizhu), blue (Chongyun and Ayaka) and purple (Raiden Shogun), which are not commented on as unusual in-universe.
* WouldHitAGirl: No matter what gender your Traveler/your party members are, enemy [=NPCs=] ''will'' attack you. Not to mention that you'll have to fight plenty of female enemies, including Cicin Mages, Mirror Maidens, [[spoiler: La Signora, and even ''the Raiden Shogun herself'']].
* {{Wutai}}: The game has one in Liyue, which is themed around old Chinese towns. There's also Inazuma, inspired by old Japan, where Kamisato Ayaka hails from.
* {{Wuxia}}: Not surprisingly, [[ShowWithinAShow some stories originating from Liyue]] are all about this. Teyvat being what it is, there's ''wuxia'' elements that are completely real - and parodied as well, like the Guhua martial arts clan that currently consists of two martial artists in the Huaguang stone forest. ''Yes, a Wuxia ClubStub.''
* YellowEarthGreenEarth: The element of Geo is coloured in goldenrod, and its ElementalNation is the FantasyCounterpartCulture of China.
* YouAllLookFamiliar: Generic [=NPCs=] usually have reused models. This is best exemplified during the StealthBasedMission of Prologue Act 2, where all of the knights look the same.
* YouAreAlreadyDead: Can happen when the player's ping is high. The player can attack enemies and seemingly do no damage until the game reconnects to the server and registers all the hits made while lagging, potentially doing so much damage that the enemies appear to die instantly. Enemies can do this to the player too.
* YouMeanXMas:
** The "Lantern Rite" festival is an annual celebration event in Liyue that takes place every first full moon of the year, i.e basically Chinese New Year. What Liyueans actually celebrate in Lantern Rite is the passing of old adepti, [[DueToTheDead to pay respects to their deeds for Liyue]]. Just like in the real world, they release sky lanterns with wishes written on them as part of the festival.
** The "Weinlesefest" is a festival in Mondstadt focused around wine, effectively making it the setting's equivalent to Oktoberfest.
[[/folder]]

* GenshinImpact/TropesSToZ

* ObviousRulePatch: Unlike other items with a cooldown timer between uses, all stamina restoration and revival food items will have their countdown halted if gameplay is paused (ie. opening you inventory or other menus). This is done so that you cannot cheese stamina-intensive tasks such as gliding[=/=]swimming[=/=]climbing very long distances without penalty, or attempt to revive multiple party members when near defeat.
* OddCouple: The two playable characters who work at Wangsheng Funeral Parlor both use polearms and gain extra damage from increasing their max HP, but in every other respect are polar opposites. Zhongli is [[spoiler:[[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld (very much)]]]] older, male, always [[TheStoic serious and logical]], and has defensive combat skills. Hu Tao is young, female, playful and [[TheGadfly prank-prone]], and fights offensively to the point of [[CastFromHitPoints harming herself]]. Unsurprisingly, comments in their character profiles indicate they don't get along very well.
* OneTimeDungeon: Usually for the story-related quests, there are several Domains or dungeons that can only be cleared once.
* OnlySixFaces: Playable characters are all based on one of five body types: adult/teen/child female, and adult/teen male (there are no male child characters yet; [[NonIndicativeName Childe is an adult]]). Characters in the same group have similar 3D models and movement animations--Diona, Klee, and Qiqi all do AirplaneArms while running and teeter when stopping, for example--but (usually) have unique attack animations, and their exact body proportions vary. In the beta versions of the game, Klee had a unique walking animation in which she would confidently stride forward, but was scrapped and replaced with the standard walk animation of her body type in the released game, suggesting that this was mostly done to standardize animations across the characters.
* OminousFloatingCastle:
** Celestia, the "abode of the gods", which can be seen in the sky from pretty much anywhere on Teyvat. It is said to be a place of the gods and heroes of noteworthy legend, where they will "become one in the world" at the end of their life story after they're invited into it.
** Above Liyue Harbor, there's one called the "Jade Chamber", owned by one of the playable characters, Ningguang. Liyue people often talk about it, spreading rumors such as how the palace's "magic" allows Ningguang to acquire all the information she needs, and how her "paper snow" falling from there may somehow help merchants and other business people get an edge in their business. You eventually get to visit it during Archon Quest Chapter 1 Act 3. [[spoiler:In the climax battle against the sea god Osial, it's revealed that she fits her palace with replicas of Guizhong Ballista (a weapon made by the adepti) that the adepti can use to fight back Osial. In the end, after Osial wrecks the ballistae, Ningguang decides to slam down her entire chamber with the Traveler's help to bring Osial down again.]]
%%* OminousLatinChanting:
%%** Signora's boss battle theme is full of it.
%%** Azhdaha's boss battle theme has Ominous ''Chinese'' Chanting for a change.
* OptionalStealth: While the objective for the Daily Comission "A Gentlemen Strikes in Broad Daylight" is to steal supplies without being seen, it can also be completed by instead beating all the enemies up and taking the supplies afterwards. The enemies don't drop anything from being defeated, though, disincentivizing you from doing so.
* OrwellianRetcon:
** There are several item names and FlavorText that were changed in later updates, such as the "Eclipse Dynasty" mentioned in the backstories (as seen on the "Breeze Amidst the Forest" book) being renamed "Blacksun Dynasty" from Version 1.1 onwards, the "Seelie Gardens" being renamed to "Seelie Courts", or "Prototype Aminus" changed to "Prototype Archaic" on Version 1.2, etc.
** Some of the achievement names used to be [[ShoutOut references]] to other media (such as ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventure'', ''VideoGame/Fallout3'' and Music/EarthWindAndFire), but were renamed on Version 1.1.
** Some dialogue lines were also rewritten in subsequent updates. For example, the Oceanid's line when the boss battle starts went from "So, murderers from our homeland have come on a futile journey to harass the people of the Qingce waters..." (Version 1.0 to 1.2) to "An assassin from our homeland? Or a foolish trespasser upon these waters?" (Version 1.3) to "An assassin from our homeland? Or a fool who trespasses upon the waters of Qingce?" (Version 1.4).
* OurDemonsAreDifferent: In Teyvat, 'demons' refer to the lingering resentment and hatred of dead gods. They don't seem to take physical form, instead possessing living creatures and causing abnormal mutations in the flora and fauna. In the backstory of the game, the Five Yakshas were tasked by the Geo Archon to fight against demons.
* OurWormholesAreDifferent: There's a small wormhole floating in the sky at the edge of Cape Oath in Mondstadt. It provides a fast travel method for reaching the Musk Reef and gaining access to the Spiral Abyss. Another one appears above Jinren Island in Inazuma which leads to an underwater location hosting the [[CombiningMecha Perpetual Mechanical Array]].
* OutOfFocus:
** The game has a lot of playable characters, but not everyone gets to have a spotlight in the main story. Some are only relegated as minor [=NPCs=] depending on the chapter, some don't even show up in the main story just yet, and some had to wait for future updates before they receive their own character questlines. Keqing is a prime example as she's been around since the beginning of the game and yet, while she does have a minor story presence in Chapter 1, it wouldn't be until the ''Moonchase Festival'' event, a solid ''year'' after the game's release, that she would finally have ADayInTheLimelight.
** A bit of an odd example. Despite great attention being drawn to the '''7''' Elements, [[GreenThumb Dendro]] was woefully underrepresented by the game's mechanics, only interacting with one other Element (Pyro), and Baizhu (who is an NPC at the time of this writing) is the only character in the game to have a Dendro vision. It wasn't until 3.0 with the release of the Dendro nation that two more Elemental Reactions involving the Dendro element and playable Dendro characters were added to the game
** As far as the different nations go, Natlan is this compared to the others. As of Version 2.0, it's only been mentioned in-game a few times and is the only nation without any NPC characters (discounting the preview of Iansan from the Teyvat Chapter Storyline Preview video).
* OverheadInteractionIndicator: [=NPCs=] that give quests will have an exclamation point over their heads.
* OverlyGenerousTimeLimit: After clearing a dungeon, the party is given 1000 seconds before they are automatically booted out of it. However, it only takes a few minutes or seconds to collect the loot and exit the dungeon manually.
* OverlyLongName: The sword named "Harbinger of Dawn" is also identified with a longer name: "The Triumphant Harbinger of Dawn that Points Towards Victory".
* PassingTheTorch: Invoked in the 2.1 Moonchase, where multiple generations of Liyue, from Madame Ping, to Ganyu, to Ningguang, to Keqing, talk in turn about carrying on the traditions and dreams of their predecessors, including Marchosius, the now gone God of the Stove.
-->'''Narration:''' The Stove God had quietly disappeared, but vendors rose early to hock their wares. People went out to buy goods, lit their stoves, and cook food. Just as they had done every day for as long as they could remember. In Liyue, things have always been this way. Nature provides, the mountains rejoice, we are blessed by heaven's good grace ... years have gone by, the world has transformed, but our way of life survives ... Fame and fortune is only a season. It is the moment we should embrace ... Past meets present, heritage becomes legacy. Long into the future may we thrive.
* PassThroughTheRings: There are a few challenges and story quests where the player must navigate through a series of rings while gliding. One event in Version 1.1 is nothing but a series of similar gliding challenges, with extra gimmicks.
* PatchworkMap: Right between the temperate nations of Mondstadt and Liyue sits Dragonspine, a massive snowy mountain [[WeatherOfWar that slowly freezes anyone who gets to close.]] [[spoiler:It use to be more mild in the past until the Skyfrost Nail was cast down by Celestia and turned the mountain into the frozen wasteland it is today.]]
* PeninsulaOfPowerLeveling:
** Blossoms of Revelation drop [[NonCombatEXP Character EXP Materials]] upon completion.
** Multiple events may either have character EXP materials, weapon refining/ascension materials, and talent books as rewards, or purchasable in the event shop.
** The nameless island north-east of Mondstadt is a great place to farm crabs, which are otherwise a chore to collect. You can get ~18 crabs per visit to this island instead of having to scour the shorelines or buying from the merchants at ''very'' limited quantities, making recipes with crabs that much easier to create.
* PermanentlyMissableContent:
** Plenty of missable stuff in the game; chests in [[OneTimeDungeon story Domains]], weapons given away in Flagship events, [[GuestFighter Guest Fighters]] such as [[VideoGame/HorizonZeroDawn Aloy]], varying Namecard styles exclusive to those who purchased Gnostic Chorus for the Battle Pass, you name it. Once you are past the opportunity to obtain them, you're out of luck of ever getting them again.
** In theory, 3-star weapons that are only obtainable in the overworld and not from Wishes or shops (such as the Fillet Blade) can qualify as this, since they are only available in limited quantities from chests, which do not respawn. If you collected and disposed every single possible copy of these particular weapons, they're permanently unobtainable. A specific 3-star weapon, the Dark Iron Sword, is infamous for how it is only obtainable ''once''[[note]]Because of this, the weapon cannot be refined despite having the option to be refined with duplicate weapons[[/note]] via talking to a specific [=NPC=] in Liyue and cannot be found in the overworld or obtained from Wishes. If the weapon is disposed of (ie. via using it to level up other weapons), you have no way of getting the sword ever again.
* PinataEnemy:
** Weasels carry Mora bags and digging them out will cause them to drop Mora as they run away, albeit in small amounts. However, if you catch up to them and kill them, they'll drop the entire bag with hundreds of Mora.
** Though not a specific enemy, gold "ley lines" provide a large quantity of Mora after you beat a small group of enemies and spend Resin.
* PlayEveryDay: As one would expect from a mobile game developer, there are daily login bonuses (sort of, anyway, with a bi-weekly set of 7 daily rewards, plus a small amount of battle-pass EXP for logging in), random daily guild commissions with rewards both for each quest and for completing all 4, and a slowly-regenerating supply of "resin" needed to collect certain mission rewards (capped at 160, so ideally you should use it all up every day and let it [[AntiPoopSocking replenish when you're not playing]]).
* PlaylistSoundtrack: For most of the game, the soundtrack cycles through various short and ambient symphonic tracks depending on the area you're currently in, with each area having their own set playlists to match the atmosphere. Battle themes are not exempt from this either, but unlike area themes, the game will only switch between them if you're out of the action for more than 30 seconds. The only exception to this is inside Domains and during boss fights, where it'll just keep playing the same track on repeat to match the tension going on.
* PlotDetour: In the Traveler's journey to find their missing twin, they get pulled numerous times into the incidents and intricacies of the regions they visit. Lampshaded by Venti and later Dainsleif, who tell them that the journey is just as important as the destination.
* PlotDevice: In the Prologue chapters, Venti seeks the Holy Lyre der Himmel in order to call the dragon Stormterror/Dvalin and understand what's troubling him. But that's not enough as the protagonists also had to find the dragon's crystallized tears in order to purify the lyre.
* PoisonMushroom: Plenty in Sumeru. Gameplay-wise, certain mushrooms in Sumeru emit pulses when the player is nearby, dealing Dendro damage to the player and nearby enemies alike. Said mushrooms can be hit with Pyro to disable them, or hit with Electro to cause them to emit a field of ticking Dendro damage.
* PowerAtAPrice: Delusions are counterfeit Visions made by the Fatui. These could extremely amplify the bearer's power, but there's also a risk of backfiring. [[spoiler:Diluc's father Crepus had one, which also led to his death a few moments after he used it.]]
* PowerEqualsRarity:
** Higher-rarity weapons and artifacts have higher stat scaling than those of the lesser rarity.
** 5★ characters generally have slightly higher base stats than 4★ characters, but this can be subverted or zig-zagged depending on bigger factors such as the artifacts or weapons appropriate to the character's playstyle. And because of the gacha mechanics and the significance of the Constellation system, the Constellations of 5★ characters are harder to upgrade, so a 4★ character with fully-upgraded Constellations can pretty much catch-up.
* PracticalCurrency: One of the loading screen texts mentions Mora as the catalyst for doing many things. This basically explains how enhancing your weapons and artifacts cost Mora, for one.
* PremiumCurrency: The game has multiple tiers of premium currencies:
** The most common are the Primogems, which are your main currency for investing in the game's gacha mechanics. While they can be earned in-game by completing quests and daily commissions, solving puzzles, opening treasure chests, obtaining achievements, participating in limited-time events, etc., you can also buy them with real money with various {{Microtransactions}}, and like with many gacha games, you get more that way.
** Next are the Genesis Crystals, which are purely premium and can only be bought with real money. They can be converted into Primogems via Crystal exchange or they can be used to buy alternate character costumes from Version 1.6 onward.
** Finally, there are the Fates, which are the primary currency for Wish banners. These can be bought with Primogems or earned through other means like character ascension rewards, and there are two types of Fates: the Acquaint Fates (which go to the permanent standard banner), and the Intertwined Fates (which go to the limited event character and weapon banners).
* PrayerPose: Viewing a character's Artifacts screen makes them close their eyes and pose in this manner.
* PressurePlate: Some puzzles are solved by standing on magical pressure plates. But unlike most examples of the trope, they don't activate instantly -- a character (or occasionally, summoned object) needs to remain on top of the plates for a few seconds.
* ProductPlacement: There was a cross-promotion with UsefulNotes/KentuckyFriedChicken. KFC restaurants in China had specially-branded products for the game, and the "Wings of Feasting" [[CosmeticAward Wind Glider]], and three special recipes for Golden Chucken Burgers, Fragrant Mashed Potatoes, and Golden Fried Chicken were added in-game. The items were brought to the global versions in the "Outland Gastronomy" login bonus sans KFC promotion.
* ProlongedPrologue: The game's "Prologue" spans three quest chains with the last one requiring you to be at at least Adventure Rank 18 to access. It can take you anywhere from 15-30 hours to get to Chapter 1.
* PromotedToPlayable: Many of the post-launch playable characters started off as [=NPCs=] before they got added into the Wish gacha as the game receives updates.
* ProtectionMission:
** Some Daily Commission Quests or Spiral Abyss Floors require you to defend a Ley Line Monolith from small waves of enemies.
** In the battle against [[spoiler:Osial]], you are tasked to protect [[spoiler:the Guizhong Ballistae from the Fatui]].
* ProudScholarRace: In the early parts of the game, from the few mentions of Sumeru, to the few appearance of Sumeru people, it's implied that Sumeru is a nation of scholars and researchers.
* PunBasedTitle: If they're not [[ShoutOut references to pop-culture]], some of the achievements' names are made up of puns or wordplays. For example, being defeated by a wild boar earns you the "Boared to death" hidden achievement, while finishing Glory's quest five times earns you "For the Love of Godwin".
* AQuestGiverIsYou:
** Depending on your Adventure Rank, Expeditions allow you to dispatch up to five characters to various locations, and they'll return after a period of time with some resources.
** The "Vishaps and Where To Find Them" and "Spectral Secrets" events use an expanded version of the Expedition system. You can send teams of up to four characters out to four locations, and they'll return after some time with Primogems. Each location also has a bonus reward, and the odds of getting it depend on the levels and elements of the team you're dispatching.
* RandomDrop:
** It's all up to chance to determine what enemies drop when they are killed. Downplayed in that certain enemies always drop specific items; the random part comes in whether you get the lower or higher rarity kind. Higher leveled enemies have higher chances to drop rarer kinds of materials.
** Clearing Spiral Abyss stages rewards Domain Reliquaries, consumable items that function like treasure chests but randomly give out Artifacts when opened.
** Originally, clearing Domains that drop talent-enhancing materials or weapon ascension materials on Sunday lets you get all kinds of the respective materials at random (In other days, specific materials are available to drop on specific days). Averted in Version 1.2 onwards where the Sunday domains now have selections of predetermined rewards you can choose from before you start the domain, rather than being completely random.
** The drops you can get from bosses, aside from the character ascension materials, are random artifacts. Domains that drop artifacts also drop them at random, with the higher level version increasing the chance of dropping the rarer kinds.
* RandomEvent: Occasionally while exploring, you’ll encounter random events that can be cleared for a reward. These are heralded by a popup [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin literally announcing a "Random Event,"]] along with its name. Usually, these events involve defeating a horde of monsters.
* RandomNumberGod:
** Aside from the [[LootBoxes gacha]] and [[RandomDrop item drop]] mechanics, there are several layers of RNG when it comes to Artifacts. Flowers of Life and Plumes of Death are guaranteed to have, respectively, Max HP and Attack as their main stat, but the other three types--Sands of Eon, Goblets of Eonothem, and Circlets of Logos--have randomized main stats[[note]]All three can boost either Max HP/Attack/Defense percentages or Elemental Mastery, in addition to each set having other exclusive boosts: for Sands of Eon, Energy Recharge percentage; for Goblets of Eonothem, Physical/[Elemental] Damage Bonus percentages; and for Circlets of Logos, Critical Rate/Damage or Healing Bonus percentages[[/note]]. In addition, for Artifacts 2★ and above, the number of starting substats are random[[note]]0-1 for 2★, 1-2 for 3★, 2-3 for 4★, and 3-4 for 5★[[/note]], and every four levels either a new sub-stat is added or an existing one is upgraded.
** The four Commissions you get every day are randomly chosen from a pool of commissions. Some of them are required for specific unlockables, such as a few Achievements tied to Commissions, one recipe (Crab, Ham and Veggie Bake), and even one World Quest (unlocked after you finish a commission from Viktor in Mondstadt). Later the game implements a feature where you can limit the range of Commissions to any one region.
* RealPlaceBackground: miHoYo used several real-life locations when designing the in-game world, most notably the Liyue region. As they mentioned in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfUSO0DlAwc this documentary video]], Jueyun Karst is inspired by the Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, while Mt. Tiangheng was inspired by Tianmen Mountain. [[https://theaxo.com/2020/genshin-impact-real-world-locations/ These]] [[https://www.shine.cn/news/in-focus/2101173334/ articles]] also mention more details, such as the in-game Luhua Pool being based off the Jade Pool located in Songpan county.
* RecurringElement: So far, each region features an adult, female Vision user of the same element as the resident Archon who holds a major position of power and becomes a prominent ally in the main story for that region:
** Mondstadt has Jean, Acting Grand Master of the Knights of Favonius.
** Liyue has Ningguang, Tianquan of the Liyue Qixing.
** Inazuma has Miko, Guuji of the Grand Narukami Shrine.
* RedBaron:
** Playable characters, bosses and story-relevant major [=NPCs=] have at least one title that they are alternatively known for. Usually, it has something to do with their professions and abilities, but others simply have [[TheMagnificent an adjective attached to their names]]. The Geo Archon turns this up to eleven since he [[IHaveManyNames has a lot of titles]].
** Certain weapons also have alternate titles according to their lore. The Prototype Rancour was dubbed "destroyer of rocks" after the first of its kind was accidentally dropped on the ground, yet it bore a twelve-inch hole into the mountain rock.
* RedSkyTakeWarning: The skies burned red when [[GreatOffscreenWar Dvalin fought the shadow dragon Durin]], as if it was the end of days for Mondstadt.
* ReducedManaCost: In a variant, some of the available cooked food can reduce the stamina consumption of certain actions.
* RelationshipValues: Each character has a Friendship level that can be increased by accumulating Companionship EXP, which you get by finishing world boss battles, quests and domains together with said character in a team. The friendship level will unlock their character story entries and voice-overs, and once their level hits 10 (the LevelCap), you also get [[CosmeticAward unique profile card backgrounds]].
* ReligiousAndMythologicalThemeNaming:
** Paimon, Morax (a.k.a. Rex Lapis), Barbatos, Baal and Decarabian are named after demons from ''Literature/ArsGoetia''.
** The various elemental gems used to Ascend characters are named after various [[Myth/HinduMythology Hindu gods]].
** From Myth/NorseMythology, Dainsleif takes his name from the [[StockWeaponNames cursed sword of King Högni]], while the dragons Dvalin and Durin are named after dwarves.
** There are also terms and concepts taken from UsefulNotes/{{Gnosticism}}, such as the seven Archons (the servants of the Demiurge) and Gnosis (knowledge of the divine).
** [[spoiler:Tartaglia's real name is Ajax, the famed Trojan hero in Myth/ClassicalMythology and warrior of courage from Homer's ''Literature/TheIliad''. His little brother is also named Teucer, the half-brother of Ajax in classical mythology.]]
** Geri and Freki are sibling [=NPCs=] who are named after Odin's two wolves.
* RememberTheNewGuy: The game in general tries to avert this by adding scattered fluff dialogue referencing upcoming playable characters before they're properly added in; but at times, completely new playable characters will be added to existing factions and organizations with no prior foreshadowing. The most noticeable is Eula, a Captain of the Knights of Favonius who, despite the Knights appearing prominently, never appeared or was even mentioned in the other Knights' profiles prior to her appearance in Version 1.5.
* RemilitarizedZone: Both Kannazuka Island and Yashiori Island in Inazuma have become a war zone between the Shogunate Army and the Sangonomiya Resistance, [[MeleeATrois with ronin pirates, Hilichurls, Treasure Hoarders, the Fatui, and the Abyss Order being caught in the mix]]. The area is littered with scattered weapons, destroyed outposts and capsized ships as far as the eye can see, and it's mentioned that the citizens who once lived on these islands has since evacuated from the ensuing chaos.
* ReptilianConspiracy: [[spoiler:In the Three Realms Gateway Offering event, Enjou claims that the defeated Vishaps evolved to resemble humans and have taken over governmental positions. Kokomi later denies that. There is even a loading screen that refers to ''Reptilians'' by name.]]
* ReusedCharacterDesign: Several of the characters are effectively recycled from Honkai Impact. Examples include Venti (effectively a GenderFlip of Wendy), Yae Miko (based on Yae Sakura) and the Raiden Shogun (based on Raiden Mei)
* TheReveal: There are several:
** By the end of Prologue Act 2, we learn that [[spoiler:the Abyss Order is being led by the other Traveler, and they're also behind Stormterror's corruption]].
** By the end of Chapter 1 Act 3, we learn that [[spoiler:the friendly and helpful Childe, who repeatedly maintained that [[NotAlwaysEvil not all of the Fatui is that bad]] was manipulating the player to get Morax's Gnosis all along, and that in turn he was being manipulated by Morax himself (secretly Zhongli) and his colleague Signora to cause as much chaos as possible as part of Zhongli's contract with the Fatui. Neither [[ButtMonkey Childe or the Traveler]] were amused.]]
** By the end of Chapter 1 Act 4, we learn that [[spoiler:500 years had actually passed since the Traveler faced the Unknown God and lost their sibling, and that the monsters of the Abyss Order were all [[WasOnceAMan once human]].]]
* RewardsPass: Battle Passes are available after Adventure Rank 20 and give rewards for completing BP Period missions and collecting enough BP EXP. The Sojourner's Battle Pass is available for free to everyone, while the Gnostic Hymn is a paid option that unlocks a second tier of rewards.
* RewatchBonus: The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAlKhARUcoY Teyvat Chapter Storyline Preview]] released well before the game launched features a quote for each chapter that hints at the plot and whose meaning only becomes apparent after that chapter is complete (the Prologue and the meaning of freedom if demanded by a god, Chapter 1 and a contract to end all contracts).
* RidiculouslyCuteCritter:
** The Mini Seelie from the "Lost Riches" event--mainly the one you can buy after completing it, which takes the cute-amorphous-blob from the event and adds on squeaky baby noises and airborne frolicking.
** The Aranara are a race of mystical plantlike spirits who reside in the secluded Mahavanaranapna in Sumeru, and are only visible to young children or adventurers who have received the blessing of Dendro. They are characterized by their very short height, simple and rotund body shape, a cute leafy hat as well as facial features which look like a child doodled them on. They also have a youthful singing voice, a cutesy sound to their footsteps and are overall pleasant little creatures to be around who only wish for the well-being of the Traveler and the rainforest.
* RouteBoss: Certain Weekly Bosses (bosses who can only be fought once per week for Talent ascension materials) only become accessible after fighting them in specific Story Quests. As of version 3.1, three such bosses are Lupus Boreas (Razor's Story Quest), Azhdaha (Zhongli's second Story Quest), and [[spoiler:Magatsu Mitake Narukami no Mikoto]] (Raiden Shogun's second Story Quest).
* RuleOfSeven: There are 7 elements in the game, 7 major nations, and 7 Archons that watch over them and correspond to the elements. Various pieces of lore imply that the concept of the Seven was established after the end of Archon War, where the winning 7 gods become the Seven Archons.
* RuleOfThree: Brought up by name by Ruu during the questline on Tsurumi Island as justification for why the Traveler has to collect three feathers at three different trees on the island.
* RunningGag: The Traveler has an option to refer to Paimon as "emergency food," which sticks throughout the story. In the web series, the following conversation occurs:
-->'''Paimon:''' The waiter said that no outside ingredients are allowed.\\
'''Childe:''' Oh really? Then how did you get in here?
* SceneryAsYouGo:
** The title screen uses this trick to visualize the loading time. As the game connects to the server, the platforms start forming in front. When that process is done, a door appears at the end of the platforms, allowing you to tap the screen and log in.
** In some Temples' platforming sections, the floating blocks in the background slowly form a bridge as you try to take a step forward in what appears to be a chasm.
* SceneryGorn: [[spoiler:The Land of Grounded Dreams, deep underneath the remains of Old Vanarana in the Fane of Ashvattha in Sumeru.]] Everything is withered, diseased, and decayed here with ominous purple tendrils of miasma floating through the air and gnarled arches soaring overhead give the impression of {{Mordor}} in the form of a {{Polluted Wasteland}}, as if an {{Unholy Nuke}} had gone off leaving the area [[EvilTaintedThePlace cursed]].
* SceneryPorn: As an "open world fantasy" game, this is the game's main selling point; not long after you start your journey, you're treated to a shot of Mondstadt from far away as you're standing on a plateau surrounded by hills. Version 1.1 has "viewpoints" that you can find where the scenery is especially good.
* SchizoTech: Teyvat is mainly a MedievalEuropeanFantasy setting with swords and sorcery alike, but then you get robots like the Ruin Guards roaming the ruins, and it's said they're LostTechnology from an ancient civilization that fell eons ago. Played even straighter with the Fatui Skirmishers, who are {{Super Soldier}}s equipped with advanced weaponry capable of [[ClarkesThirdLaw replicating Vision powers]], implying that their homeland, Snezhnaya, is [[TomorrowLand technologically leagues ahead of every nation on the continent]]. The land of Fontaine is also implied to be technologically advanced, being the creators of the Kamera and even having a proper film industry.
* SchizophrenicDifficulty: The enemy waves when salvaging the meteorite shards in the "Unreconciled Stars" event is randomized. Which means that the encounter can range from simple (hordes of Hilichurls or Slimes) to moderately challenging (hordes of Treasure Hoarders whose resistance to stagger and hard hitting kicks can easily kick you off the arena) to very dangerous (two Fatui elites who can kill you in seconds). And there's no way to find out the enemy waves until you start the encounter. Thankfully, the waves will be the same at each location so you can always retreat and prepare to challenge them later at no cost.
* SchmuckBait:
** A cluster of three flowers almost always means that [[ChestMonster grabbing one of them might spawn an]] [[PlantMooks angry Whopperflower]]. Even after knowing the hints that distinguish them from ordinary flowers, [[KleptomaniacHero it's hard to resist taking them anyway]]. Once you have a good enough team, you'll likely start doing this on purpose to get Whopperflower Nectar.
** The first time new players (from Version 1.2 onwards) are likely to enter Dragonspine is from the researcher camp southeast of Springvale. Across the broken bridge, to the right of the path, is a treasure chest guarded by Treasure Hoarders, who are not too difficult to deal with. But then immediately after them is a camp with another treasure chest... full of [[EliteMooks Fatui Skirmishers]], and considering this would be the first time players encounter them since Fatui enemies are not very common in Mondstadt, they'll find out the hard way that the Skirmishers' are much tougher to take down because of their elemental shields, which requires knowing their weaknesses and mastering the game's elemental combat system to even stand a chance against them.
* {{Scienceville}}: The nation of Sumeru prides itself with knowledge and research as a valuable resource per the values of their Archon; the God of Wisdom. Nearly every citizen is required by the Akademiya to wear Akasha Terminals which are {{Magitek}} devices that allow people to access info on the fly anytime they need it, essentially being a magic equivalent to the internet, but it comes with the tradeoff of adults being unable to dream in order to rationalize their thoughts. However, there are limits to what the Akasha Terminals can provide because certain knowledge is strictly controlled by the Akademiya and cannot be accessed by the public, such as information pertaining to their own god; Lesser Lord Kusanali, [[spoiler:which is really because the Akademiya is trying to {{Unperson}} their god for seeing her unfit to succeed the late Greater Lord Rukkhadevata]].
* ScunthorpeProblem: Co-op chat is ''particularly'' overzealous in censoring words, due to the heavy censorship laws in China. This gets especially ridiculous when seemingly innocent words in English, such as "nerd" or "home", get picked up by the chat filter, making text communication a bit of a hassle.
* SeaSinkhole: In the western area of the Inazuma archipelago lies Watatsumi Island, which is a large and colorful sinkhole whose people are descendants of an ancient underground civilization who were brought to the surface by their serpent god, Orobashi no Mikoto.
* SequenceBreaking: Fetch quests expect the player to fetch items somewhere else, and then return to the quest giver. However, it's possible to skip the entire fetching part if the player has already collected the required items beforehand, either by randomly looting in the open world, or by using a guide. When this happens, the quest's objective is updated as soon as it is received.
* SetBonus:
** A step up over [[VideoGame/HonkaiImpact3rd Stigmata]], while Artifacts usually have random main and sub stats, they can confer bonuses if you equip two of a given set, with greater bonuses if four. Each character only has one slot for each of the five types (Flowers of Life, Plumes of Death, Sands of Eon, Goblets of Eonothem, and Circlets of Logos), so they can have (at most) a pair of 2-piece sets, or a 4-piece set and zero 2-piece sets (or a 1-piece set artifact, if you have them). As of v3.0, there are 42 sets.
** The Lithic Series of weapons does this with the party members themselves. The Lithic Series (currently only composed of the Lithic Spear and Lithic Blade) has a passive called Lithic Axiom - Unity, boosting both the wielder's ATK and CRIT Rate for every party member hailing from Liyue. At max refinement and with all four party slots filled by Liyue natives, this grants a 44% ATK boost and 28% CRIT Rate boost.
* ShaggyDogStory: To convince Qiqi to sell you some incense (without the required prescription), you and Zhongli have to repair an ancient siege weapon, fight off a bunch of treasure-hunting bad guys, and ultimately track down a mythical creature called a "Cocogoat". You never get anywhere on that last part and report back to her, only to learn that she [[CloudCuckoolander thought coconut milk came from a "coco-goat."]] No such creature actually exists.
* ShamuFu: The Luxurious Sea-Lord introduced in Version 2.1 is a large fish that claymore wielders use as a bludgeon. If you can get over the idea of seeing your characters bash in your enemies' heads with a fish, then the Luxurious Sea-Lord offers solid stat boosts and extra damage.
* ShootTheMageFirst:
** Samachurls are often prime targets whenever they're spotted among Hilichurl camps, as their elemental magic can either hinder you and leave you open to the other monsters' attacks, or support their brethren to make fighting them harder.
** If you spot Anemoboxer Vanguards among the Fatui Skirmishers, go at them first; they act as support by defending other troopers from your attacks, and they can [[YouWillNotEvadeMe suck you to its range]] for a powerful punch.
* ShootTheMedicFirst: Fatui Hydrogunner Legionnaires, and, to a lesser extent, Hydro Samachurls are also best taken out first among their groups, as they can heal their fellows with their water, making it harder to defeat anything until the Hydro wielder is gone.
* ShopFodder:
** Sigils are region-specific currencies that can be obtained by opening chests or upgrading the Statues of the Seven. They can be traded for items at the region's Souvenir Shop, but since there's a lot of Sigils in the open world map, the excess end up being traded for Mora after you've bought all the other items. In Inazuma, Sigils are instead offered to the Sacred Sakura in the way Crimson Agates are offered to the Frostbearing Tree in Dragonspine.
** The Dull Ring is obtained near the end of the "Nine Pillars of Peace" world quest and the [[InvokedTrope player is required to sell it]] to either Bolai or Linlang for a hefty sum of Mora. Bolai buys it at a lesser price than Linlang, but he also gives 5 Adeptus' Temptation to compensate.
* ShoutOut: [[ShoutOut/GenshinImpact Has its own page.]]
* ShoutOutThemeNaming: As listed further in the Shout Out tab, some groups of [=NPCs=] are collectively named after specific pop culture references, such as [[Literature/TheThreeMusketeers Athos/Porthos/Aramis]] and [[Music/SimonAndGarfunkel Parsley/Sage/Rosemary]]. Mona and Lisa are an unusual case, having no relation beside their witch theming but collectively referencing the famous painting by Creator/LeonardoDaVinci.
* SillySpook:
** Dusky Ming is a child ghost who initially plays around the kitchen of the Wangshu Inn. A main story quest focuses on chasing and calming her down so that the chef can work peacefully. As a last-ditch effort, [[HauntedTechnology she tries to possess a Ruin Hunter]] just before the Traveler and Paimon cornered her in the wild.
** The little ghost that hangs around Hu Tao. It [[LethalChef 'helps']] Hu Tao in cooking, it loves to prank and gets pranked by Hu Tao, and [[GrievousHarmWithABody it's used as a bludgeon]] in her Burst.
* SituationalSword:
** Some weapons may deal additional damage if certain conditions are met, such as striking the Lion's Roar sword against enemies affected by Pyro or Electro.
** There are also weapons with conditional passive stat boosts. For example, the Sword of Descension further increases ATK by 66 only if it's equipped by the Traveler, while the Harbinger of Dawn increases CRIT Rate if the wielder's HP is above 90%.
* SmallNameBigEgo: By the present day, the Lawrence clan of aristocrats that once tyrannized Mondstadt has been reduced to complete irrelevance. This doesn't stop them from still believing they're entitled to respect.
* SnakeOilSalesman: A man in Springvale named [[SmallNameBigEgo "Hopkins the Marvelous"]] sells bottles of cure-all holy water, which is "indistinguishable from normal water" and has a hidden effect of restoring merely 1 HP per second. If you come by at night, you can catch him collecting plain old spring water to sell the next day.
* SocializationBonus:
** You can call on other players for co-op, which can make tackling bosses and domains easier.
** Local specialties required for character ascension can also be obtained from other players' worlds. This is the only way to get around the limited spawns and 48-hour respawn timer of local specialties.
** In the "Five Flushes of Fortune" event, you use a strange Kamera to take snapshots of things and creatures in the wild; the resulting photos will come in one of 5 odd colors randomly. You can only take 10 photos each day. An NPC will ask you to get one of each color of the photo and he'll give you a prize box in return; you can get up to 8 boxes from him. Where this trope comes in is in how you can trade colored photos with your friends in your friendlist for faster completion.
** In the "Vishaps and Where To Find Them" and "Spectral Secrets" events, you can add a character from your friends onto your dispatch team, increasing the chances that you'll get the bonus reward.
** The Serenitea Pot system allows players to visit their friends' Teapot to buy their traveling merchant's items or speed up their constructions.
** In the "Energy Amplifier Initiation" event, you can have your friends' characters provide a boost to your Motive Force, which lets you equip more ability-granting Irminsul Fruit Fragments to your Energy Amplifier.
* SoftWater: Players falling into water deep enough to swim in take no FallDamage no matter how high they fall from.
* SortingAlgorithmOfThreateningGeography:
** The first area you visit, Mondstadt, is an idyllic GreenHillZone where the threats are Hilichurls, Slimes and the odd Abyss Mages. The next zone is Liyue, with plenty of rocky mountains and cliffs requiring a lot of climbing, thus risking running out of stamina and falling to your death, and [[EliteMooks Fatui squads]] roam the countryside. The third zone is Inazuma, where there are constant thunderstorms and radiation fallout-like Balethunder area, and [[BossInMookClothing Kairagis]] infest the area. The 7th nation that's yet to be visited (also set to be the ''last'' nation visited), Snezhnaya, is implied to be even worse, where winter never ends and you can literally freeze to death simply by standing around.
** {{Subverted}} with the temporary event location of the Golden Apple Archipelago. Despite being released between Liyue and Inazuma, the islands themselves are mostly easy-going, there's only one boss monster, and the main focus is on puzzle solving and uncovering the mystery of the islands. {{Justified}}, however, since [[spoiler:the whole place was set up by Klee's mother Alice so her daughter could have a fun summer.]]
* SpamAttack: The Sacrificial Series of weapons, comprising every weapon type except Polearms, has a chance to immediately end the cooldown of Elemental Skills after use. At max refinement it has an 80% chance to trigger every 16 seconds.
* SpellBook: The catalyst users may use spellbooks as an option for their weapon.
* SpinAttack: Some claymore users have this as their ChargedAttack. They will keep spinning and hitting enemies around them until the stamina gauge runs out.
* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''VideoGame/HonkaiImpact3rd'', despite that game still being in service alongside ''Genshin''.
** Specifically, ''Genshin'' uses many of the same basic action-RPG combat systems that exist in ''[=HI3=]'', and takes a lot of fairly obvious cues from the experiments in "open world" exploration and combat that ''[=HI3=]'' implemented in various events and updates, and is an expansion on those systems in directions that ''[=HI3=]'' simply wasn't designed, and isn't entirely built, to go in. Never mind someone who looks and acts a damn lot like ''Herrscher of the Void'' showing up in the intro...
** It's also a successor in another way: [[https://www.pocketgamer.biz/asia/interview/68023/the-making-of-mihoyos-honkai-impact-3rd/ Forrest Wei Liu, miHoYo's co-founder, actually would've liked]] for ''[=HI3=]'' to be more international from the start, but it simply wasn't possible early on (especially given the original state ''[=HI3=]'' launched in China and miHoYo's capabilities in 2016). ''Genshin'' is that vision brought to life: an ''[=HI3=]''-like game, released internationally in multiple dubbed languages from the very start, [[MultiPlatform available on enough devices]] that various international markets will find it easy to get the game on their preferred device (such as mobile for China and Southeast Asia, console (and especially UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch) for Japan, multi-platform cross-play for North America, PC for Europe, and so on) and designed for somewhat broader appeal and to be a bit less [[GainaxEnding esoteric]] than ''[=HI3=]'' can be at times.
* SpringySpores: Sumeru introduces Bouncy Mushrooms. Regular ones in the overworld can be charged with Electro for an even greater height boost. There's even a Sumeru commission that involves bouncing on special Bouncy Mushrooms five times consecutively without touching the ground.
* SprintMeter: There's a yellow gauge that appears and is depleted whenever the playable characters sprint, swim, climb, perform a ChargedAttack (except for the bow users), or glide in the air. The gauge can refill by itself, but there exist consumables that can refill (at least some of) the gauge instantly. There are also consumables that [[ReducedManaCost reduce the cost of stamina for certain actions]] for some hundred seconds.
* SquishyWizard: Catalyst-users, being de facto mages hits hard but also takes hits hard. Averted by Ningguang however due to her Geo element and defensive skills while downplayed by Barbara due to her heals and higher health.
** Among enemy mages, it's played straight by Samachurls but averted by anything else because of their shields and even without them, would take time to bring down due to high health.
* StandardJapaneseFantasySetting: The game took some influence from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' plus most of the contents of this trope, including a protagonist who is TrappedInAnotherWorld, characters with common anime stereotypes, enemies like [[BlobMonster Slimes]] and [[OurGoblinsAreDifferent Hilichurls]], and an IWillFindYou main plot that will lead the protagonist Traveler across the world of Teyvat looking for the [[PhysicalGod Seven Archons]]. It's very "Japanese Fantasy Setting" but it was made by Chinese company Creator/MiHoYo, the creators of ''VideoGame/HonkaiImpact3rd''.
* StarterEquipment: The gameplay starts with a Dull Blade equipped.
* StartingANewLife: In Liyue Harbor, there's a [=NPC=] named Atsuko who made a daring escape from Inazuma's Bakufu forces on a raft in stormy waters, capsizing in the process and being rescued by Liyue locals. After making it ashore, she desires to travel the world on boat, which she notes is a luxury that not many Inazuma people can experience ever since their Shogun closed their borders.
* StatSticks: Weapons increase your character's ATK and thus increase the damage on all of a character's abilities, but are only shown to be actively used in a character's normal and charged attack animations. This creates a Stat Sticks effect for a character's Elemental Skill and Burst, which is especially noticeable for characters who don't bother using their normal or charged attacks (which is a sizeable chunk of characters in the game). If the weapon has a secondary stat or passive that is more useful for a character than its ATK boost, it also applies, like with Albedo, whose primary offensive ability scales off of his DEF and thus prefers the low-ATK CRIT rate-boosting Harbinger of Dawn or his event-exclusive DEF-boosting Cinnabar Spindle over anything with high ATK.
* StatusEffects: Some elemental reactions inflict these, such as Frozen (temporarily freezes the target) and Burning (deals Pyro damage over time).
* StealthBasedMission:
** Breaking into the church at night to steal the Holy Lyre der Himmel during Act 2 of the Prologue involves evading the patrolling knights who are guarding it.
** Sneaking past the city guards during the first Act in Liyue after Rex Lapis has been declared dead. Not long after that, however, you're found out in a cutscene, and the city guards chase you before you're saved by Childe.
** In one of the scenarios in Diona's Hangout Event, you get the option to either sneak into the Hilichurl tribe at Dadaupa Gorge quietly or go in battle-ready. If you choose the former option, you'll enter a stealth section where you'll have to sneak past the Hilichurls guarding the area. Getting spotted once will send you back to the start, and getting caught a total of three times will cause the Hangout Event to fail.
* StealthPun: There are two playable characters with a witch theme, and their names are Mona and Lisa.
* SticksToTheBack: After drawing out their weapon, it floats behind the character while they are moving but not attacking. Lampshaded by one Traveler's Profile conversation with Paimon, in which she asks the Traveler how they're able to do this. The Traveler's reply? It [[HandWaving comes completely naturally and inexplicably like Paimon's flight.]]
* StoneWall: The Geo element as a whole. Its elemental reaction, Crystallize, creates shields that grant resistance to corresponding elemental damage, and many of their skills revolve around shaping terrain to ward off enemies. Geo shields are also much tougher to destroy, requiring Overload (Pyro + Electro) instead of simply blasting it with any singular element it reacts to. However, Crystallize is one of two reactions (the other being Frozen) that can never deal damage.
* StoryBreadcrumbs:
** Additional lore can be read from the FlavorText of weapons, artifacts, consumable items and quest items (especially books). There are also those that would play a video when interacted, such as the "Wind, Courage and Wings".
** Character Story entries provide additional text-based lore for the characters which can be unlocked by increasing their [[RelationshipValues Friendship Levels]]. The "Voice-over" part also lets you peek into their characteristics through their quotes. Aside from the Talent info, the characters' ability descriptions also provide more backstories, although bit by bit.
** The loading screen may randomly mention additional lore and backstories aside from providing [[HintSystem gameplay tips]].
** Random quests will sometimes reveal major details of the setting. For example, investigating a camp at Lingju Pass will lead to rescuing an NPC named Alrani, who later gives another quest that ends with the reveal of the Vision Hunt Decree ongoing in Inazuma.
* SuddenlySignificantCity: In the distant past, the Old Mondstadt was ruled by Decarabian, with his capital city being located in the Brightcrown Canyon (which is then renamed into Stormterror's Lair). When Decarabian was dethroned, Barbatos took his place as the Anemo Archon, and he established New Mondstadt with a capital city located on the island of Cider Lake.
* SuicidalOverconfidence: All enemies in the overworld will attack you as soon as you're detected, and won't let up until they're either dead or outside of their aggro range. While the Hilichurls are the most common enemies you'll encounter, the kings of this trope within the game are probably the Treasure Hoarders, who come at you with the confidence of a [[EliteMooks Fatui Skirmisher]] even though you're a [[TheChosenMany Vision-bearer]] and they're mostly armed with farm implements and other improvised weapons ([[BareFistedMonk if at all.]])
* SummonToHand: Characters don't normally wield their weapons until you press the attack button, after which they'll appear on their hands. When they stop attacking, their weapon will teleport to, and then [[SticksToTheBack float, behind their backs]].
* SuperCuteSuperpowers: The TokenMiniMoe characters tend to use their Visions in this fashion, with Klee's Pyro-infused bombs looking like [[CartoonCreature Cartoon Creatures]], Diona's ''Icy Paws'' Skill taking the shape of several [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin cat paws made of ice]], and Sayu summoning a "Muji-Muji Daruma" (basically a giant stuffed mujina doll) with her Burst. Qiqi is so far the only exception, which makes sense [[UndeadChild given what she is]].
* SuperDrowningSkills: Zigzagged. Your characters can swim as long as you have stamina, but the moment that stamina reaches zero, you ''will'' drown even if you're in 50 cm-deep water (this depends on the characters' height). For most enemies, this is played straight--they die instantly in water too deep to stand in--although it's generally difficult to get larger ones to fall into a deep enough body of water.
* SuperMovePortraitAttack: When 5-star characters--and Barbara--initiate an [[LimitBreak Elemental Burst]], you get a small cutscene zooming in on the character’s face as they unleash their attack while their elemental color flashes in the background.
* SupportPartyMember: While the game does not explicitly designate any playable character with certain roles, some characters are good for supporting based on their abilities:
** Characters who have either elemental skills or bursts whose effects linger on the field can help your main attacker perform elemental reactions.
** Then there are characters who have direct supportive capabilities; they either heal others, buff their damage output, put up a shield, gather enemies, etc. These characters can overlap with the category above.
* SuspiciouslyCrackedWall: There are walls that look like several boulders piled together, hinting that they can be broken with a weapon or explosion, and there's something on the other side (usually a treasure chest). With Elemental Sight, they glow white.
* SwordLines: Whenever a melee weapon is swung, there's a yellow trail that comes from the blade. Some characters can enhance their attacks using their elemental Visions, which also create color-coded sword trails.

[[folder:H to N]]
* HardLight: Due to the massive scale of ''Genshin Impact'', the topic of hard light is best broken down by the noting the different ways the principal nations of Teyvat (and their special regions) use it.
** Mondstadt: Hard light isn't particularly common in the {{Green Hill Zone}} nation of Mondstadt, but it is curiously found in the dilapidated ruins that make up the lair of [[DiscOneFinalBoss Stormterror]].
** Liyue: Hard light is used in the Domains of the [[OurGodsAreDifferent Adepti]] to bridge floating islands, and can be activated or deactivated by switches scattered throughout that control the rotation of these floating islands allowing the Traveler to navigate the Domains and accomplish the challenges set forth by the various Adepti.
** Enkanomiya: Hard light forms barriers called the Shield-Lights of Tokoyo, which are dispelled or formed when the Traveler alters the underground realm's [[EndlessDaytime day]] and [[TheNightThatNeverEnds night]] cycle using the [[ThePowerOfTheSun Dainichi Mikoshi]]. Hard light also forms bridges between the islands which make up the [[spoiler:haunted]] {{Advanced Ancient Acropolis}} located far underneath Inazuma's Watatsumi Island.
** Sumeru: In Sumeru's far western desert region, there is a vast underground network linking various [[AncientEgypt temples and pyramids]] that date back to the reign of the ancient King Deshret (aka [[IHaveManyNames The Scarlet King or Al-Ahmar]]), a rival god of wisdom who [[spoiler:once collaborated with]] the previous [[GreenThumb Dendro Archon]] to [[spoiler:save Sumeru (and possibly all of Teyvat) from an outbreak of {{The Corruption}} brought on by unlocking the secrets of [[ThereAreThingsManWasnotMeantToKnow forbidden Divine Knowledge]].]] Throughout King Deshret's ruins there exist numerous hard light structures forming mazes, with floors and walls forming as the Traveler walks up to them, along with massive obelisks and plinths activated by glowing spiky {{Power Source}} orbs (made of hard light, naturally) that are set alight with {{Tron Lines}} thanks to King Deshret's {{Sufficiently Advanced Bamboo Technology}}.
** Celestia: The very beginning of the game has the twins [[PlayerCharacter Aether and Lumine]] flying through a {{Fluffy Cloud Heaven}} when they're ambushed and detained by the [[LightIsNotGood Unknown God]], who uses [[RedAndBlackAndEvilAllOver red and black hard light cubes]] to detain the duo and [[AndYourLittleDogToo kidnap the chosen Traveler's sibling]] kick-starting the whole adventure as a {{Roaring Rampage of Rescue}}.
* HardModePerks: The more difficult the content is, the better the rewards are given out. This is more straightforward in the Domains as shown in their drop tables. As your World Level increases, enemies and Ley Line Blossoms in the open world drop rarer materials and more money for upgrading your characters even further. This also allows your newly-acquired characters to catch up faster through ascensions.
* HailfirePeaks: Sumeru is home to both [[JungleJapes lush tropical jungles]] and [[ShiftingSandLand arid deserts]].
* HarmlessFreezing: A consequence of getting hit by a cold-magic attack (Cryo) while inflicted with the Wet effect (either from water, rain, or Hydro attacks); you can break out unscathed by [[SmashingSurvival mashing a button]], or slightly-scathed by getting hit with a smashing attack. In one sidequest, you accidentally [[HumanPopsicle thaw out a man who was frozen 300 years ago]], and is none the worse for wear.
* HealItWithWater: The Hydro element is commonly associated with healing.
** From the playable characters, Barbara and Kokomi are Hydro-elemental whose skillset primarily focuses on healing the team. Xingqiu is an offensive support who can also heal on the side.
** Among the [[UndergroundMonkey elemental variants of certain enemy types]], the Hydro Samachurls and Hydro Gunner Legionnaires can [[CombatMedic heal their allies while also having offensive moves]]. They are usually prime targets [[ShootTheMedicFirst that are taken out first]] during a fight.
** The Hydro Mimic Boars spawned by the Oceanid have RegeneratingHealth thanks to the constant rain in the arena. The other world bosses are not water-themed and cannot restore health.
** The Hydro Hypostasis world boss main gimmick is healing itself mid-battle, and you have to interrupt it.
** {{Zig Zagg|ing Trope}}ed by Hydro's Elemental Resonance. Up until 3.0, having at least two Hydro characters on your team increased all healing effects by 30%. Now it buffs max HP instead, which also has an effect on healing as healing is typically based on a character's max HP, but [[CombatMedic it also buffs some character's damage]], makes many character's [[BarrierWarrior shields]] stronger, and obviously makes characters more tanky.
* HealerSignsOnEarly: Zig-Zagged. The first available [=F2P=] healer is Noelle, whose Breastplate skill has a 50% chance of healing, but only if you do the Beginners' Wish gacha (you're given some "Acquaint Fates" freely before the Wish is unlocked), which becomes available after clearing the first act of the Prologue and at Adventure Rank 5. The next available and first fully dedicated [=F2P=] healer is Barbara, who was given out for free on Version 1.0 after reaching Adventure Rank 20 (approximately near the end of, or after completing the Prologue chapter), which can take about 30 hours. Players who signed in from Version 1.1 onwards need to take longer and complete the whole prologue chapter to acquire her.
* HealingCheckpoint: Statues of the Seven can restore your party's HP, though it's limited by a slowly-replenishing health reserve.
* HenotheisticSociety: The Archons are seven minor deities that ascended to the status of Gods collectively known as "[[StockGods The Seven]]" of Teyvat. In this world, there are seven nations that are patronized for every Archon that also [[ElementalEmbodiment represents one of the seven elements]] in this world. Until now, three of the seven nations have been visited (Mondstadt, Liyue and Inazuma) are patronized by the [[BlowYouAway Anemo]] Archon Barbatos, [[DishingOutDirt Geo]] Archon Morax, and [[ShockAndAwe Electro]] Archon [[spoiler:[[BodyDouble Beelzebul]]]] [[spoiler:(all of which are {{playable character}}s as Venti, Zhongli, and Raiden Shogun)]] respectively.
** Archons aren't the only gods as there are gods who didn't get the title or role as Archon, although most of them are now dead. Some of the dead gods are still worshiped in the present day such as Havria by some people in Liyue, Orobaxi in Watatsumi Island, and [[spoiler:Rukkhadevata, Kusanali's predecessor as Dendro Archon, in Sumeru]].
* HiddenElfVillage: Vanarana, on the northern reaches of eastern Sumeru, is home to the Anarana, a race of diminutive, plant-like beings who largely retreated from the waking world following the Calamity five hundred years ago, and now largely appear in the dreams of Teyvatians, with only a handful still roaming the outside world.
* HijackedByGanon: PlayedWith in Chapter 2. [[spoiler: Beelzebul serves as the primary antagonist throughout the whole chapter, but it revealed that [[NebulousEvilOrganization the Fatui]] manipulated her into enacting the Vision Hunt Decree, in collusion with corrupt elements within the Tri-Commission, so that they could exploit the conflict to manufacture and sell Delusions.]]
* HintSystem: Aside from providing lore, FlavorText and backstories, the loading screens may occasionally show gameplay tips as well.
* HistoryRepeats: A subtle but recurring theme in the game is current events mirroring those of the past. For example:
** The nation of Khaenri'ah lashed out against the gods long ago and was razed to the ground for it. 500 years later, the nation of Snezhnaya, lead by the Fatui under the Tsaritsa, is similarly gathering strength so they can launch their own rebellion against Celestia.
** Ei's Story Quests reveal that [[spoiler: her sister Makoto was actually the first Electro Archon and ruler of Inazuma, while Ei stuck to the shadows and fought various conflicts on her behalf, with only a few people knowing the Raiden Shogun had a twin. By the end of her second Story Quest, Ei has come to better understand her sister's view of Transience and how that relates to Eternity, and has become more directly involved in ruling Inazuma, while the Raiden Shogun puppet has become Ei's shadow, even directly stating how she will play the role for Ei that Ei once played for Makoto, with only a handful of people knowing of the puppet's existence.]]
** A more minor example, but during the Perilous Trail questline of the second Interlude, the characters present (Yelan, Yanfei, Itto, and Shinobu) serve as counterparts to the four fallen Yakshas (Bonanus, Indarius, Menogias, and Bosacius, respectively) thanks to their Visions. And if the Traveler as Anemo equipped, then they serve as a counterpart to Xiao, while the Geo Traveler becomes one to Morax, the King of Geo the Yakshas answer directly to, furthering the parallels. Fittingly enough, Itto and Yelan nearly come to blows at the start of the quest, similar to how their Yakshas counterparts died fighting each other.
* HitTheGroundHarder: Jumped off a cliff and into free fall? Just use your Plunge Attack! Downplayed in that you'll still take up to 40% damage from the really high drops, but it's still better than taking fatal fall damage. Taken to extremes with Xiao, who takes ''no'' damage from plunging attacks whatsoever.
* HomingProjectile: Quite a handful of attacks behave as such. However, they their lose their tracking effect if the target is too far away.
** On the player's side, some projectile-based catalyst users[[note]]Ningguang, Yanfei, Kokomi[[/note]] have their attacks seek the enemy.
** For the enemies, Ruin Guards can shoot a volley of six projectiles aimed at the player after marking them with a crosshair.
** Triggering Hyperbloom[[note]]Hitting a Dendro Core (made by Hydro and Dendro) with Electro[[/note]] generates a homing projectile that deals Dendro damage on hit.
* HongKongDub: Happens quite frequently in the English voiceovers; sometimes you hear voices that go for much longer than the mouth flaps move in cutscenes.
* HotBlooded: One thing common among the users of Pyro Visions is that they tend to be passionate in one way or another. Diluc may seem to be an exception with his cold demeanor, but the manga shows that back when he was younger, he too was a spirited and passionate young knight.
* HumanPopsicle: In Xianling's first story quest, a hunter named Olaf is found shivering in cold after being attacked by a Cryo Regisvine. He turned out to had been frozen for 300 years, and is Draff's ancestor.
* HumbleHero: The playable Traveler is usually given the option to be in dialogue. This also extends to the first four Archons to become relevant. Barbatos and Rex Lapis are benevolent and hide among their citizenry unknown with secret identities, while Baal[[note]][[spoiler:[[AngstySurvivingTwin actually Beelzebul]]]][[/note]] and the Tsaritsa are antagonists who are the rulers of their nations with their Archon identities fully public.
* HumongousMecha: In Sumeru, there is a wreck of a truly colossal Ruin Guard (estimated to be ~300 meters tall) half-buried in the Devantaka Mountain. It gives a hint to the [[spoiler:enormous technological power of Khaenri'ah at their peak, and the sheer scale of the war they waged against Celestia.]]
* HyperactiveMetabolism: Scavenged food and cooked dishes can provide buffs, revives, and health. Your characters can eat anything instantly--even if they're currently dead and need to eat it to resurrect--but there ''is'' a limit to how many meals they can consume in a short span of time (and there's an additional cooldown limit for stamina-replenishing and reviving foods), forcing you to use healing skills in some circumstances.
%%* ''VideoGame/GenshinImpact'': Played with. Tartaglia is noted for being the odd one out among his fellow Fatui Harbingers as the rest are fully content to put innocent lives at risk and manipulate things behind the scenes to serve their interests, while he loves confronting people head-on without tricks and, [[spoiler:is reluctant to endanger all of Liyue]]. However, although Tartaglia is against plotting and scheming, he actually has fewer inhibitions than the other Harbingers as he will fight anyone any time, and is entirely willing to [[AxeCrazy commit atrocities for the thrill of it]].
* IdleAnimation: Characters will have these when they are just standing still for a while.
* IdleGame:
** Expeditions allow you to send a character away for up to 20 real-time hours to [[ResourceGatheringMission retrieve some items]], especially crystal chunks (a relatively rare item needed in large quantities to craft weapons and high-level enhancement ore). Certain characters have passive skills that can cut the time needed for expeditions depending on the region by some percentage. Originally, characters who are sent in the expeditions couldn't be put in the party, but Version 1.1 removed this limitation.
** The Serenitea Pot has a setup similar to an incremental game. Realm Currency is gotten at a fixed rate per hour, which can then be spent to get blueprints for furniture, or items to speed up furniture creation. Each piece of furniture put down then increases the rate of getting Realm Currency, and each new piece of furniture made increases your Trust Rank, which then lets you store more Realm Currency at a time and make more furniture at once. Near the end of Trust Rank progression, you unlock the option to exchange Realm Currency for goods useful outside the Serenita Pot like Mora and EXP Materials.
* IJustWantToBeNormal: Some of the actual Vision holders don't put their Visions in high regard. Lisa fears the possible truth behind the Vision's power, Keqing outright hates being given a Vision, and Jiangxue (an NPC near Wangshu Inn) swears to not use his Vision anymore after a disaster in the past, among other cases.
* IJustWantToBeSpecial: From the words of some [=NPCs=] to the various texts written by people, normal people wish they can get a Vision, either to raise their position in life or to help them with their work.
* IKnowWhatYouFear: In "Perilous Trail", while searching for Xiao, the Traveler and company encounter a door that can read their innermost fears whenever one of them activates the switch to open it, putting that person's fears on full display for others to see. Itto fears the FantasticRacism that he endured as an Oni in the past, Shinobu fears confronting her mother over abandoning her future prospect of becoming a {{Miko}}, Yanfei fears a domestic dispute between clients because it's one of the few cases she has difficulty dealing with, and the Traveler fears [[spoiler:the Abyss because they know it was what corrupted their sibling to join the Abyss Order]]. Yelan, [[HeKnowsTooMuch knowing that the door could expose confidential information about the Liyue Qixing if she opens it]], refuses to participate for this reason and gives a veiled death threat to everyone that she'll have no choice but to kill them if they find out via the door.
* IllegalReligion: In Sumeru the worship of Lesser Lord Kusanali is actively suppressed by the Akademiya due to her being seen as a SketchySuccessor to Greater Lord Rukkhadevata. Most notably the Sabzeruz Festival, a celebration of Kusanali's birthday, is declared prohibited. [[spoiler:For her part, Nahida is willing to accept the Akademiya taking charge of the nation but their schemes in attempting to trapping the populace of Sumeru City in a LotusEaterMachine caused her to try and take steps to stop them]].
* ImmortalApathy: The Raiden Shogun's ideal is eternity. She has a difficult time understanding why the ambitions of mortals are valuable, partly because she sees them as minor in the grand scheme of things, but also because she is afraid of change. This is why she enacts the Vision Hunt Decree. [[spoiler: Being defeated by mortals and getting to see for herself what the world is like in the present changes her mind, as she realizes mortal wishes are more meaningful than she thought.]]
* ImprobablyFemaleCast:
** Downplayed--though a far cry from the 99% female casts of most gacha games, the playable options still lean in this direction, with about two-thirds being female as of Version 1.5 (21 girls and 11 boys, not counting the selectable-gender protagonist). Playables are essentially anyone who has a Vision [[spoiler:or is an Archon]], so there's no in-universe explanation for this. No male catalyst users have been added and none of the male playable characters are children, while there are 3 female characters that are that age physically.
** Played straighter as of 2.0 onwards. In 1.0-1.6 a slim majority of 5-star promotional characters were male, with 6 male characters vs. 4 female characters, meaning that men made up a significant chunk of the advertising. Out of the 8 playable characters that were revealed to be a part of Inazuma's Archon Quest on July 9th, 2021, 2 are male.
** Of the Seven Archons, only two are male, rather than a slightly more even 4-3 gender split.
* ImprovisedWeapon: The description of the Fillet Blade sword hints that it's actually just a sharp long-bladed knife used to make fish fillets.
* InexplicableTreasureChests: Found all over the place, sitting out in the open or only manifesting after completing some sort of challenge. Some also have a magic shield, and [[KillEnemiesToOpen can only be opened after killing the monsters]] guarding them. Special shielded shrines house chests with particularly rare items, requiring a key from a raid-type mission to get inside. Who sets up all these chests is anyone's guess.
* InexplicablyIdenticalIndividuals: Katheryne, the woman who welcomes you to the Adventure Guilds, appears in every single region. Each "Katheryne" is supposedly a different person, much to the Traveler and Paimon’s (and the player’s) confusion. The one in Inazuma tells you that she actually uses teleport points to move between different cities, but it turns out she’s just joking… maybe.
* InfinityMinusOneSword: 4-star weapons are generally not as strong as 5-star weapons, but they are perfectly usable, drastically easier to obtain, and in many cases are preferred over 5-star weapons on certain characters. Among 4-star weapons, "The Catch" is especially notable for being an Infinity Minus One Sword, as it is particularly disproportionately powerful for how easy it is to obtain; you don't have to go through the RNG of [[LootBoxes Wishes]] to obtain and refine it at all, you just need to fish a lot, and it is much stronger comparatively than forgable weapons.
* InfinityPlusOneSword: Most every 5-star weapon is this. Unfortunately, they tend to cost a ''lot'' of Primogems to obtain, as much as or sometimes even more than the playable characters which are the main draw of the game, so players not interested in min-maxing a few characters they ''really'' like often make do with 4-star weapons.
* InformedEquipment: Artifacts don't show up on a character's person when you have them equipped.
* InGameNovel: The library in the Knights' headquarters contains a number of stories told throughout several volumes. Other books can be collected throughout the world as well. Many don't have anything to do with the plot and are just there for lore and entertainment purposes.
* InstrumentOfMurder:
** The Flute is a sword with holes on its handle and blade, giving it the ability to produce flute-like sounds when wielded by those with skill. Sadly, the sword [[SubvertedTrope lost its ability]] to "sing" when it was buried and unearthed. Similarly, The Bell claymore and The Stringless bow used to be musical instruments as well.
** Xinyan's skill whacks nearby enemies with a guitar (pulled from {{Hammerspace}} since her normal weapon is a claymore).
* AnInteriorDesignerIsYou: Version 1.5 added the Serenitea Pot, a PocketDimension that acts as housing to the player character. Essentially a step up version of ''[=HI3's=]'' Dorms, not only does the Serenitea Pot have a rather expansive mansion that can be decorated with many craftable furniture, but also an outdoors area that can be furnished with buildings, allowing players to, over time, effectively craft themselves a personalized village to walk around in.
* InternalReveal: As of Chapter I, Act IV: The Traveler now knows [[spoiler: that their twin is leading the Abyss Order]].
* InUniverseGameClock: There's a day-and-night cycle that's determined by an in-game clock separate from the server clock. It affects how certain quests can only be accessed during their specified time ranges (For example, a StealthBasedMission in Prologue Act 2 is only available during nighttime).
* InvisibleWall: In a sort of an overlap between this trope and BorderPatrol, if you approach the unreleased regions of the map, your vision darkens and gains a threatening red tint; if you keep going anyway, Paimon forces you to turn around, saying only "Let's explore the area in front of us later." {{Lampshaded}} in Venti's story quest where the Traveler finds out that Timmie's "imaginary friend" is a Ruin Guard of all things and you can urge Paimon to "say her favourite line", after which you turn away.
* InvulnerableAttack: Characters with lengthy and cinematic elemental burst animations (such as Diluc) can take advantage of their burst's invincibility frames since they don't take damage, aren't knocked back by enemy attacks, and are immune to elemental reactions during the entire animation sequence.
* ItAlwaysRainsAtFunerals: In the comic, there was a torrential rain shortly after [[spoiler:Diluc's father, Crepus Ragnvindr died]].
* ItemCrafting: There are four systems related to this trope; Forging (creating weapon enhancement materials and 4★ weapons), [[CookingMechanics Cooking]] (making dishes), Alchemy (creating potions and other character progression materials), and Processing (creating Cooking ingredients from raw materials).
* ItemFarming: [[ItemCrafting Crafting weapons]] (especially high-level ones), ascending characters and weapons, and leveling the characters' skills will require you to have certain materials; many of them are either looted in the wild, taken from enemies, or acquired as prizes from domains (dungeons). In particular, the game suggests certain places have abundance of certain materials, if you check the materials' description, so that you know where to look. Expeditions also allow for passive item farming to obtain common ores and ingredients to cut down on exploration diversions for meals and forging.
* ItsAllUpstairsFromHere: Stormterror's Lair. A main story quest in Prologue Act 3 requires you to skirt around the barrier and climb up the ruins in order to reach the objective on the highest floor.
* ItWillNeverCatchOn: A running gag during the "Shadows Amidst Snowstorms" event is Paimon asking Alchemists if they could make a gadget that could turn fruits into juice (IE, a juicer), only to be told that such a thing is either ridiculous or beyond their capabilities.
* IWillFindYou: At the start of the game, the player character is separated from their sibling, and the principal story arc through the game's prologue and all of chapter one is to find them. [[spoiler: The end of chapter one has them finally finding their sibling, only to discover that they '''don't''' want to be reunited (yet), and are working with (and possibly leading) the antagonistic Abyss faction. The story arc then changes from finding their sibling to understanding their motives.]]
* JackBauerInterrogationTechnique: In both of their character quests, Lisa and Diluc use their elemental abilities to interrogate some Abyss Mages after fighting them. The poor enemies usually have their butts zapped or burned until they give up. In Diluc's case, the Traveler also participates by convincing Diluc to use his powers even more.
* JigglePhysics: The game's physics engine is very robust, as seen in how well hair, capes, coats, etc. flow with the player's movements. Naturally, this also applies to the more well-endowed female characters [[{{Gainaxing}} exactly how you'd expect;]] running, jumping, and even simply turning around or idling causes their breasts to noticeably shake.
* KarmicButtMonkey: Childe is tasked with [[spoiler:stealing Rex Lapis' gnosis]]. To accomplish this, [[spoiler:he deceives the Traveler to lead him to it, but when that doesn't pan out, he summons [[EldritchAbomination Osial]] to threaten Liyue and draw Rex Lapis out]]. Outside of that, he's an AxeCrazy BloodKnight with a massive bodycount. He's later not pleased to find out [[spoiler:La Signora and [[GodInHumanForm Zhongli]] had already negotiated for the gnosis and Childe was only an unwitting pawn used to test Liyue, who was was never meant to succeed]]. On top of that, [[spoiler:due to unleashing Osial, [[ZeroPercentApprovalRating his reputation in Liyue is ruined]]]].
* KillEnemiesToOpen:
** There are treasure chests surrounded by seals and can only be opened after the nearby enemies are defeated.
** Inside dungeons or Temples, the doors may only open if the surrounding enemies are killed. They may also require killing such enemies in a certain manner (as part of a tutorial), or using a specific character to deal with them (such as sniping enemies out of platforms).
* KleptomaniacHero: Following the open-world RPG tradition, you can steal crops, ore, and other supplies right in front of people, and they never bat an eye. Some sidequests end in you claiming a treasure that clearly belongs to someone else; sometimes the owner tells you to take it, but not always.
* LagCancel:
** Elemental Skills can be immediately chained during combos, a useful animation cancelling trick for those with long recovery animations, such as the final hit of Diluc's normal attack combo being cancelled into Searing Onslaught.
** Pressing the Sprint button can skip recovery animations if timed properly. Offensively, this allows you to reset combos manually. Defensively, this can come in handy when you want to avoid getting stun-locked by certain enemies like the Pyro Whopperflowers.
** It's possible to skip attack animations entirely by jumping or moving, allowing you to execute or spam attacks faster than usual. For example, [[https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin_Impact/comments/jeqay0/klees_attack_speed_animation_cancel/ this Redditor]] [[https://imgur.com/a/X4w6cXT demonstrates both]] cancelling techniques using Klee. The recovery animations of Plunge Attacks can also be cancelled by jumping as soon as you hit the ground, although this trick is more noticeable on Xiao because he can spam them during his [[SuperMode Elemental Burst]].
** For bow users, quickly entering then exiting Aim Mode cancels animations and resets combos. Unlike the sprint cancel method, this is faster and doesn't consume stamina, as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBHLs4P6NcQ demonstrated in this video using Fischl]].
* LandOfOneCity: [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]]. The Nations shown so far only have one ''major'' city each. However, they also have smaller settlments or villages in their respective region, such as Springvale in Mondstadt, Qingce Village in Liyue, Ritou and Bourou Village in Inazuma, and Ghandarva Ville and Port Ormos in Sumeru.
* LeaningOnTheFourthWall:
** During Venti's story quest, when you discover that Little Timmie's "imaginary friend" is a ''ruin guard'', Paimon is terrified, so the Traveler tells her to say her "favorite line" about "exploring the area ahead of us later." (What she says when you get too close to the [[InvisibleWall unreleased parts of Teyvat]].)
** Zhongli's story quest ends with him saying that he wishes to find better ways to preserve Liyue's history, and for that, he sees the Traveler as his solution; as he/she is a traveler of worlds, Zhongli wishes that they can bring his old stories with them wherever they go. It reflects how the player themselves may have memorized or recorded the stories of the game and talk about it in other places.
** A NPC handing out a daily commission from the huge tree outside Mondstadt is a researcher who laments that she lacks a Vision, something that almost all the playable characters have.
-->"It's like only those with a Vision are the main characters in this world."
* LegendaryWeapon: The {{flavor text}} given to some equippable weapons hint that they've played significant roles in the backstories of their previous wielders. For example:
** The Black Sword was once wielded by a knight who fought for justice, but he was driven mad by the killings, causing him to don an iron mask, while the bloodstains turned his armor and the sword black.
** The Flute was used by a sword-wielding dancer who fought bravely even when she was enslaved as a gladiator. As her sword is described to sing with the radiance of the moon's light, she was dubbed the "[[RedBaron Dawnlight Swordswoman]]".
** It's heavily hinted in the Aquila Favonia's [[FlavorText descriptions]] that Vennessa is the weapon's original wielder, and it was used when she overthrew the aristocracy in Mondstadt.
* LemonyNarrator: Genshin's food descriptions are usually [[FoodPorn Food]] DescriptionPorn, but suspicious foods are chock-full of these.
-->'''Suspicious Steak:''' Its color is a little bleak, almost as if it feels sorry for itself for being a sorry excuse for a steak.\\
'''Suspicious Onigiri:''' It just about has a triangle shape, but is so loose that it threatens to disintegrate should you pick it up. Yes, disintegrate - like the expectations of your prospective guests.
* LevelCap:
** The levels of characters, weapons, and artifacts are capped at certain thresholds, preventing further EXP acquisition. For characters and weapons, the base level cap is 20, which can be raised through Ascensions up until the hard cap of level 90 (the first Ascension raises the cap to 40, the second onwards by increments of 10); in addition, characters unlock Passive Talents for their first and fourth Ascensions, weapons change in appearance on the second. Meanwhile, those of artifacts are fixed based on their rarity (1★ and 2★ are capped at 4, 3★ at 12, 4★ at 16, and 5★ at 20).
** Adventure Ranks are capped at certain ranks until you finish Adventure Rank ascension quests, in which you're tasked to finish a domain. As going up to certain adventure ranks will also raise the world level and the enemies' strength, this cap is helpful in order to prepare your characters before entering a higher world level.
* LevelScaling: Each time you increase your World Level, the enemies you find will be higher-leveled than before as well. The tradeoff is that they will drop better loot when you defeat them.
* LeyLine: In this game, "ley lines" are formed from a network of a certain ancient plant that grows virtually everywhere beneath the soil. They imbue elemental energy to strange plant phenomena such as the Mist Flowers, Whopperflowers, and the monstrous Regisvines.
* LighterAndSofter: Compared to ''VideoGame/HonkaiImpact3rd'', [=miHoYo=]'s previous work. While ''Honkai Impact 3rd'' is a ScienceFantasy game with a bleak tone and complex storytelling, ''Genshin Impact'' is a HighFantasy game with bright tone and easy to understand storytelling.
* LimitBreak: "Elemental Bursts" are the characters' ultimate attacks that can only be used after accumulating enough Energy.
* LimitedLoadout: Characters can only equip one of each Artifact type (Flower of Life, Plume of Death, Sands of Eon, Goblet of Eonothem, Circlet of Logos). There's also only 1 active skill/spell plus a LimitBreak.
* LiterallyShatteredLives: It's very subtle, but defeating enemies while they're frozen solid from a Hydro-Cryo combo will cause them to shatter into pieces. Even the Treasure Hoarders (who usually SmokeOut of battle once their HP is depleted) are not immune from this.
* LivingMemory: [[OurGhostsAreDifferent Ghosts are this.]] They spring up along the path of Ley Line Disorders, which are disruptions in the roots of the WorldTree that contains the collective memories of the people of Teyvat, and therefore are technically memories themselves. At least one such ghost is aware of this and claims that this is a DistinctionWithoutADifference, and they should know given that they were a {{Youkai}} in life.
* LivingWeapon: Played with the Luxurious Sea-Lord, which is [[JokeWeapon a giant mackerel]]. The weapon's lore is from its perspective, saying that it was the strongest being in the sea before taking after jellyfish by [[SealedBadassInACan learning to stop its own heart]], and hopes to be able to fight its wielder when the world ends.
* LoadsAndLoadsOfSidequests: There's quite a lot of stuff to do outside of the main story quests, most of which provide Adventure Rank EXP.
** Looking out for [[CollectionSidequest collectibles]] such as treasure chests, Mysterious Seelie, gathering enough oculi to upgrade the Statues of the Seven, etc...
** Character Story quests are also lengthy since they are essentially chains of consecutive quests grouped together.
** There are a few dozen World Quests per region, and the game adds a few ones each update.
** The AchievementSystem rewards you with Primogems for every completed task.
** There are 4 Guild Commission Quests that [[PlayEveryDay refresh everyday]].
** Ley Line Blossoms and Domains don't go away, the former kind spawn elsewhere again after you just completed them. However, Resin is needed to claim their rewards.
** The Adventurer Handbook has an Experience tab that provides significant rewards for completing tasks that are related to your overall progression. Other than that, there are also tabs that keep track of Commissions, Domains and Bosses. Just like Ley Line Blossoms, most minor bosses in the open world map respawn elsewhere even if you recently defeated one.
** There are {{Random Event}}s that occasionally pop up while you're exploring in the open world.
** The Spiral Abyss is [[BonusDungeon a special Domain]] consisting of 12 floors with 3 chambers each. Every chamber also has 3 challenges that reward Abyssal Stars. The first 8 floors are one-time challenges, while the 9th floor onward will be reset after new updates, allowing players to get their rewards again.
** The events may come with quests of their own. In particular, the Lantern Rite event has "Lantern Rite Tales" where you help many characters in Liyue with their problems during the Lantern Rite festival.
* LogicalWeakness: Though the game downplays ElementalRockPaperScissors thanks to Elemental Reaction mechanic, expect [[MakingASplash Hydro]] to extinguish [[PlayingWithFire Pyro]], and Pyro to melt [[AnIcePerson Cryo]].
* LootBoxes: The game has a gacha system called "Wish", available after completing first few quests. Using it requires some rare currency. It also comes with a [[AntiFrustrationFeatures Pity mechanic]] wherein a high-rarity character or weapon will be available after a certain amount of pulls if you didn't get any high-rarity item in the previous pulls.
* LordBritishPostulate: The world of Teyvat is unfinished, and trying to leave the intended playable area causes Paimon to [[BorderPatrol forcibly turn you around]]. Naturally, since the forbidden zones contain templates for future regions (and sometimes plants that you can't normally reach), players have tried various methods to circumvent Paimon, with varying levels of success. One early glitch allowed you to plunge-attack sideways, making it possible to fly some distance past the border; some people have also managed to halfway-disconnect from the server and walk through it. For self-evident reasons, the devs ''really don't like it'' when it happens, fixing any boundary-breaking glitches after being discovered and even banning accounts who abuse said glitches.
* LostTechnology:
** Technologies such as Teleport Waypoints and Ruin Machines are remnants of a lost civilization.
** The Scarlet King's desert civilisation was very technologically advanced, with their automatons being distinctly different to that of Ruin Machines and can still be found in the deserts of Sumeru.
* LuckBasedMission: Since you can't control which commissions you get each day, and many achievements require specific ones to appear, you have to rely on luck to get them done.
** When trying to accomplish the learn-all-recipes achievement, most players get stuck on the Crab, Ham and Veggie Bake thanks to its two layers of randomness. You need to get "Food Delivery" as one of your four daily commissions, and get lucky when you complete it, since the recipe is a RareRandomDrop. Even if you don't care about the achievement, this food happens to be the best revival item (the others restore only a pitiful amount of HP), and it's also required to make Sucrose's signature dish, the "Nutritious Meal (V. 593)."
** Getting the Beginner's Luck achievement requires the Diamond in the Rough commission to pop up (a small chance each day), and then you have to guess which of three stones contains some rare ore. You can cheat on this last part by maneuvering the camera so it phases into the rocks, but even this may not help you since quite often ''none'' of them contain anything valuable. If you guess wrong on your first try, or there's no correct rock available, you'll have to wait weeks or months for the commission to reappear.
** The Equivalent Exchange sidequest requires randomly getting the Tales of Winter commission, which is frustratingly rare; many high-level players who've done practically everything else in the game haven't had a chance to do this yet. Just to make it more irritating, it's [[LastLousyPoint tracked in the reputation points menu]] for world quests, ''and'' there's an achievement for doing the followup quest 3 times in slightly different ways.
** "Cliffhanger," where you need to help a storyteller get ahold of the next chapter of a story, has two achievements, one for a specific tale and the other for both parts of the other one. You can only give him one chapter each time, and which two you get to choose from is random, so it's possible for one of the three to just never show up, locking you out of one of the achievements.
** [[TalkLikeAPirate "Pirates! Argh!"]] is not only luck-based but also misleading, since all it says to do is "Play a game of pirates with Little Lulu, Little Fei, and Little Meng," a commission that sometimes pops up. The catch is there are three different versions of it, each starting with a different child; you have to do all three to get the achievement, and you can't choose which kid to talk to first.
* MageMarksman: The playable archers (like Amber, Venti or Fischl) can imbue their arrows with elemental power as their charged attack, or automatically when they enter Aim Mode.
* MagicalAccessory: Artifacts are pieces of equipment that increase your characters' stats. They come in sets and have SetBonus effects when you assemble two or four of any given set together.
* MagicalGuide: The Seelie used to be like this towards humanity, as mentioned in a loading screen:
-->Now you see them, now you don't. Once a mighty race that lived to guide mankind, now the most Seelie offer is a little treasure to willing followers.
* MagicKnight: All of the playable characters can use elemental magic, and some of them use either a sword, a [[{{BFS}} greatsword]], or [[BladeOnAStick a spear]].
* MagicSkirt: Even when in freefall, skirts and dresses will never rise past a character's waist.
* MagicStaff: A few polearms in the game, such as the Staff of Homa or the Staff of the Scarlet Sands, take on the appearance of staves and are devoid of any sharp edges (though the former has pointed tips at the top).
* TheMagnificent: Various characters, playable or minor NPC otherwise, have titles attached after their names. Sometimes, it's a description that's used prominently for them, or the title may just be mentioned in a brief conversation. For example, there's "Bennett the Unlucky", "Roald the Adventurer", "Lisa the Librarian", "Venti the Bard", "Chang the Ninth", etc...
* ManaMeter: It's called "Energy" in this game, and is needed to unleash [[LimitBreak Elemental Bursts]]. It can be replenished by collecting [[EssenceDrop elemental particles]], attacking enemies, and equipping certain weapons or artifacts. Some characters also have abilities that grant them RegeneratingMana.
* {{Manchild}}: An NPC named Childish Jiang is one, being a grown man living alone on a mountain whose parents died when he was a child. One quest involves you playing hide and seek with him.
* MarathonLevel: The "Aranyaka" World Quest chain, introduced in 3.0. What begins with saving a Forest Watcher from being attacked by fungi quickly turns into an extensive chain of quests ''exceeding'' some Archon Quests in duration.
* MarketBasedTitle: Interestingly, only the language versions that use roman-derived alphabets call the game "Genshin '''Impact'''" (and thus try for any implied connection to ''VideoGame/HonkaiImpact3rd''[[labelnote:Spoiler alert!]]During [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJaGQr8OX48 title update v4.2 trailer]], one of the writers briefly explain at the end of Chapter 17, Otto observed other worlds via the Imaginary Tree; one of his observations is Stormterror/Dvalin.[[/labelnote]]). In Chinese and Japanese, it is simply known outright as "原神" ("Yuánshén" or "Genshin", spoken language depending). The Korean version splits the difference, giving it the main title of "원신" ("Wonsin") but giving a subtitle of "Genshin Impact" in English beneath the ''hangul''.
* MassMonsterSlaughterSidequest: Ley Line Blossoms, Domains, and some Daily Commission Quests require you to kill a certain number of enemies before you can claim your rewards.
* MeaningfulName: Weapons usually have accompanying [[FlavorText lore in their descriptions]] that explain how they got their names, such as The Flute (it once produced flute-like sounds), and the Skyrider Sword (it's a {{flying weapon}} that was used by a man named Leap to soar and pierce the clouds).
* MeaningfulRename: The ringed ruin with the tall tower in the Brightcrown Canyon was previously known as the capital of Old Mondstadt, or the city of Decarabian. But ever since he was dethroned by Barbatos, that place became abandoned. It does have a history of being used as Dvalin's resting place after he battled Durin, so it got renamed into "Stormterror's Lair".
* MemorialForTheAntagonist: By the end of the Story Quest "Historia Antiqua Chapter I", [[spoiler:Zhongli offers a tribute to his fallen foe Osial (who he defeated in the Archon War millennia ago) by offering him the relics of Havria; the Goddess of Salt, at his final resting place of Guyun Stone Forest, lamenting how the era of [[DeathOfTheOldGods bygone gods]] is nothing but a distant memory]].
--> [[spoiler:'''Zhongli:''' Osial... you and I were foes... But our ancient grudge is but a bygone memory now. May that which Havria has left behind be yours to subsume. Thus another spark of divinity departs from Liyue. My legacy shall now be left for those who come after to debate]].
* MeltingPotNomenclature: The names of characters from Mondstadt are mostly Amero-European ones with Anglic or German roots, like Amber, Jean, or Barbara. But then we have "Venti" (Latin, maybe because he's [[spoiler:[[GratuitousLatin a deity, true name Barbatos]]]]), "Sucrose" (chemical name for "sugar"[[note]]Her name in Chinese version is even 砂糖/Shātáng, a decidedly Chinese name meaning "sugar"[[/note]]), and "Fischl" (though there's a lot of evidence that this is a pseudonym, and the girl herself is named Amy). For comparison, everyone from Liyue has obviously-Chinese names like Xingqiu or Chongyun. Kaeya is an OddNameOut [[spoiler:because he's from Khaenri'ah, a mysterious nation outside the seven primary ones]].
* MerchantCity: The nation of Liyue doubles as a merchant city and a PortTown. The place is well-known for its huge market activity and its local crafts. Its people, appropriately, are a ProudMerchantRace.
* {{Metroidvania}}: The Inazuma region features shades of this through its Electrograna system. Unlike previous regions where roadblocks came from story events, Adventure Rank, multiplayer-only puzzles or insufficient character strength, Inazuma features an exploration-based system of roadblocks and progress. Rather than being used as currency, Electro Sigils from chests can be offered to the Sacred Sakura to upgrade the level of the Electrograna which can let the player through the many Electro barriers and shield them from electric weather. The more basic exploration and combat one does, the more they can upgrade Electrograna, which will let them either pass through higher-level barriers or reach barriers that are further away due to the Electrograna time limit increasing. The areas reached through barriers available after upgrades will usually then allow the player to upgrade further by letting them reach more Electro Sigils and Electroculi.
* MinMaxing: It's common for players to outfit a character with weapons and artifacts that fit the character's skills and stats, particularly their inborn stat (different for each character[[note]]For example, the Traveler has ATK%, Keqing has Crit DMG%, Diluc has Crit Rate% and so on[[/note]]) and whatever stat their skills rely on; e.g. Noelle tends to be given artifacts that have DEF increase as their stats, as well as the Whiteblind claymore (which has DEF% as its extra stat) because many of her skills run on her DEF stat. In the case of artifacts, it's also common to use only the 2-piece SetBonus effects (with 2 pairs of artifacts) because they tend to be more straightforward to use than the 4-piece ones.
* MirroringFactions: The Fatui and the Abyss Order are two villainous factions that the [[PlayerCharacter Traveler]] faces in their journey across Teyvat. They differ from each other in both origins and goals to the point that [[EvilVersusEvil they oppose each other in-game and are in direct competition for control of the continent]]. The Fatui is a CorruptBureaucrat syndicate from Snezhnaya lead by the [[AnIcePerson Cryo]] [[PhysicalGod Archon]]; the Tsaritsa, whose goal is to steal every Archon's Gnosis and end their reign over Teyvat in pursuit of her delusional dream of peace, while the Abyss Order is an AntiHumanAlliance composed of monsters from the [[EldritchLocation Abyss]] and currently lead by [[spoiler:the Traveler's long lost sibling]], whose goal is to overthrow the Archons and Celestia entirely as revenge for [[spoiler:destroying their original home of Khaenri'ah]]. Despite this, both factions do overlap in many aspects, such as their desire to challenge the divine order ruling Teyvat as well as having [[WellIntentionedExtremist sympathetic motives]] behind them.
* MissingSecret: Since new locations or regions are only added on subsequent updates, the early versions of the game have areas or fields that are visible from a distance, yet are inaccessible. Oftentimes when exploring in the open world, you may come across a wide landscape on top of a mountain, or a secret exit from a cave. Trying to approach the unreleased areas will only cause Paimon to appear, [[BorderPatrol forcing you to turn around]].
* ModelMuseum: The "Living Beings" Archive lists every single enemy, boss, and non-hostile wildlife that you encounter in the game. It comes with a built-in model viewing feature that allows you to check out their models and view them in finer detail without having to engage them in the overworld, provided that you already fought the enemies or hunted (or captured) the wild animals once before.
* MoneyGrinding: Everything you need to do for empowering characters, from levelling them up to improving their gear, costs ever-increasing amounts of Mora. There's plenty of ways to get Mora, with the most direct way being opening Blossoms of Wealth with Resin.
* MoneySpider: Most enemies, whatever kind of creature they may be, drop Mora, along with a more-logical species-specific item (like damaged masks for hilichurls, and slime condensate for slimes) that has a special crafting/leveling purpose.
* MonsterArena:
** The Contending Tides and Phantom Flow events are a series of challenges that pit you against a set of enemies. Each challenge has special conditions attached, like an aura that powers up your characters or dealing bonus damage under certain conditions, and up to three objectives to complete within the time limit. There are several difficulties for each challenge, which determines the enemies' levels and how tough the objectives are. The Phantom Flow event adds an Okuden Mode that changes the enemy lineup and may add additional stipulations to the challenge.
** Hyakunin Ikki is a time-attack-based event in which you bring six teams of two to fight a set of enemies. Each challenge provides a bonus to different types of damage, and each team can be equipped with Garyuu Arts to bolster their abilities.
* MonsterCompendium: The game has two: the Enemies section in your Adventurer Handbook and the Living Beings section in your main Archive. The former acts more like a utility piece as it lists each type of enemy, what levels they are currently at relative to your World Rank, what items they carry, and where they can be found. The latter (introduced in Version 1.3) is for general completion purposes, as it lists every distinct enemy and allows you to view their models with some flavor text. They can be added by simply defeating them in battle, and the Archive also includes non-enemy wildlife and the pets in settlements.
* MoodDissonance:
** In the Lantern Rite of 2021, particularly the "Lantern Rite Tales" sidequests, the atmosphere is more melancholy than festive, and said quests have a strangely recurring theme of TheOneThatGotAway.
** The Echoing Conches from summer event Midsummer Island Adventure contrast with the summer vacation theme of the event. The stories from the conches are quite sad, involving people escaping Inazuma and being shipwrecked.
* MultiMookMelee: Much like the Superstring Dimension game mode (AKA Exalted Abyss) in ''Videogame/HonkaiImpact3rd'', the Spiral Abyss domain contains multiple floors and chambers where you have to fight multiple mooks. Each floor has a special effect that strengthens your characters in different ways, and in each floor, there are 3 chambers filled with enemies you have to tackle through. At the start of each chamber, you're given a choice of 3 buffs to help you. Finishing a floor grants various rewards; finishing the challenges in each chamber awards you with stars, which you can collect to gain Primogems as rewards. There are 12 floors; floors 1-8 are one-time challenges while floors 9-12 are much tougher but their rewards and progress are reset every 2 weeks.
* MultipleDemographicAppeal: ''Genshin'' is marketed to several platforms (mobile phones, PC, [=PS4=], [=PS5=] and an upcoming Nintendo switch port). Visually, it is designed for anime fans. Gameplay-wise, it appeals to the RPG fans, open world fans, and gacha communities all at once.
* MundaneUtility:
** One quest at the Dawn Winery has you clean up some stains inside using either [[BlowYouAway Anemo]] or [[MakingASplash Hydro]].
** A Daily Commission Quest from Albert requires you to blow away piles of leaves using Anemo abilities. [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill Alternatively]], you ''can'' use Pyro to burn off the pile of leaves instead of blowing them away with Anemo or Hydro. Be careful not to burn the haystacks though, the quest giver won't like that.
** Many of the character-related profiles and lore reference how they use their Visions for miscellaneous tasks, such as Diona using her ice powers to chill drinks, or Keqing using her lightning powers to cook fish when out in the wild.
** It's common to use certain elemental skills or even elemental bursts to [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential take out the cluster of pigeons often seen gathering in front of Timmie]], as it's the easiest place to find a group of birds for Fowl gathering.
* MythologyGag: ''Genshin'' has some references to the ''Honkai Gakuen'' universe of miHoYo, particularly in the form of [[{{Expy}} expies]] to ''Honkai Impact 3rd'' characters, or reused concepts overall:
** With the Unknown God's long flowing white hair, a crescent-shaped IdiotHair and yellow eyes with cross-shaped pupils, not to mention her power over space and theatrical speeches, you'd be forgiven to think that Herrscher of the Void somehow made her way into this game.
** Venti is basically themed after Wendy, who has a similar color scheme and ability to control the winds. [[spoiler:Both characters also have titles that allude to their powers and godly status (Anemo Archon and Herrscher of Wind, respectively), and they lose their "power sources" (Gnosis and Herrscher Core) to mature blonde ladies affiliated with an enemy group (Signora and Cocolia).]]
** Likewise, Zhongli [[spoiler:giving his Gnosis to the Tsaritsa]] is a reference to [[spoiler:the Herrscher of Earth (Owl) giving his Herrscher Core to the Herrscher of Ice (Ana)]].
** In this game's supplementary manga, [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/gensin-impact/images/7/72/Children_of_Murata.png/revision/latest?cb=20200907170657&format=original Murata]] is known as the "Lady of Fire", the Pyro Archon worshipped by a tribe with their characteristic red hair. In ''[=HI3=]'', there's a character named Himeko Murata, who has red hair [[spoiler:and Himeko's Previous Era counterpart was known as the Herrscher of Flames]].
** Diluc is also very similar to Himeko Murata. Both are red-headed, fiery greatsword wielders associated with alcohol. The twist is that while Himeko is TheAlcoholic, Diluc actually hates alcohol.
** The first Electro Archon Baal has the title of "Raiden Shogun", [[spoiler:real name Raiden Ei]], referencing Raiden Mei, the Herrscher of Thunder from ''[=HI3=]''. In fact, one of ''[=HI3=]'''s supplementary comics "Escape from Nagazora" has a chapter titled [[https://manga.honkaiimpact3.com/book/1015/3 "The Wrath of Baal"]] which showcases Mei's time as a Herrscher.
** One of the in-game books, titled "Vera's Melancholy (I)" has Vera mention that "there is a world currently in a war against doomsday, where the noble and elegant souls of fourteen Valkyries burn bright, if only for a brief but magnificent moment". Savvy ''VideoGame/HonkaiImpact3rd'' players will understand that words like "doomsday" and "fourteen Valkyries" are referring to the Honkai threats and playable characters of ''[=HI3=]'' respectively; although, for the latter, there are 13 characters in the roster at its current state.[[note]]In context, Vera was then rebuked by her friend, saying that "[[YouWatchTooMuchX you've read too many books]]" - implying that ''Honkai Impact'' is a fiction inside a fiction ''inside a fiction''.[[/note]]
** The Cecilia flower that only grows naturally in the heights of Mondstadt is a clear reference to Cecilia Schariac, the mother of [[TheHero Kiana Kaslana]]. The stigmata set modeled after Cecilia in ''Honkai Impact 3rd'' prominently features similar flowers in its art, and the blooming petals of the actual flower in ''Genshin Impact'' are modeled after the Schariac family crest.
** During Chang the Ninth's daily commission, the NPC mentioned that he wants to participate a literary competition hosted by Yae Publishing House, an Inazuma-based publishing company. Many ''Honkai Impact 3rd'' players will understand that the publishing company's name is an obvious reference of Yae Sakura, one of the playable characters.
** From the "Marvelous Merchandise" event, the NPC named Liben carries a sachet of blue crystals from ''[=HI3=]'' on his back.
** The co-founder of miHoYo, Forrest Wei Liu had an AuthorAvatar in ''Honkai Impact 3rd'' known as "Dawei".[[note]]based from "Da Wei" (大伟哥), or "Brother Wei", a fan nickname used by the miHoYo playerbase[[/note]] In that game, his [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_k2pgc33v3uj21.png avatar's face]] is only a pair of eyebrows and the hanzi for "Wei". He returns in ''Genshin Impact'' as the "Unusual Hilichurl", complete with the same "face", and the exact standard (albeit tattered) [[SharpDressedMan 3-piece suit]]. He also throws "crystals" and the plush bunny HOMU from that game as attacks, and when defeated, he drops cabbages, a reference to Ai-chan, another mascot of the game (who's often called "cabbage" because of her hair).
** Xiao's story quest mentions that the fallen gods' lingering hatred created miasma, plagues, mutations and monsters to spring forth. They are all also how the Honkai can manifest; in particular, the "major" Honkai Beasts are named after gods and tend to cause corruptions and gathering of minor beasts by their presence alone.
* NamedAfterSomebodyFamous: As listed further in the Shout Out tab, some [=NPCs=] are inspired by real-life individuals. There's an author NPC named [[Creator/NeilGaiman Gaiman]], and a painter NPC named [[Creator/JohannesVermeer Vermeer]]. There's also Ella Musk, whose name is based from Elon Musk.
* NationalWeapon:
** The Favonius Sword is a standard-issue longsword wielded by the Knights of Favonius.
** The Prototype Rancour became the basis for all subsequent swords made in Liyue.
* NeglectedSidequestConsequence:
** Neglecting Tsarevich's specifications in "Reliable Helper" yields a lower payout than if you complete the commission as he instructed. Note that a "successful" completion doesn't give that much of a higher payout.
** Downplayed as there is no serious consequence for skipping out on optional event quests aside from not gaining rewards, but a lot of character interactions and stories will no longer be accessible.
*** The Midsummer Island Adventure has confirmation that Klee went on vacation with her friends without you due to Barbara leaving a note talking about her experience at the Golden Apple Archipelago. Participating in the event reveals she holds the outlander close to her despite their little interactions and that it meant a lot to her if they joined. [[spoiler:Since Alice, Klee's mother revealed how she is part of a race that lives ''much'' longer than normal humans,]] this trip was a once-in-a-lifetime chance for her to spend time with all her friends [[spoiler:that she'd eventually outlive]], even moreso when the islands become inaccessible later.
*** The "holiday" events such as Lantern Rite and Windblume festival are implied to go on without the player's input due to decorations being present in the nation and commemorative items being sold in souvenir shops. However, this implies that the Traveler was not present to influence some of the events such as convincing Xiao to see the lanterns or being the Windblume Star of Mondstadt.
*** If you didn't participate in the "Shadows Amidst Snowstorms" event since it will prevent Joel from reuniting with his lost father. However there will be a World Quest where Pallad will still find Joel's father as compensation.
* NintendoHard: The later floors of the Spiral Abyss and some of the more combat-focused events can fall into this. Enemies can have levels higher than 90, the maximum for a player's roster, and they're usually either bosses or multiple EliteMooks. The game leaves little room for error in order to kill all the enemies that spawn in time to get the highest possible rank. It doesn't help that the bosses have phases where they cannot be attacked, which eat up precious time. Few games make players shout "WhyWontYouDie" as often as this one.
* NonCombatEXP:
** Character EXP Materials are [[RareCandy consumable items]] that instantly [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin give EXP to a character]]. Some Character EXP ''is'' gained through quests and defeating monsters, but the latter is such a small amount that it might as well not be there.
** Adventure Ranks are gained by opening chests, activating [[WarpWhistle teleporters and Statues of the Seven]], and finishing quests and domains.
* NoPronunciationGuide:
** The English voice actors do not pronounce Liyue consistently, with "Lee-way" and "Lee-yu-uh" being popular choices.
** Primogems, the gacha currency, don't seem to actually exist in-universe, so there isn't a clear official pronunciation. It's probably meant to be "pry-mo-gem" since the ingame description says they're "primordial crystalline gems," but people often say "pree-mo-gem" as in, er, "[[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/primo primo]] gem."
* NoOSHACompliance: Ningguang's Jade Chamber [[spoiler:(including its rebuilt version)]] has no guardrails on the outside that prevents people from accidentally falling off the edge of the Chamber. Notably, this is where Yun Jin hosted an opera outside with guests, and the area where Keqing, Traveler, Ningguang, Beidou, Yun Jin and Xinyan watched the fireworks during the second Lantern Rite festival.
* NotDrawnToScale:
** Weapon size varies depending on the build of the character wielding it. While easy to miss when comparing most characters, it's very noticeable when it comes to [[PintSizedPowerhouse Sayu]], whose claymores are visibly smaller than those used by taller characters that they could easily be mistaken as standard swords in their own right.
** Ruin Hunters are normally large machines, however the one that lies inactive on a forest at the south of Wangshu Inn is much, much smaller, being about the size of a large action figure.
* NotTheIntendedUse:
** The Hypostatic Symphony and Energy Amplifier Initiation event domains restore your party's HP and energy when you enter them, which is meant to let you challenge the domain repeatedly. However, this means they're also useful as general healing checkpoints which are not resource-limited like the Statues of The Seven are.
** In the Wishful Drops event, Endora's Bubble Spit ability can also be used on other enemies besides the Hydro mimics despite not being the intended use of this mechanic. It only works in specific areas, but players took advantage of this to immobilize enemies and keep them from attacking.
* NoticeThis:
** If a quest waypoint or marker is being tracked, a tall pillar of light will shine on its location when the player is still far away from it. When the objective is just close by, a sparkling trail on the ground leads to it instead.
** Objects that give a small shine can be investigated, usually yielding some items in the process.
** When you activate "elemental sight", on-screen enemies and objects that have an elemental attribute will be tinted with a specific color related to their element. [[SuspiciouslyCrackedWall Breakable walls]] are also highlighted with a vibrant color, while the Seelie Garden statues have a green mist that point to where their respective Seelies are stranded.
** If it's your first time visiting the edge of Cape Oath, the camera will automatically focus your attention to the floating wormhole in the sky.
** A complex puzzle in Liyue requires three crane statues to be rotated and face Qingyun Peak in order to activate a mechanism. While the game doesn't explicitly show the location of the statues on the mini-map, standing near the mechanism causes blinking lights to appear from a distance, hinting at the statues' locations.
** During the "Unreconciled Stars" event, the playable characters' Visions glow and produce a noise when they are near a meteorite shard.
** The "Lost Riches" event gives you a "Treasure-Seeking Seelie" that will help you locate the Iron Coins used to buy the items in the event shop. When you get closer to the coins' location, the Seelie will glow brighter; when the coins are nearby, the Seelie will emit beeping noises.
* NotSoExtinct: In Xiangling's story quest, you can find an ancient species of boar, encased in ice, near where the Cryo Regisvine is fought in the quest's special domain, and the Traveler and Xiangling take its meat to Springvale. Draff notes that said boar might've been the last of its kind and thus its meat would be very pricey. But later on, after the Dragonspine update, you can find more of those boars being encased in ice on said mountain. You can even find their KingMook version, the Great Snowboar King, which will drop a lot of Chilled Meat when you beat it and respawn once every day.
* NotRareOverThere: Previously, crabs were rather annoying to collect, as they don't spawn on every Mondstadt and Liyue shorelines. In contrast, the beaches of Seirai Island in Inazuma are positively crawling with the critter, easing cooking recipes requiring crabs.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:E to G]]
* EarlyBirdCameo:
** The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAlKhARUcoY Teyvat Chapter Storyline Preview]] features characters who represent Inazuma, Sumeru, Fontaine, Natlan, Snezhnaya and Khaenri'ah even if the game launched with just the Mondstadt and Liyue regions. These characters would then appear in later updates.
** The legend cutscene at the end of the Moonchase Festival event shows people in modern Liyue's streets, including three player characters yet unseen. Certain unseen future playable characters are also only named in voice lines and signposts.
* EarlyGameHell: While Inazuma is the third chapter of the game, its internal structure plays out this way, beginning with [[DeathWorld hostile elements all over]]-- Thunder Sakura trees that will constantly zap you with lightning bolts when near, an island plagued by constant lightning storms, and an island with unchecked Tatarigami energy that applies a health-sapping electric effect on your character as long as you don't have an Electrograna floating around you...and Seirai Island, which features Tatarigami ''and'' lightning storms. Furthermore, the Electrograna system locks off a lot of content until exploration can upgrade its level. Partaking in Inazuma's lengthy major sidequests, however, sees each of these environmental threats neutralized, allowing for stress-free exploration of the region once complete, and this makes upgrading Electrograna much faster and safer.
* EarlyInstallmentCharacterDesignDifference: Mondstadt's townspeople from the game's manga prequel are dressed nothing like the one's in-game, sporting different everyday outfits. By contrast, the game's animated [=Live2D=] cutscenes and hand-drawn animated PV's has the townspeople from their respective nations being dressed as they are in-game.
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness:
** The launch of the game included story quests for Amber, Lisa, Kaeya, Razor, Xiangling, and Xingqiu, all of whom are 4★ units. Later patches would make it so that going forward, only 5★ units got story quests, with new 4★ units getting Hangout Events instead.
** Pre-Rosaria release, all the character art feature different poses for the announcement and in-game wish art. After Rosaria's release, all character announcement art are now identical to their in-game wish arts from then on out.[[note]]This includes Ayaka, who briefly appears during the "Teyvat Chapter Storyline Preview: Travail"[[/note]]
** The Archon Quest Prologue and Amber's character quest both featured [[UnexpectedShmupLevel unexpected shmup levels]]. This kind of complete combat change has not been featured in the game since.
* EasterEgg: Adjusting the dialog volume in the settings has Paimon chime in and ask if the current volume level is okay. Fiddling with the slider to make Paimon repeat herself multiple times will have her get annoyed and ask if you're just messing with her, and also netting you an achievement.
* EasyLevelTrick: You can cheese certain minigames in Peculiar Wonderland with the right characters.
** Characters that have AntiFrustrationFeatures to prevent them from inadvertently falling off a cliff (e.g., archers while aiming, Mona's sprint) can take advantage of the feature during Shimmering Path. The edge detection still kicks in even if the path is invisible, so you can safely maneuver your way across.
** The Geo Traveler's Starfell Sword can block everything but the shockwaves in Barrage Minuet, so your only real concerns are the targeted explosions and the final few seconds.
** A handful of characters can evade the bubbles in The Great Bubble Crash and Bubble Speedster. For example, Hu Tao can dash through them, Xiao can jump over them, and Fischl can pass through them with her Elemental Burst. Barring that, in co-op, other players can get caught in the bubbles on purpose to clear a path for their allies.
** Characters with a wide range of mobility options can bypass One-Way Traffic. Some examples include Keqing using her stiletto to warp to the other side of the course, Venti using his Elemental Skill to levitate over the wrong tile barrier and glide across, and Kaeya going ''under'' the tiles and using his Elemental Skill to create ice bridges across the water[[note]]This will not count as a failure because he's still considered above water, and characters need to be fully submerged for the fail trigger to activate.[[/note]] (though he would need either Venti, Geo Traveler or Zhongli to get out).
* EldritchLocation:
** "The Border", a Domain accessible during Hu Tao's story quest. It is the boundary between life and death, and just getting in requires a bit of effort and knowledge of the nature of death (which Hu Tao can provide). Reaching the end of the Domain will reveal that it has ghosts who still have a lingering attachment to the world and not ready to move on yet.
** The pits of The Chasm are a GeniusLoci that attempts to trap whoever wanders in in an inescapable labyrinth. It also won't just kill whoever wanders in, it steals their need for food and water and sleep in order to torment them further.
** Even the Golden Apple Archipelago qualifies to a degree, as a strange location in the world that only appears to be traveled to once a year and which does not operate the same way through time as the rest of the world. When the Fatui traveled there to test their dream machine, it distorted the world further, driving the weak-willed insane and morphing the landscape to reflect Vision holders' fears and desires.
* EldritchOceanAbyss: The Aerosiderite materials' descriptions mention something about the Dark Sea, the coastal region beyond the protection of the Seven, and where the defeated gods fled and became evil. Legends say that all lies beyond is "unknown chaos".
* ElementalBarrier:
** The Abyss Mages usually come with bubble shields made of a certain element. To break them, you must use an elemental attack that reacts with the shield's element.
** If a Geo attack hits a target with certain elemental attributes, an "element crystal" will drop; when picked up, the player character can gain a bubble shield of that element. The shield can protect against all attacks but will be especially effective against attacks of the same element; however, elements that react to the shield's own can break them.
* ElementalNation: The seven regions follow each of the seven elements and receive protection from [[EthnicGod one of the seven Archons]] (e.g., Mondstadt is the region of Wind, blessed by the Anemo Archon, Barbatos). The characters who come from each nation, however, do not necessarily wield the designated element (e.g., among the playable characters from Mondstadt, only three wield Anemo). There are also other regions aside from the seven (which may or may not follow any elemental motif), such as Khaenri'ah.
* ElementalPersonalities: Elements do seem to be tied to personality, but that personality is not spelled out anywhere, and it's difficult to determine what all characters of each element share in common, making this trope fertile ground for EpilepticTrees. [[AnIcePerson Cryo]], [[DishingOutDirt Geo]], [[MakingASplash Hydro]], and [[PlayingWithFire Pyro]] typically play the personality types listed on this page straight, but there are exceptions. For instance, Arataki Itto is a Geo Vision holder who is a HotBlooded delinquent. On the other hand, [[ShockAndAwe Electro]] seems to be tied to some trait outside energy level and [[BlowYouAway Anemo]] characters are frequently slow to grow and adapt, but very much in need of change.
* ElementalPowers: There are around 7 of them as part of the world's theme; each playable character (including the Traveler) wields one, and certain enemies and obstacles have their elemental attributes as well. They are [[BlowYouAway Anemo]], [[ShockAndAwe Electro]], [[AnIcePerson Cryo]], [[MakingASplash Hydro]], [[PlayingWithFire Pyro]], [[DishingOutDirt Geo]] and [[GreenThumb Dendro]].
* ElementalRockPaperScissors:
** A major gameplay element are "elemental reactions", in which contact between certain elements can either deal additional damage, multiply damage, or inflict status effects. As of v3.0, the following are:
*** '''Vaporize''' (Pyro × Hydro): Increases base damage multiplier (2.0 if Hydro is the attacking element, 1.5 if Pyro).
*** '''Overloaded''' (Pyro × Electro): Deals wide-ranging Pyro-elemental damage with a high knockback rate.
*** '''Melt''' (Pyro × Cryo): Increases base damage multiplier (2.0 if Pyro is the attacking element, 1.5 if Cryo).
*** '''Electro-Charged''' (Hydro × Electro): Deals gradual Electro-elemental damage to affected unit and nearby Hydro-affected allies.
*** '''Frozen''' (Hydro × Cryo): Renders affected unit immobile; in addition, if they are struck by hard-hitting attacks such as claymores, Overload reactions, plunging attacks from melee weapons (swords, claymores, and polearms), and certain Elemental Talents (usually Geo), the '''Shattered''' reaction occurs, which has an increased damage multiplier.
*** '''Superconduct''' (Electro × Cryo): Deals wide-ranging Cryo-elemental damage and decreases Physical Resistance.
*** '''Burning''' (Dendro × Pyro): Deals gradual Pyro-elemental damage.
*** '''Bloom''' (Dendro × Hydro): Produces a fruit-shaped "Dendro Core" that explodes and deals damage to friend and foe alike (though the former only take 5% of the damage that the latter do); on its own, it explodes after six seconds and has a five-meter radius; if applied with Pyro, the '''Burgeon''' reaction occurs, which has a greater damage potency; if Electro, '''Hyperbloom''', which turns it into a "Sprawling Shot" that homes in on enemies and detonates with a one-meter radius on impact.
*** '''Catalyze''' (Dendro × Electro): A group of three reactions. The initial contact triggers '''Quicken''', which creates an aura that can, in turn, trigger '''Spread''' or '''Aggravate''' whenever the affected unit is struck with another Dendro or Electro attack, respectively, adding a fixed damage bonus to said attack (the former having a higher damage multiplier than the latter, 1.25 to 1.15).
*** '''Swirl''' (Anemo × Pyro/Hydro/Electro/Cryo): Deals an additional, wide-ranging damage based on the second element, which will then linger for a few seconds, allowing for additional reactions.
*** '''Crystallize''' (Geo × Pyro/Hydro/Electro/Cryo): Creates a shard that, when picked up, generates shields based on the second element that absorb all kinds of damage, with greater resistance against the same element.
** Elemental armors can be damaged with any reaction, but using the correct one will do more. Hydro beats Pyro, Pyro beats Cryo, Cryo beats Electro, and Electro beats Hydro. Make sure you bring party members capable of dealing multiple elemental damages when going against them. The sole exception are Geo armors, which only suffer significant damage from either claymore attacks, Overload reactions, or the held form of Zhongli's Elemental Skill, ''Dominus Lapidis''.
** Anemo and Geo do not fit into the rock-paper-scissor cycle traditionally like the other elements, having no major strengths or weaknesses, but instead can interact with all the major elements through special gimmicks. Anemo can absorb and spread the influence of whatever element it touches, transferring their traits in [=AoE=] attacks, while Geo crystallizes the elements to form temporary shield pickups that you can use to nullify the opposing element you are fighting against.
* TheEmpire: Snezhnaya is one in all but name, being a country ruled by a quite literal GodEmpress who is conspiring against all other nations in Teyvat. In an unusual example, they have yet to go into a full-on war with other nations, and the agents of Snezhnaya, the Fatui, prefer subterfuge, espionage, and forceful diplomacy rather than raw military power, though that does not mean that they do not also have that in spades.
* EmptyLevels: The stat increases from leveling up are typically very low, with the lion's share of stats being given by weapons, artifacts, and ascensions, which is especially egregious when later levels demand large numbers of Hero's Wits and hundreds of thousands of Mora for ''single-digit'' increases in ATK. Because of this, leveling a character from 80 to 90 is regarded as a waste of resources, except for characters that scale off HP or DEF (since those aren't expected to be made up for by a weapon, they aren't nearly as low as ATK) or characters who use elemental reactions like Swirl, Overloaded, or Electro-Charged as their main source of damage (since the damage those deal scales by level).
* TheEndOrIsIt: At the end of the second act of the ''Shadows Amidst Snowstorms'' event, the Traveler fights and defeats [[spoiler:a mutated Whopperflower that learned how to impersonate as Albedo. While everyone is lead to assume that it was the Whopperflower that tried to lead a kid named Joel into danger earlier, the cutscene that plays at the end suggests that it wasn’t the mutant Whopperflower, but was actually another Albedo, as the playable Albedo spots the other looking down at him from an elevated position, and he draws his sword to go after him.]]
* EquipmentUpgrade: Both weapons and artifacts can be leveled up, or "enhanced", by consuming either spare equipment or, respectively, [Fine/Mystic] Enhancement Ore and Sanctifying Unction/Essence. In addition, weapons have a {{level cap}} that can be raised, or "ascended", with certain items up to six times, with changes in appearance from the second ascension; players can also "refine" weapons by sacrificing duplicates, improving their passive effects.
* EscortMission: The "Safe Conduct" daily commission quest requires you to protect a large floating balloon from the nearby hilichurls as it moves forward to the recipient NPC.
* EssenceDrop: The "elemental energy" used to fuel each characters' [[LimitBreak Elemental Burst skills]] appears from defeating enemies, breaking certain objects, or successfully hitting enemies with elemental attacks.
* EveryoneIsBi: Nearly every playable character, male and female alike, will flirt with the Traveler regardless of their gender.
* EverythingFades: Almost all enemies and all playable characters fade into different particle effects when defeated, typically after a brief period of ragdolling. Notably averted in four cases: Treasure Horders drop a smoke bomb and [[ExitVillainStageLeft escape]] when defeated, the Eremites escape by melting into sand, Slimes pop like balloons, and enemies defeated while frozen will [[LiterallyShatteredLives shatter into pieces]].
* EvilDetectingDog: Evil-Detecting Cat rather, but downplayed. Nabiya the fortuneteller in Sumeru has 2 cats, Harut and Marut, who are friendly. But the moment [[spoiler:the Traveler possesses Nabiya, courtesy of the Dendro Archon,]] they become agitated, knowing something is up.
* EvilWeapon:
** The Festering Desire is a cursed sword forged from the remains of the dark dragon Durin, yearns for life, can grow in power as you use it, and drips with a venom that can corrupt dragons. Albedo also mentions that it can corrupt the wielder's body (which [[GameplayAndStorySegregation does not happen in actual gameplay]]).
** The Prized Isshin Blade that features in Kaedehara Kazuha's Story Quest is this. [[spoiler:He's the BigBad of that storyline, taking DemonicPossession of Anenoma Yuuya's body and hunting down Kaedehara Kazuha so that the latter can use him to defeat the Raiden Shogun. He was originally forged in Snezhnaya by an exiled Isshin bladesmith who only wanted him to be used in real battle in the nation of his birth. In order to fulfill his mission, he used countless people as pawns, losing sight of his original goal along the way.]]
* EvolvingTitleScreen: The background of the start-up screen changes between day, noon and night cycles depending on your device's current time.
* ExcusePlot:
** The entire plot of the "Midsummer Islands Adventure" event [[spoiler:is an InUniverse example]]. In it, Klee searches the Golden Apple Archipelago for the mysterious Dodo-King so she can challenge him for the right to remain with Dodoco, but then it turns out in the end that it was [[spoiler:all just a setup by Klee's mother Alice, just so she can have her daughter have a fun summer vacation with her loved ones]].
** "Summertime Odyssey" event, taking place in the same location, does that too. The whole plot with [[spoiler: Fatui's machine]] doesn't get much focus and is there just to show us each character's backstory.
* ExplodingBarrels: They have a distinct dark-red color to differentiate from the ordinary breakable objects. A closer look shows that these explosive barrels actually [[https://i.redd.it/1e93qsymf2r51.png have Pyro Slimes stuffed inside]]. Dragonspine introduces the Cryo version of the barrels.
* ExposedToTheElements: Version 1.2 added Dragonspine, a mountain so cold that you will start freezing to death a minute or two after straying away from a heat source. None of the characters considered changing their outfits for this, even ones who wear shorts like Xiangling and Xingqiu, though the cold does not affect them any more than ones with thicker clothes.
* ExtradimensionalEmergencyExit: DefiedTrope. At the beginning of the game when [[spoiler:the gods of Celestia attack the nation of Khaenri'ah]], the Twin Travelers Aether and Lumine try to escape from the ensuing cataclysm by opening a portal to another world. However, they're immediately stopped by the [[GreaterScopeVillain Unknown God]] who proceeds to defeat the twins in a CurbStompBattle, denying them their escape and separating them from each other. This kickstarts the main story of the protagonist twin searching for their lost sibling in the world of Teyvat.
* EyepatchOfPower: A popular accessory; Kaeya, Fischl, and Beidou all have one, and that is just out of the playable characters in Version 1.0.
* FaceYourFears: The game has a small fable story about this that Amber likes to read, titled "Wind, Courage, and Wings". In the past, the first birds could not fly despite having wings. The birds asked the Wind God to help them, and the god told them to find a place with blowing winds. The birds first tried to fly from a breezy hill, but they failed. Then they chose to go to a tall gorge with extraordinarily fierce winds. Despite their fears, they tried anyway, and they eventually succeed. They then returned to meet the Wind God and told that they finally managed to do it because of the high winds, but the god said that it is not the winds that helped them fly, it is their courage.
* FailedASpotCheck: The Traveler manages to get out Ritou by posing as additional escort detail for a cart headed out. In their unfamiliarity with the situation in Inazuma and their haste to get to the capital however, they overlook some strange details: first, that the cart is headed for Watatsumi Island, which is literally at war with the Shogunate at present, and second, that it's loaded with Crystal Marrow, which they have already learned that the Kanjou Commission is forcing outlanders to pay their taxes in. In other words, Ritou's taxes are being sent towards a warzone. [[spoiler: Had anyone stopped to consider how odd this situation was, the Fatui plot may have been uncovered much sooner.]]
* FakeLongevity:
** Archon Quest stages and Story Quests are gated behind Adventure Ranks, requiring you to grind levels for a while even if you are only playing for the lore.
** The [[RandomNumberGod RNG layers]] on Artifacts mean that it is hard to find the ideal or perfect equipment since their sub-stats are based on luck, encouraging players to grind increasingly, hoping to find better Artifacts to replace their currently equipped ones.
** Floors 9-12 of the Spiral Abyss are better sources of replenishable Primogems needed for summoning from the gacha. Unfortunately, Spiral Abyss stages are end-game content, and it only gets harder starting from floors 9-12. This puts the largest source of replenishable Primogems behind the end-game wall, which is out of reach for free-to-play or light spending players until they can put entire teams together to deal with the gimmicks and have passable gears to deal with the enemies.
** All forms of character, weapon, and artifact enhancement, as well as claiming rewards from the weekly bosses, require the use of [[FreemiumTimer Resin]]. Resin regenerates at a rate of one every eight minutes and consumed in multiples of twenty, requiring three hours for the smallest amount needed. While there is Fragile Resin (regenerates 60 Resin) given out for free through various means, they are exceedingly rare.
* FakingTheDead: It is heavily implied that Huachu, an [=NPC=] you can find at Stone Gate, did this to elope with her lover. In Liyue Harbor, you can find her father Gentry De'an mourning her suicide.
* FallDamage: Falling from a great enough height will deal damage to your characters. This also applies to the enemies; if you knock them over from a great enough height, they will get damaged as they hit the ground.
* FameGate:
** To advance the story, you must raise your Adventure Rank, which you do by exploring the world, completing side quests, and opening chests.
** Version 1.1 introduces the "Reputation" mechanic: In each city, you have a "reputation level" that you can raise by gaining enough "reputation points" through various means, such as completing Requests ({{Fetch Quest}}s involving [=NPCs=] in each region), completing Bounties (where you hunt a certain empowered monster), and finishing Archon Quests and World Quests. Leveling up your reputation comes with rewards of new recipes, gadget blueprints, namecard styles, and wind glider styles.
* FamilyThemeNaming: Rosemary and Parsley, the parents of Sage, outside Mondstadt.
* {{Fanservice}}: To be expected of a gacha game, though not quite as gratuitous as others in the genre. It's harder to name a female character that ''doesn't'' have either [[SexyBacklessOutfit an exposed back]], [[ShesGotLegs slender legs]], exposed cleavage, or any combination thereof. Even [[PlayerCharacter the Traveler]] is more fanservice-y than the usual gacha game protagonist, with Aether having [[BareYourMidriff a bare stomach]] while Lumine's dress creates a CleavageWindow with its straps.
* FantasyCounterpartCulture: Each nation in Teyvat is based on real life countries and regions. Their names even reflect the meaning of common words in their respective languages.[[note]]Mondstadt means "Moon city" in German, Liyue means "Lapis Moon" in Mandarin, Inazuma means "lightning" in Japanese, Fontaine means "fountain" in French, Snezhnaya means "snowy" in Russian[[/note]]
** Mondstadt is based on Germany. Its buildings have distinct traits of Germanic architecture right down to the wooden beams on their houses, its people have names that vary in their European origins and two characters (Fischl and Albedo) both have German titles, and the Favonius Cathedral is inspired from the Cologne Cathedral.
** Liyue is based on China, judging from its architecture, attire, and dishes. Their patron Archon and the Qixing dictate their entire economy every year, striking both hope and terror from the merchants in the game's own words, not too unlike the policies of the Chinese Communist Party since it took power in 1949.
** Inazuma is based on Japan, specifically the Tokugawa Shogunate (1603-1868), whose founder UsefulNotes/TokugawaIeyasu is a direct inspiration for the Raiden Shogun, complete with sharing the name ''sakoku'' for their isolationist policies. During the Inazuma Archon Quest there is also an ongoing Vision Hunt Decree, not unlike the "sword hunts" under Ieyasu's predecessor, UsefulNotes/ToyotomiHideyoshi. Finally, the simmering conflict between the Shogunate to the east and Watatsumi Island to the west, loyalists to the late deity Orobaxi, whose death they blame on the Shogun, bring to mind the conflict between the samurai clans of eastern Japan loyal to Ieyasu and those of the west loyal to the Toyotomi clan, led by UsefulNotes/IshidaMitsunari, culminating in the fateful Battle of Sekigahara in which the former won and consolidated his rule over Japan.
** Sumeru is an amalgam of India, Persia, Arabia, and Ancient Egypt; Persia would arguably be the best fit for a direct counterpart since historical Persian Empires have controlled over all four of these territories at different points in history. The eastern half of the country is a lush rainforest whose people bear Indian names, and among whose hostile wildlife are tigers, a national symbol of the Indian subcontinent, while the western half is a desert with a prominent serpentine theme (one character in Liyue even mentions "Sumeru snake wine"), with Cyno bearing a jackal hood that resembles the Anubis, Egyptian god of embalmers. The land's Archon Quest name is "Truth Amongst the Pages of Purana", ''purana'' being a Sanskrit word referring to ancient legends and mythology. The Sumeru Akademiya is heavily themed after Iranian Zoroastrianism, while the Sabzeruz Festival is directly based on the Nowruz. The country’s name is derived from Sumer, an ancient Mesopotamian civilization.
** Fontaine, based on its name and French dialogue from Xavier said to be native to the region, and the cabaret-esque costuming of teased characters Lyney and Lynette, is suggested to be Teyvat's equivalent to France.
** Natlan is implied to be based on a mixture of Pre-Columbia America and Africa. Iansan one of the teased characters from the eponymous nation has a tribal look.
** Snezhnaya is based on Russia. The Cryo Archon's title is "Tsaritsa", meaning Empress in Russian. The country is said to be very cold and snowy, just like Russia in real life, and the name of the nation more or less means 'Snowy'. The heavy industrialisation, as seen in Fatui enemies' equipment, could be a reference to the Soviet Union's heavy and rapid industrialisation in the 1930's. Fatui also tend to refer to each other as 'Comrade(s)', a literal translation of the Russian word 'Tovarishch'.
* FantasyGunControl: The only users that have access to firearms are the Fatui Skirmishers, and the Ruin Hunters (the Ruin Guard uses missiles). Everyone else resort to bows and crossbows (even in Inazuma where despite being based on Feudal Japan, they don't have flintlocks on their arsenal as a Nobushi - Kikouban pulls out a crossbow for ranged attacks instead).
* FantasyKitchenSink: Teyvat incorporates names and supernatural beings based on a wide range of cultures' mythologies and pop culture, including Myth/ChineseMythology, Myth/JapaneseMythology, Myth/ClassicalMythology, the Literature/ArsGoetia, a variety of LittleBitBeastly people, multiple varieties of OurSpiritsAreDifferent, and more.
* FashionableAsymmetry: A visual design choice that's prominent in nearly every main character design going through at least version 2.3, it'd be easier to count those who actually have symmetrical outfits.
* FastForwardMechanic: A skip mechanic in the menu allows you to fast-forward the InUniverseGameClock to a specific time.
* FastKillingRadiation: Balethunder is the game's equivalent to radioactive fallout, being concentrated Electro energy so potent, it can be fatal in short doses. Exposure to raw Balethunder will whittle down your character's health bar to zero in 20-30 seconds without Electrograna protection (depending on how beefy their HP is), but if you're unfortunate enough to end up in [[GrimyWater Electro water]] contaminated by Balethunder, then it will take less than 5 seconds for your characters to die in it.
* FemalesAreMoreInnocent:
** While the majority of the playable roster are female, only four of [[StandardEvilOrganizationSquad The Eleven Fatui Harbingers]] are women [[spoiler:(one of which is dead)]]. It's also rare to see any females in other hostile groups (outside the Fatui and Eremites), such as the Treasure Hoarders. The main antagonist in Chapter II is a woman, but she isn't truly evil and [[spoiler:soon becomes an ally to the Traveler]].
** Whenever a quest requires some one-time villainous or just {{Jerkass}} NPC, it's almost always going to be a man. Additionally, if there's an NPC we are trying to help, they will usually be female.
*** "A Teapot to Call Home" quest is about helping a woman from Liyue who has lost a necklace belonging to a Shneznayan merchant. Later Yanfei and Traveler discover proofs that he was trying to scam her.
*** In Zhongli's Story Quest, Zhongli and Traveler go to Sal Terrae together with Kliment and Wanyan, both of whom claim to be archaeologists. Kliment, a Fatui Agent, is clearly greedy and egoistic, breaks the contract with Wanyan and tries to steal her artifact, for which he gets beaten up. Wanyan was also lying, but had a much more noble goal: [[spoiler: she's a follower of God of Salt and was trying to find out the truth about her past]]. When Zhongli decides to punish her for breaking the contract too, Paimon even insists he absolutely cannot hit her.
*** Eula is the [[TokenGoodTeammate only sympathetic member]] of the Lawrence family. Her Story Quest requires us to deal with an extremely arrogant and disdainful Schubert who [[spoiler: conspires with Fatui in order to regain the clan's power in Mondstadt]].
*** In Ayato's Story Quest, we're trying to prevent a marriage between heads of Hiiragi and Kujou clans. It turns out to be a political plot by Matsuura, a member of Hiiragi clan, who also kidnaps one of their soldiers and threatens Ayato. We manage to stop him and help the manipulated would-be bride gain better authority in her family.
*** In Archon Quest Chapter III, Dunyarzad and Nilou are organizing Sabzeruz Festival, but two Akademyia Sages come in and forbid it. Later, Nahida decides that the female one is most likely less evil and a good candidate for a person who might help them. Indeed, Setaria feels guilty about [[spoiler: the experiment done on Sumeru citizens and betraying her homeland.]]
* FetchQuest: Quests may require the player to obtain items or solve puzzles from a specific area and return to the quest giver to complete the quest and/or move the story forward. If you already have the requested item before taking the quest, however, you can give the item to the quest giver right away.
* FieldOfBlades: The Sword Cemetery in Dadaupa Gorge, Mondstadt is a site where an ancient battle took place and the fallen comrades' [[WeaponTombstone graves have swords marking them]].
* FighterMageThief:
** The three [[StarterMon starting characters]] all fit a bill; Kaeya is the Fighter. He is the swordsman who has the best sprint stamina, and whose Elemental Burst surrounds him with an OrbitingParticleShield. His gameplay prioritizes getting into the thick of battle. Lisa is the Mage. She uses a catalyst slinging electrical shocks from afar, her burst creates a lamp that sends shocks in an area and her skill is about getting more potions made, keeping up her HotWitch look. Amber is the Thief. She can glide the longest, her arrows burn torches to solve puzzles and her DrawAggro bunny lets her avoid direct combat.
** The first 3 resident TokenMiniMoe fit the mold with Qiqi being the Fighter who goes mano-a-mano with her enemies using her sword while healing her allies at the same time, Klee is the Mage who blows her enemies up with massive AOE Pyro explosives, and Diona is the Thief who snipes her enemies from afar using her arrows and Cryo abilities.
*** The fourth Mini-Moe, Sayu, can be all three, as her using a claymore as her weapon makes her the Fighter, her Elemental Burst being an instant heal that summons a Muji-Muji Daruma to further heal and/or attack makes her the Mage, and her Elemental Skill letting her excel at hit-and-run tactics, alongside being a ninja, makes her the Thief.
** The first three playable Archons also fit this mold, to a degree. Raiden Shogun is the Fighter, as she is the best-geared towards physical combat, and her support abilities mainly increase other characters' effectiveness at that same niche. Zhongli is the Mage, being centred around using his Elemental Skill and Burst to [[BarrierWarrior craft barriers]] and debuff enemies. Venti is the Thief, as while his offensive abilities are somewhat lacking, he excels at support and crowd-control and has the fastest firing speed out of all the bow-users in the game.
* FirstEpisodeTwist: Or in this case, "Prologue Twist" - the end of the prologue's story shows that [[spoiler:the Traveler's twin is much closer to them than they thought, but the missing twin is working with the Abyss Mages for some kind of goal. One teaser video released in the official Website/YouTube channel shows that the other twin has a sort of business/goal they are working towards (preventing the devastation by the "Unknown God") before they can meet each other again]].
* FirstTown: Mondstadt is the region where the prologue is set in, and where the playable Traveler begins their journey.
* FishingMinigame: In addition to releasing the rest of the Inazuma chapter, the 2.1 update added fishing, with each region having fish that can be caught with a rod to fill out a collection, cook as food, and exchange with the regional Fishing Association to get bait recipes and a region-specific rod.
* FishOutOfTemporalWater: In Xiangling's story, you meet an NPC from Springvale named Olaf who was out hunting a boar when it escaped into a very cold domain, giving him severe frostbite when he tried to chase it. After you defeat the Cryo Regisvine inside and bring the boar back out, it turns out that Olaf had become frozen in the domain for hundreds of years, making him a distant ancestor to Draff and Diona. For the rest of the game, Olaf laments about how familiar yet disconnected the present-day Springvale is to him.
* FlashyProtagonistsBlandExtras: A heavy case of this is present, where almost every single non-playable character, no matter how narratively important, is composed of interchangeable generic features on a base NPC model within their societal group and gender, while the playable and future-playable characters can be identified from a mile away with their colorful and/or extravagant designs. A few significant non-playable characters have unique alterations on a generic NPC model (such as Jiu aka [[spoiler:Azhdaha's child guise]]) or an outfit unique to them (such as Takuya and Azar) but rarely anything on par with the playable characters. The only exceptions are a privileged few {{Posthumous Character}}s like the Five Yakshas, and some villains, who are not necessarily playable as [[spoiler: La Signora's death]] suggests
* FlatWorld: Averted. [[https://twitter.com/khaenriahcom/status/1419768385148121092?s=20 The orientation of the world map]] does not portray the directions in a standard way. According to the Teyvat Travel Guide entries, Brightcrown Canyon (the area leading to Stormterror's Lair) is northeast of Cider Lake (the body of water surrounding Mondstadt City), except to the player, this is seemingly incorrect as Brightcrown Canyon appears ''west'' of Cider Lake. However, the directions are correct for the entries about Liyue. Also made stranger in that the Knights of Favonius's office has a map oriented in the same way as the player's world map.
* FlavorText:
** Everything that you can collect has its item description. A handful may just be basic or mundane, while others [[StoryBreadcrumbs give added lore and worldbuilding]]. Even "suspicious" or "delicious" versions of the same cooked dish have different descriptions!
** Even the characters' abilities/Talents have lore tidbits in their descriptions.
* FlyingWeapon: The master swordsman Leap used the Skyrider Sword as a flying weapon that he rode to pierce the clouds.
* FoodPorn: The game draws and describes food items in so detail that it can make you salivate. And there are channels and threads dedicated to [[{{Defictionalization}} Defictionalizing]] Genshin's foods. miHoYo even posts recipes on the Chinese website under the title "The Steambird | Teyvat Food Notes" for players to cook at home (provided one can read Chinese, of course).
* ForcedSleep: The "Unreconciled Stars" event involves a meteor shower causing this. Anyone who touches the fallen meteorites would fall into a deep sleep and will not wake up until the heroes discover and deal with the meteorites.
* {{Foreshadowing}}:
** The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAlKhARUcoY Teyvat Chapter Storyline Preview]] showcases the order each nation will be visited/released past launch,[[note]]Inazuma, Sumeru, Fontaine, Natlan, Snezhnaya[[/note]] glimpses of future playable characters who'll play important roles in their chapter,[[note]]Ayaka, Cyno, Lyney and Lynette, Iansan[[/note]] a quote by Dainsleif vaguely hinting at each chapter's plot, and that [[spoiler:Khaenri'ah]] will also be a future chapter at some point.[[note]]The chapter number is blurred out, leaving its placement in the story ambiguous[[/note]]
** In Chapter 1, [[spoiler:Childe]] acts friendly and helpful to the Traveler but was revealed in Act III to be [[spoiler:manipulating them all along and is an AxCrazy CuteAndPsycho BloodKnight]]. His true nature was foreshadowed if the Traveler picks the dialogue option in Act II to say that [[spoiler:he talks too much, which he responds with a smile and threatening to fight the Traveler, before laughing it off as a joke]].
** The Maguu Kenki bosses, which debuted during the Midsummer Island Adventure event prior to the release of Inazuma and which are featured within Inazuma itself, are highly intricate mechanical puppets that serve as dangerous warriors, noted as a technical specialty of the country. [[spoiler:Their presence helps it make more sense when the Raiden Shogun and Scaramouche are revealed to also be the products of Inazuman puppet technology. The Electro Archon turns out to have been inhabiting a super-advanced puppet body that she mostly lets carry out her decrees autonomously while she stays in her isolated mental plane, resulting in the emotionless and rigid tyrannical persona the Shogun projects. Scaramouche then is revealed to be a prototype for the Raiden Shogun body who gained sentience and joined the Harbingers.]]
** In Klee's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFOeQuShLME Character Tale]], she recounts a story Kaeya told her about monsters that can disguise themselves as humans to attack unsuspecting victims. While it was originally framed as a prank by Kaeya, [[spoiler:given that he and Albedo are both from Khaenri'ah, Kaeya may have known what he was talking about after all concerning the Fell Flower.]]
* FramingDevice: Certain [=NPCs=] narrate backstories and lore like a fairytale, accompanied by a [[ArtShift 2D animation]] sequence:
** The "Wind, Courage and Wings" book is a story about the Anemo God and the first two birds that could fly.
** In the plaza, Venti sings a bard song about a dragon who shed crystallized tears.
** In the "Unreconciled Stars" event's climax, [[spoiler:right before you destroy the "main" meteorite, a cutscene shows the life and dreams of Leonard the adventurer (who's linked to the meteorite) who planned to create the first Wind Glider to conquer a very tall mountain.]]
* FreeRangeChildren: Monstadt, being the city of freedom, ends up with several cases of this.
** Ella Musk is the best known one, since her studies of hilichurl culture takes her well out of city limits, sometimes as far as ''Stormterror's lair!''
** Flora's sister Chloris is one of the lesser-known shop [=NPCs=], due to spawning in the wilds of eastern Monstadt.
* FriendlyFireproof:
** Most player-triggered reactions, especially area-of-effect ones like Superconduct or Overloaded generally do not affect other players in Co-Op.
** Downplayed with exploding Dendro Cores and Burgeon triggered by a teammate; they do minor damage to allied units in the explosion range.
* FullNameBasis: Inazuma characters from important clans have their names rendered by their full names, resulting in {{Overly Long Name}}s in languages with Roman letters, but it's not a big issue in Chinese and Japanese, since the names of Inazuma characters are written in kanji and thus save a lot more characters space. Names like Kaedehara Kazuha or Kamisato Ayaka are written in only four kanji each.
* FunnyBackgroundEvent:
** If you do not attract their attention first, you can see mobs doing silly things as you roam Teyvat, like hilichurls looking at a dead(?) Ruin Guard or two foxes meeting each other at the border in Stormbearer Mountain.
** In the "Moonlight Merriment" event, during cutscenes Xiangling's bear Guoba can be seen running around while the others are talking.
* GameFavoredGender: While it appears that way upon starting due to the number of female characters in the base game compared to male ones (there are currently more female characters overall, though not by a high margin), the game averts this by releasing a steady number of high rarity male units across multiple banners and does not particularly show any favoritism toward units based on gender. The current ratio among the 5-star characters (Traveler aside) is 3:4, Male to Female, which is hardly a noticeable difference.
* [[SlidingScaleOfGameplayAndStoryIntegration Gameplay and Story Integration]]:
** Each character has a signature twist on a certain dish, and their signature dishes (and which ones they're produced from) all tend to align with their roles and food preferences; for example, Chongyun, who avoids spicy food to temper his Yang energy, will make a chilled version of the Noodles with Mountain Delicacies, and Ningguang has a twist on the Mora Meat, a simple street food that simultaneously aligns with her unexpected humble tastes and invokes her love of money.
** It's been mentioned several times in the story that reaching Inazuma is currently difficult due to storms preventing others from entering or even leaving Inazuma easily. Sure enough, if you ''do'' try to get there [[MundaneUtility via the "Ice-Bridge" method]], storms would appear if you got even an inch closer to Inazuma (Or a good distance away from Inazuma) and would forcefully teleport the players back to the last Warp point they came from. Only when you complete Ei's 2nd Story Quest [[spoiler:when her CharacterDevelopment is fully cemented]] will said storms finally dissipate.
** Usually a characters' skills and elemental powers will conform to their personality and goals. Hard rocker Xinyan is all about big critical hits and crowd control, battle maid Noelle is noted to take on all tasks on herself and can tank, deal damage and heal, but isn't a full fledged knight, so she requires a lot of work put into her.
** Interpersonal relationships are taken into account in the synergy of characters. In the Knights of Favonius Jean is considered the glue keeping them together, and she has great healing and elemental cleansing to get any team through any conflict. Xingqiu and Bennett are great support who work best with their in-lore friends, Chongyun and Razor.
** The Visions are gifts from the Archons given to those they have chosen for staying on their goal in spite of hardship. Fittingly, most bearers have a lot in common personality-wise with each other and their god. TricksterGod Barbatos, who lives among humans as Venti, has Vision bearers who are free spirited and desire freedom. Morax, who you meet as Zhongli, gives his Visions to people who face their trials with perseverance. Part of the reason the Archon enacted the decree is because nobody would die without their Vision and if crippling depression occured because of its loss, it is because they were using it as a crutch. Electro Vision users are either lacking in ambition like Lisa and Razor, or self reliant without it like Keqing and Beidou.
** The Archons themselves guide their lands with an even hand but have frightening power they bring to bear on those who disrupt their laws. Venti, Zhongli and Ei have supportive Elemental skills and massively powerful Bursts.
** Inazuma as a nation is an isolated island that has been sealed off by the Raiden Shogun. As such, none of the Inazuman characters can be ascended by boss drops from other nations, since, save for Kazuha, all of them have been stuck in Inazuma.
* GameplayAndStorySegregation:
** In general, the game acts as though the player only ever always has the Traveler in their party. Because playable characters appear in the main story as [=NPCs=], it is possible, for example, to have a quest in which Amber shows up as an NPC... while the player is also walking around as Amber. The game does not also consider whom your current character is when speaking to [=NPCs=]. This can lead to scenarios such as Albert gushing over how wonderful and adorable Barbara is ''to'' Barbara herself (taken up to eleven in the 2.1 update, where you can come to Inazuma's LaResistance camp with both Raiden and Sara in your party and get them involved in defence against their own troops). The aversion to this, however, is when you start a cutscene with a voiced-over dialogue, as you will automatically change to Traveler when the scene occurs (and change back to your current character when it ends), even if the Traveler him/herself is not in the party.
** Speaking of playable characters, the gacha aspect allows you to obtain and play as a specific character even if you have not properly met them yet, or even if they [[OutOfFocus they do not have a relevance in the main story]]. For an example of the latter, it's possible to play as Amber in [[spoiler:the second fight against Stormterror]], yet the aftermath shows Amber outside of the city expressing how she didn't participate in the frontline. The reverse can happen as well--near the end of the "Unreconciled Stars" event, Fischl explicitly says goodbye to you and Mona, and she does not appear in the last few cutscenes; but by that point, you may have earned the free copy of her from the event quests, making her a permanent squad member. Similarly, new players around the time of the "Midsummer Island Adventure" quest's release will have met most of the characters involved due to the prerequisite quests...except for Albedo, who will treat you as familiar despite not being involved in the prerequisites and the event being available to players before they can access Story Quests and meet Albedo for the canonical first time.
** During story missions, a character may send you on a FetchQuest for an item you already have. By talking to them again, you can continue to the next chapter right away... but they will still talk as if you left and returned, sometimes claiming ''they'' went somewhere while you were gone.
** Playable characters' rarity and/or stats may not reflect their actual strength in the story. A shared backstory between Diluc and Kaeya narrates how they once fought each other on equal footing to the point where their clashing elemental powers knocked them both. But gameplay-wise, Kaeya is a 4★ character who is statistically weaker and has lesser ATK and HP values than Diluc, a 5★ character. Meanwhile, Ningguang is one of the members of Liyue Qixing and a powerful sorceress who has command over her entire Jade Chamber, but she is only a 4★ character; her colleague Keqing is a 5★ character.
** According to the story, the "Chalk Prince and the Dragon" event's prize sword, Festering Desire, is an EvilWeapon that only the Traveler and Albedo can wield safely. In gameplay, though, you can let any sword character wield it.
** Most characters have a [[DoesNotLikeSpam least favorite food]] that they will tell the player about in their voice lines. This has no reflection in gameplay, so feel free to stuff Chongyun with Jueyun Chili dishes with no repercussions or give a heaping of meat to the vegan Ganyu.
** As part of the intro to the Windblume Festival, Katheryne tells you she does not have any commissions for you. Mondstadt tradition considers it bad luck to get help from others during the festival. But you still get the standard 4 daily commission quests anyway and can still turn them in to Katheryne as usual.
** In the "Midsummer Island Adventure" event, Diluc's Pyro vision traps him and Kaeya on an island, because it melts the ice Kaeya makes as a bridge too fast for them to walk across it. In-game, Pyro characters have no problem walking across Cryo-generated ice unless they melt it with an elemental attack.
** Despite what Diona may tell you while sneaking past hilichurls during her Hangout Event, hiding behind bushes will ''[[TheAllSeeingAi not]]'' render you hidden from them.
** It's implied that characters that possess a Cryo Vision are resistant to cold temperatures. Rosaria mentions that she isn't bothered by the frigidity of Dragonspine in Albedo's Story Quest, Kaeya may tease the player for not being able to handle the cold when it snows, and during the Shadows Amidst Snowstorms event Eula takes an ice bath in a frozen lake offscreen. Despite this, Cryo characters are just as susceptible to the Subzero Climate effect and will freeze to death at the same rate as any other.
** Raiden Ei seals your characters' Visions during the battle with her and as such they cannot use their elemental abilities. This even works on Venti, whose Vision is fake, and Zhongli, who even without a Vision is a powerful Adeptus who has powers with no relation to a Vision. However, she can't seal off bow characters' ability to fire elemental charged shots at her or catalyst characters' basic elemental attacks, and she of course [[RedemptionDemotion loses this ability if the player rolls her in the gacha.]]
* GangUpOnTheHuman:
** In theory, multiple enemy factions populate the overworld, such as the Treasure Hoarders, Fatui, Hilichurls, and the assorted wildlife. In practice, all of them ignore each other and focus solely and relentlessly on ''you'' and will gang up on you if you manage to aggro multiple groups at once. The game tries to avoid this by keeping enemy groups separated, but occasional quests or randomly-generated content can bump into each other, leading to the odd sight of Fatui soldiers walking past the Abyss Order without a care in the world.
** The most egregious case is the Ruin Machines as despite being implied to attack everything indiscriminately, there are rare occasions where the Hilichurls and Treasure Hoarders are found next to dormant Ruin Machines, treating as a training dummy and examining it respectively. Yet when said machines activate, it will focus ''exclusively'' on you, completely ignoring their offenders next to them.
* GatheringSteam: A handful of weapons have passives that grant stacking benefits, such as the Blackcliff Longsword temporarily increasing ATK for every defeated enemy, or the Royal Longsword increasing CRIT Rate every time an opponent takes damage.
* GeoEffects: You can use certain environmental features to your advantage. For example, lightning magic deals bonus damage to enemies wading in water, and you can ignite grass to create burning areas that can hurt enemies. You can also use magic to affect the environment for platforming purposes, such as using ice magic to create passable bridges on water.
* GenreMashup: The main game is an Open-World Fantasy RPG similar in style to ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'', with a gacha and its elements thrown in; however the various time-limited events shake the gameplay up significantly, including but not limited to: a TowerDefence minigame, a ''VideoGame/FallGuys''-esque collection of multiplayer-based minigames, a RhythmGame, a ''VideoGame/PropHunt''-esque hide-and-seek minigame, and more.
* TheGhost: Various [=NPCs=] and playable characters' dialogues will occasionally mention other characters who have not appeared in the game at all, such as Diona or Varka. They may become [[PromotedToPlayable added as playable characters later]] since Diona becomes playable since Version 1.1.
* GhostlyGoals: One quest in Mingyun Village involves you trying to find a ghost's treasure. Along the way, you find the ghosts of his dead sons, all of whom were looking for the treasure themselves.
* GhostStory: An NPC in Qingce Village named Uncle Ghast tells ghost stories to children in the village, including one about a little ghost girl named Dusky Ming, who later appears in one of the archon quests.
* GhostTown:
** Mingyun Village in Liyue, a mining town that its workers abandoned after the mine ran dry.
** A literal example with the destroyed village in Wuwang Hill (also in Liyue). It used to be the home of five [=NPCs=] in Hu Tao's Story Quest (Meng, Little Wu, Mumu, Congzi and Big G), but it was devastated in an unknown disaster which also took Big G's life, and turned the surrounding area haunted with spirits and Liyue's version of the HitodamaLight.
* GiantMook: Larger and stronger variants of ordinary {{mooks}} exist within the same family type, such as Mitachurls compared to the standard Hilichurls, or Giant Slimes compared to Lesser Slimes, or Ruin Grader to Ruin Guards.
* GlobalCurrency: The world's currency is "Mora", and universally used in all regions thanks to its magical transmutation properties.
* GodzillaThreshold: [[spoiler:Osial being released from the Guyun Stone Forest immediately prompts the Adepti and the Qixing to put aside their differences and work together to contain the threat. Case in point, Cloud Retainer, ordinarily dismissive of human ingenuity, is the one to suggest that the Adepti man the reverse-engineered Guizhong Ballistae on the Jade Chamber to supply the desperately needed firepower. And when Osial finally gets the upper hand, Ningguang chooses to sacrifice her beloved Jade Chamber to put the old god back in the water.]]
* TheGoodTheBadAndTheEvil: The major three factions in the story's conflict ultimately fall under this.
** The Traveler, and in turn any companions they make on their journey[[note]] i.e. most of the characters you're rolling[[/note]], are the Good. The Travler often finds himself in the crosshairs of the other two factions in their journey to find their sibling, and put a stop to their schemes along the way. For the most part, the people they meet are either nice or well-meaning individuals, oppose the other two factions in some capacity, or both.
** The Fatui are the bad. They're a NebulousEvilOrganisation who engage in shady actions such as political infiltration, assassination, theft, terrorism and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking typically being composed of]] {{Jerkass}}es. However, you are able to meet [[PunchClockVillain non-hostile Fatui who just work for them for a living and aren't as privy to the organisations more dubious actions]], and it's {{Implied}} that the Tsaritsa, and by extension the Fatui Harbingers, are performing these actions and targeting the Gnosises of other Archons as part of an attempt to rebel against the Celestia, who the Unknown God from the Prologue is a part of and are progressively revealed to be JerkassGods, [[spoiler: considering what they did to Khaenri'ah for supposedly defying their Heavenly Principles.]]
** The Abyss Order are the evil. Their motives, [[spoiler: {{Revenge}} against the Celestia for destroying Khaenri'ah]], are also fairly understandable and not completely unlike that of the Fatui. The problem is that unlike the Tsaritsa, who's {{Implied}} to be actively making plans to rebel against them directly, the Abyss Order seek vengeance by outright destroying Teyvat to spite them, ultimately making them more of a threat to the populace at large compared to the Fatui.
* GratuitousGreek:
** The English localization names the seven elements after their respective Greek words - Anemo ("wind"), Geo ("earth"), Electro ("amber", a resin that produces electricity), Dendro, ("tree"), Hydro ("water"), Pyro ("fire"), and Cryo ("ice"). In the Chinese and Japanese languages, they simply use their language for the elements' names.
** Teyvat calls its Gods Archons (from the Greek word used to name someone who rules). Each Archon holds an item called a Gnosis (the Greek word for "wisdom") which allows them to directly tap energy from Celestia. UsefulNotes/{{Gnosticism}} also uses both terms.
* GratuitousSpanish: There's a bard NPC named "Six-Fingered José", whose dialogue lines have a sprinkling of Spanish. He calls your character "amiga/amigo" (depending on your Traveler's gender), and one of your dialogue options allow you to reply to him with "por favor".
* GreatOffscreenWar: Multiple. To name a handful:
** The dragons Dvalin and Durin fought when the latter threatened Mondstadt and poisoned the land. The Anemo Archon sided with the former after hearing the people's cry for help, blessing Dvalin until he managed to pierce the throat of the shadow dragon. Venti briefly recounts their rivalry in the plaza and the [[FlavorText lore of items]] like the Skyward Blade gives greater details.
** The Archon War was a war fought between countless gods, whose victors went on to become the original seven Archons. The battles fought in this war were so tremendous that they created entire landscape features, such as when Rex Lapis buried one of his foes under spears of stone that became the Guyun Stone Forest. [[spoiler:And Osial turns out to still be alive under there.]]
* GrimyWater: Some parts of Inazuma have bodies of electrified water that damages characters who swim in it, easily told apart from regular water by its purple hue.
* GroundhogDayLoop: [[spoiler:Subverted within Chapter Three Act Two. The main plot of that Archon quest revolves around the characters going through the Sabzeruz Festival over and over again. While the Traveller initially deduces that this trope is fully in-play, Nahida tells them that that's incorrect. In actuality, it ends up being [[LotusEaterMachine a gigantic collective dream shared between all of Sumeru's residents]].]]
* GuestStarPartyMember:
** Some domains and story fights may add a Trial character to your party, giving you a chance to try out their abilities for the duration of the domain. These Trial characters also come with pre-determined artifacts, which you can inspect through the character menu.
** Some events, like Misty Dungeons and Hyakunin Ikki, give you a set of trial characters you can try out or use to fill your parties.
* GuideDangIt:
** Hidden Achievements may require doing specific actions that are not too obvious, such as sitting on the God Statue's hands in Mondstadt or allowing a boar to kill you (not likely to happen accidentally, since boars only hit you once for barely any damage before fleeing).
** Not all quests show their objective waypoints on the map, and it is easy to become lost on those that require investigating specific items in a large area.
** Certain puzzles may require solutions that are not obvious at first glance and not explicitly mentioned by the game. For example, treasure chests may only appear out of nowhere if you destroy the nearby stacked rocks surrounding their spawn points.
** Some chests are buried in more or less random locations. The game doesn’t give you an obvious clue other than ''sometimes'' a small mound of dirt (which can be covered by vegetation, and many dirt piles are just decorative), unless you happen to walk right on top of it and notice the "Dig" prompt. The chest-compass devices don't work on these, either.
** Several players were stumped by chunks of Ancient Rime in Dragonspine that were nowhere near a Scarlet Quartz stone required to break the ice, since the game doesn't clarify that the Scarlet Quartz effect carries through for archers' shots as well as for melee attacks.
** While the game is helpful enough to list any sidequests you haven't completed yet in the reputation menu, it ''doesn't'' explain to you where you need to go to start those quests in the first place. While it's generally a safe bet to look around each of the towns throughout Teyvat, some quests require you to examine specific objects in its ''massive'' open world. In particular, "Home Lies Over the Ocean", an Inazuman quest, actually begins in ''Liyue''.
* GuysSmashGirlsShoot: As of Version 2.8:
** Played straight with Bow users, which consist of three guys[[note]]Tartaglia in particular is actually bad with bows and his elemental skill makes him [[StanceSystem enter Melee Stance]].[[/note]] to seven girls.
** Played straight with the [[SpellBook Catalyst]] users. With the exception of Heizou (who fights using [[FullContactMagic unarmed combat techniques]] imbued with [[BlowYouAway Anemo]]), all Catalyst users are girls.
** Averted with Sword[[note]]Not counting the [[PlayerCharacter Traveler]].[[/note]] and [[{{BFS}} Claymore]] users, who consist of roughly equal amount of guys and girls.
** Inverted with [[BladeOnAStick Polearm]] users, which consist of three guys and six girls.
[[/folder]]

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:A to D]]
* AbandonedMine: Mingyun Village is an abandoned mining town, evacuated after the mines became unstable and the owner's death divided them amongst his feuding sons. They each believed he had hidden treasure in the mines when really... [[CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot it was under a tree they planted]] as children.
* AcceptableBreaksFromReality:
** Characters can climb the terrain with just their bare hands or even wearing high-heeled shoes, even when it is raining! There are no climbing tools nor magic applied to their hands, and there are no footholds to support them in place either. Regardless, scaling up walls is an essential method for [[AlwaysCheckBehindTheChair reaching the high ground or certain platforms]].
** Standing in rain or even stepping in a puddle of soles-deep water is enough that any attack with the Cryo element can freeze a character or enemy's whole body. It is often necessary to weaponize rain (both natural and summoned with Hydro Stones) against enemies.
** Stone puzzle torches can be lit even in the rain and won't be extinguished by it. This ensures that you don't need to wait out or skip time through the rain to engage with a torch puzzle and you'll never lose progress in one even if rain starts before you finish.
* AchievementMockery: A few hidden achievements are rewarded for {{Epic Fail}}s such as getting killed by a wild boar (the weakest "enemy" in the game), massively over/undercooking 10 dishes, or getting struck by lightning.
* AchievementSystem: There are various in-game achievements and rewards for completing gameplay-related activities or milestones. The [=PS4=]/[=PS5=] version also has them as Trophies.
* AdamSmithHatesYourGuts: The total cost of upgrading characters, weapons and artifacts goes up with each level. Among the various character progression systems, refining weapons to their highest rank quickly eats up a significant amount of Mora, especially when done during the early-game stages. Justified in that Mora is a magical PracticalCurrency.
* AdorableEvilMinions: Because of the game's colorful art style, the various monsters in the world look surprisingly cute. Yes, even the [[OurGoblinsAreDifferent hilichurls]].
* AdvancedAncientHumans: [[spoiler:The nation of Khaenri'ah from 500 years ago was an advanced society built purely by humans without the influence of the gods, and their technology is said to be leagues ahead of the current tech in present-day Teyvat (including the tech used by the Fatui). The Ruin Machines (at the time called "Field Tillers") are one such technology leftover from that time as the Khaenri'ah people originally built them as weapons of war]].
* AnAdventurerIsYou: While there is no explicit class system and all characters have different moves (down to even their normal combos and charge attacks not being the same for each user of the same weapon), most do fall into known categories:
** DPS units make up the bulk of 5-star characters, and a sizable number of 4-stars--either ranged (catalysts like Klee or bow-users like Ganyu) or melee (Diluc, Keqing, Xiao, Razor). All of them can synergize the other characters in your party, but you tend to keep them on the field the bulk of the time, only swapping out to let the supports use their skills and swap back (this is especially true of "selfish" fighters like Xiao and Razor whose self-buffs get deactivated when they swap out).
** Status Effect Guy is another heavily represented role, with characters who apply buffs to the party. Often in the form of an area-of-effect, such as Chongyun's skill that converts melee attacks within a small area to Cryo damage but can also directly buff stats or apply bonus attacks like Xingqiu's "rain swords" that combine with your active character's normal attacks. Players tend to use most Anemo characters for a combination of stunning/corralling enemies and reducing their elemental resistance with the Viridescent Venerer artifact set.
** TheMedic role falls to Barbara and Qiqi, the latter being a stronger-but-rarer version of the former (whom you get for free after completing the first act of the story).
** The Tank applies to Geo characters in general since they can create shield crystals by reacting with other elements, but particularly Noelle and Zhongli, who can directly create stronger all-purpose Geo shields. Like Barbara and Qiqi, the game gives the former to you automatically from the wishing tutorial, while the latter (with better shields and extra abilities) is a limited 5-star.
** A handful of characters [[JackOfAllTrades combine multiple classes]] to varying degrees, often combining healing with something else. Bennett can both heal and increase attack power, Noelle and Diona can both heal and create shields. Multi-skilled characters usually are not as good at any one thing as their competitors but can be extremely useful since the game limits you to 4 per party. Venti is notoriously powerful because he has the strongest crowd-gathering ability by far, along with the usual Swirl debuff ability of Anemo characters, ''and'' can regenerate energy for party members with his ult.
* AerithAndBob: There's a mix of realistic names and unusual, fantasy-themed names. For example, your [[StarterMon first three party members]] are Amber, Lisa, and Kaeya, along with Paimon, your cherub companion.
* AkashicRecords: In Sumeru, there's a database that anyone with a special earpiece can access known as the Akasha Terminal. Using the power of the Dendro Archon, it taps into [[WorldTree Irminsul]] to access the combined knowledge and memories of the people of Sumeru. The end result [[{{Magitek}} is like Google searching using an external device]], and it can't answer every question as the knowledge available to the public is controlled by the Akademiya. [[spoiler: The Akademiya is using it to steal the dreams of the people of Sumeru so they can exploit the mind's enhanced ability to process information while dreaming.]]
* AirplaneArms: "Little girl"-type characters[[note]]Klee, Diona, Qiqi and Sayu[[/note]] sprint with their arms spread out.
* AlertnessBlink: An exclamation mark will appear on enemies if you get close enough to them, if they spot you from a distance, or if you attack them from far away.
* AllDesertsHaveCacti: Despite the Great Red Sand in Sumeru being based on the Sahara Desert with sprawling sand dunes and ruins that bear Egyptian architecture, cacti (a group of American desert plants that are associated with the WildWest) are present across the entire region.
* AllohistoricalAllusion: The Vision Hunt being conducted in the Japan-inspired Inazuma is a reference to the various [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_hunt sword hunts]] conducted throughout Japanese history.
* AlmightyJanitor: The characters in the events of the story mention that [[ScaryLibrarian Lisa]] is no ordinary librarian. There is also a NPC fisherman with an ordinary NPC model outside of Wangshu Inn who has a [[ArtifactOfPower Vision]] and he can [[OneHitKill one shot]] a Ruin Hunter without using his Vision; an enemy that usually requires the player trouble KO. Said fisherman, when asked, mentions that the owner of the inn and the chef are not ordinary people either.
* AlternateCharacterReading:
** The word 原神[[note]]meaning "Original/Proto God"[[/note]] is normally pronounced as "Yuánshén" in Chinese. However, the game officially uses its Japanese reading, "Genshin", in regions outside of China.
** The characters from Liyue are all pronounced differently in the Japanese dub, i.e., with onyomi. For example, Beidou is "Hokuto", Qiqi is "Nana". However, "Liyue" itself and Xiangling[[note]]Her name 香菱 is more properly read in Japanese as "Kouryou", but the game's Japanese dub decides not to follow it[[/note]] are still pronounced that way, even in Japanese. Likewise, the voice actors pronounce Inazuma and its residents' names in the Chinese way in the Chinese dub and the Japanese way in their dub.
* AlwaysCheckBehindTheChair: How collectibles usually appear since the game scatters them liberally in the environment.
** Treasure chests might appear near a cliff, behind a rock, in the corner of walls, inside a hut...
** Meanwhile, the game deliberately places Oculi on hard-to-reach areas and only appear on the mini-map if you are near one.
** The Mysterious Seelie can be easy to spot from a distance, but others are often hard to reach, requiring you to traverse or climb up the environment first.
* AmbitionIsEvil: {{Inverted|Trope}}. In this game, most playable characters are Vision holders. How do you receive a Vision? By having an ambition and drive strong enough that the PowersThatBe recognize it and grant you ElementalPowers so you can achieve whatever you set out to accomplish. There are examples of immoral characters who go to extreme ends to achieve their goals, and some characters who believe this trope is in effect like the Raiden Shogun, but overall the view the game takes of ambition is very positive.
* AnachronismStew:
** A medieval-era setting... with modern culinary dishes and practices. Among others, pizza and hash browns were not invented (or at least popularized as a concept) until the late 1800s.
** The Fatui Skirmishers have guns like matchlock rifles (except they fire in semi auto). By comparison, all the ranged playable characters use either elemental magic or bows. The setting implies that Snezhnaya as a whole (and Fatui in particular) are more technologically advanced than other nations.
** Xinyan is a rock star with an ''electric guitar.'' Rock music is from Fontaine and is still an underground genre in Liyue, though it still exists multiple hundreds of years too early by Earth standards. Granted, Fontaine has also invented photography and is beginning to export cameras (called in-game as "Kamera") to other countries, so perhaps like Snezhnaya, it is simply an advanced nation.
** Inazuma has the technology level of feudal Japan, but also modern forms of entertainment like [[CollectibleCardGame trading card games]] and [[LightNovel light novels]] (with similarly modern tropes like [[HaremGenre harems]] and [[ReincarnateInAnotherWorld reincarnating protagonists]]).
* AnarchyIsChaos: Mondstadt is mostly an aversion, being a fairly peaceful nation with no ruler or higher power, with even its resident Archon taking a hands-off approach towards watching over it. However, that isn't to say the lack of central government isn't without downsides:
** The local law enforcement is constantly swamped with complaints, requests, and other crises that they can't hand off to anyone else, and Grandmaster Varka took roughly half of its manpower on a faraway expedition, leaving them even more overworked. Jean ends up collapsing in exhaustion in her story quest because of how difficult it is to keep up with the amount of problems she and the Knights of Favonius have to solve.
** A prosperous alcohol industry combined with understaffed law enforcement results in a serious problem with alcoholism nationwide.
** Human resources basically [[NoSuchThingAsHr doesn't exist]], and the population are free to act upon their prejudices with little consequence to themselves. Eula (due being part of the Lawrence Clan) was banned from almost every shop in the city and was forced to survive off of wild game despite her wealth, Sucrose is terrified of being discriminated against because of her ears, Thoma bemoans that his [[CantHoldHisLiquor inability to handle alcohol]] means that he isn't considered a [[NoTrueScotsman true Mondstadter]], Lawrence (a Favonian guard) was nearly accosted by everyone who asks if he is connected to the clan's namesake despite having zero connections to them at all, and the local Adventurer's Guild (bar Cyrus and Jack) ostracizes anyone they deem abnormal, such as Fischl and Bennett.
** The Abyss Order is particularly active in the region, and their corruption of Dvalin could've easily led to Mondstadt's destruction had the Traveler not been around. [[spoiler:Afterwards, the Fatui are able to attack Venti and the Traveler in the streets and steal the former's gnosis with no one around to witness or stop them.]]
** [[spoiler:Mondstadt was hit the hardest by the Cataclysm from 500 years in the past, losing many innocent lives to the monster swarms that were simply too numerous for the Knights of Favonius to combat in record time. The disaster ended up leading to one Rosalyne-Kruzchka Lohefalter becoming [[TheBaroness La Signora.]]]]
* AndThatsTerrible: Characters, mostly Paimon, often feel the need to verbally point out how sad some event was, how evil a certain villain is or otherwise give an emotional reaction the player is supposed to have at the moment.
** In Xinyan's Mirage in Golden Apple Archipelago we see a memory of [[StrawCharacter several people criticizing her appearance and interest in music]]. All the other characters are visibly displeased when listening to this, but Paimon additionally bursts out with "Why are they being so mean!?"
** In Act I of Sumeru Archon Quest, Dunyazard tells a story of Sabzeruz Festival and how it's disregarded by Akademiya and other citizens. Then, the following exchange occurs:
---> '''Paimon:''' Aw, but that's awful!
---> '''Dunyarzad:''' It is. It's absolutely terrible!
* {{Animesque}}: The game's main art style takes visual cues from Anime. The prequel comics are this as well, though it is far clearer in that case. Despite appearances, and the high popularity of the Japanese voices, the game's parent company is Chinese.
* AntiDebuff: Domains and Spiral Abyss (particularly on the higher floors) have debilitating elemental debuffs that may periodically affect your characters. One common way to rid them of the debuffs is to have a way to inflict another element to the character themselves that reacts to the debuff's element. Player circles commonly call this "(element) cleanse". Examples include Jean's Elemental Burst (applies Anemo to teammates who walk into the circle) and Diona's elemental skill (applies Cryo to the character whenever her shield is active).
* AntiFrustrationFeatures:
** Unlike many gacha-based hero collectors that [[SlidingScaleOfGameplayAndStoryIntegration justify their limited hero inventory]], ''Genshin'' has no limits on the number of heroes you can collect aside from how many of them are in the game itself. After all, the playable characters are presented as people with lives and concerns beyond your quest and you are simply calling on their help. Therefore, you do not need to worry about "storing" them, and any "duplicates" you pull simply become Constellation upgrade materials to make them stronger.
** The World Level will raise after the player's Adventure Rank grows enough, and it not only makes enemies drop better items and unlocks some upgrade options and Domain levels, but it makes combat significantly harder. To prevent this from blindsiding players, the World Level isn't an automatic change. Players must first complete the recurring Ascension Quest, a combat challenge with most types of enemy and a boss, to raise their World Level. The challenge in the quest serves as a preview for the next World Level so the player can gauge their readiness for the changes. If the player struggles to complete the challenge, then they can turn back and keep building characters at their current World Level, and if they ace it, they'll be fine in the World Level they just unlocked.
** The inventory was originally "{{cap}}ped" at ''30 thousand items'', but Version 1.1 completely removed the global cap. Weapons, artifacts, and individual types of items (e.g. apples) are each capped at 2,000, far more than you could ever really need unless your character collection hits 400 or so since each one holds up to 5 artifacts. At the time of writing there are only 30 playable characters, so that is not an issue for anyone. Even with item collection being a factor, managing the inventory is not at all a challenge.
** Statues of the Seven and Domain doors also double as teleport waypoints, allowing you to access them easily.
** When forming a party of characters to bring into a dungeon, the game shows which elements are likely to be useful in dealing with the dungeon's enemy types. Also, if a dungeon has puzzles or enemy encounters that will require a character of a specific element or weapon type to solve, then the game ensures to give the player a [[GuestStarPartyMember temporary party member]] who can finish those for the duration of the dungeon. This is usually a playable character involved in whatever questline brought the player to that dungeon in the first place.
** If you fail a time-limited gliding goal, the game will reset the timer and respawn you to a specific point until you manage to complete it, making retries easier than restarting the entire quest from scratch. You can also choose to reset before the timer ends.
** You can only get the rewards from Ley Line Blossoms and certain Treasure Chests after [[KillEnemiesToOpen killing nearby enemies]]. The game would then show a HUD indicator that points to the direction of the rewards just in case the player has not noticed them after the fights.
** The Wish system has a "Pity" mechanic that guarantees characters/weapons of a certain rarity if you get too many low-rarity pulls without getting any high-rarity items. It guarantees 4★ items for every 10 pulls, and 5★ items at 90 pulls. Also, the Pity counter carries over between featured banners so players who did not get the featured item within the limited period will have a better chance at getting the next one.
** The quests in each chapter of the Adventurer Handbook retroactively track any progress that you have already made even before each quest becomes active. For instance, when tasked with opening 45 chests, if you have already opened 42, you only must open three more instead of having to start at zero and open 45 more.
** The Adventurer Handbook can show you the exact location of a certain enemy type. It also shows you the list of available domains and the item drops in each domain, and you can directly go to the main map and show its location by tapping the icon to the right of the domain's entry list.
** Accidentally provoked a tough enemy or a raid boss in the open-world map? Just run a significant distance away, or teleport out, and you are good to go! Enemies drop their aggro and retreat if they are too far away from their spawn point, and being in combat doesn't prevent using quick-travel. Of course, this comes as a double-edged sword in that the enemies knocking you too far away (or knocking them off a cliff, or simply not watching how far you ran while in the heat of battle) will also make the enemy stop aggroing you, causing frustration as you need to restart the fight again. Additionally, this shuts down most opportunities to abuse the environment beyond the immediate area, like luring enemies to the ocean to drown them.
** Bosses' weaknesses are easily manageable even by the [=F2P=] who rely on low-rarity characters, as they cover all the elemental counters, [[UnintentionallyUnwinnable ensuring the player never ends up with an unbeatable boss]]. Amber's charged attacks can bring down the Cryo and Electro bosses easily, Lisa can hit the Oceanid's creations easily, especially the raptors, Noelle’s elemental burst can take down the Geo Hypostasis's columns, and Barbara’s Hydro-elemental attacks can quickly take down the Pyro Regisvine's core and corolla. This means that anyone has a chance at getting ahead in the game. Do not expect any [[OneHitKill one-shots]] though.
** In the open-world map, falling from a great height can instantly kill the character. This doesn't apply inside Domains or boss arenas (such as Stormterror's Lair) though, since falling in the {{bottomless pit}}s will [[NonlethalBottomlessPits respawn your characters to the previous platform]], albeit taking a fraction of HP as damage instead of dying instantly. [[ContinuingIsPainful That being said]], you also lose your Elemental Burst if you have it charged up.
** Later updates also introduced more [=QoL=] features, such as Version 1.1 allowing players to lock weapons and artifacts of their choice, preventing you from accidentally selling or using them as upgrade material. This update also introduced the Resonance Stone gadgets, alleviating the LastLousyPoint and GuideDangIt situation when searching for Oculi, since they not only circle the area of an Oculus but also provide a marker of its location when near.
** Whenever you obtain high-rarity (4★-5★) weapons or artifacts, they are automatically locked in your inventory. This [=QoL=] is a step up over a similar feature in ''Honkai Impact 3rd''.
** If enemies die from [[SuperDrowningSkills drowning]], their item drops will spawn either on the nearest ground or on the water's surface.
** The Condensed Resin craftable item added in Version 1.1 grants a quick way to store Resins until you can find a better time to use them later. Want to use Resin in the morning so it does not hit cap, but you do not have the time to do 4 domains (which will take 15 minutes for most players)? Just craft 2, and that's easily 10 hours’ worth of Resins.
** Version 1.2 introduces a new gadget called "Kamera" that lets you take pictures in any situation with a press of a button, unlike the earlier "taking picture" mechanic that has restrictions on its use (such as its inability to take pictures in the middle of attacks). You get the gadget by completing a short world quest in Liyue.
** Version 1.2 makes loot from bosses, Ley Line Blossoms and Domains automatically go to the inventory instead of physically appearing for the players to pick. This makes picking the drops faster and simpler, and you do not have to worry about missing the drops in any way (short of forgetting to use the Resin to get the drops in the first place).
** During the Hypostatic Symphony and Energy Amplifier Initiation events, entering the event domain restores everyone's HP and readies their Elemental Burst. This way, you challenge the bosses repeatedly, without having to waste time restoring HP and energy in between fights.
** Hangout Events have multiple endings, and getting each one, and then, all of them, gives rewards and achievements. To make it easier to complete them, each Hangout Event has a screen showing the different steps in the sequence and their branching paths, and you can restart the event from any unlocked point in the sequence. This allows you to go right to the point where a decision branches a path to pursue the next ending rather than restarting the event from the beginning when you don't need to. This also makes it easier to retry certain sequences if you make a choice or fail a challenge that ends the event. 2.2 also changed it so a check mark appears over dialogue tree options you've already selected, which helps to prevent players from selecting options they've already done and wasting time.
** Alchemy is useful for making potions and gadgets, or converting low-tier character/talent/weapon ascension material into its higher tier equivalent (Damaged Mask —> Stained Mask —> Ominous Mask, for example), cutting down on the need to farm enemies, bosses, and Domains for rare resources.
** Most timers that last several days, like the Parametric Transformer and plants in the Serenetea Pot, have times that end in ''22'' hours, not 24. This ensures that the time you need to check on them won't slowly creep further and further into the day.
** Ley Line Outcrops are a pretty useful mechanic in the periods between updates when the player has essentially cleared out the one-time content (chests, sidequests, Archon Quest) in the current update version. While ascension materials and powerful artifacts must be located and replenished from exploration and Domain challenges, EXP materials and Mora are more easily earned through finite sources (chests and quests) while playing through a region. When these sources dry up with completion and characters require more EXP to level up as they grow, Mora and especially EXP materials become scarce. Fortunately, the two types of Ley Line Outcrop serve as a replenishing source for them that instantly respawn somewhere on the map after claiming their reward and have a low Resin cost, ensuring there is no obstacle to character-building during the downtime between region exhaustion and the next update.
** Certain Daily Commissions aren't the routine challenges and can create a change in the world (like the two that repair the staircase at Wangshu Inn), have an achievement tied to them (like the Hilichurl Exchange), or unlock a standard sidequest after being completed (like Tales of Winter). As such, some of these commissions are more desirable, but the game chooses which commissions you'll get randomly each day. Version 2.0 changed the commissions' spawning from taking place in a random region each day to a toggle for which region the commissions are generated in until your next say-so. This can help narrow down your chances of getting a special commission as a result when you know which region the special commissions take place in and are able to fix which region you'll get commissions in.
** Temporary event challenges motivate players to participate by offering rewards, primarily Primogems, which are valuable for similarly-fleeting event gacha banners. While each event challenge is designed with multiple difficulty layers for the player to engage with, the Primogems are awarded for the lower difficulties or more basic engagement so players who just want the Primogems can get in and out without the temporary event's challenge level locking players out of the desirable Primogem reward.
** Placing certain specialty furniture sets in the Serenitea Pot will make certain companions the player owns and has in the teapot happy, and talking to them in the area will get you a gift. Not only does each special furniture set tell you which companions will give you gifts from it, but their icons will gain a check mark once their gift event has occurred so there's no confusion on who's given a gift from that set, especially when you get new characters who will resonate with it.
** When fishing, enemies can still become alerted to the Traveler but will remain neutral until they stop fishing. Likewise, the fishing spot on Dragonspine has a bonfire on the shore to keep players from freezing to death.
** Version 2.3 added an option to use the Alchemy Crafting table in Mondstadt by talking to Timaeus, mitigating the frustration of players just trying to use the table but instead interacting with Timaeus and having to exit dialogue with him.
** A case which significantly downplays BossBonanza: When you defeat [[spoiler:Signora]] in the mission "Duel Before the Throne", you will return to the open world; however, the game will automatically take control of the Traveler when leaving Tenshukaku. After a while, a cutscene will occur, which will eventually pit you against the [[spoiler:Raiden Shogun]] for a second time without giving you a chance beforehand to heal, change party members, or restock on items. Fortunately, the two consecutive boss battles are part of two separate missions (with the first one automatically completed with [[spoiler:Signora's]] defeat), so if the first battle against [[spoiler:Signora]] drained your stock of healing items considerably or you need to change your party setup for the next battle, you are allowed to leave the [[spoiler:Raiden Shogun]] fight to prepare. When you are ready, all you need to do is interact with a small spot in front of the Statue of the Omnipresent God to return to the fight.
* AntiGrinding:
** It is nigh-impossible to level grind in the open-world map because slain enemies give very little EXP.[[labelnote:note*]]Each enemy slain gives 10-20 EXP, while characters will need tens of thousands of EXP per level before they even hit level ''20.''[[/labelnote]] The player instead needs to grind [[NonCombatEXP Character EXP materials]] which can be obtained by participating in events, treasure chests, doing main and side quests, etc.
** The Original Resin also serves as this, so that you cannot grind materials and develop your characters too quickly.
** Enemies need time to respawn in the open-world map, so you will have to wait for a while before you can farm their item drops again for your character progression needs. Lesser enemies and {{Elite Mook}}s stop spawning if you kill a ''lot'' of the same type (they will all respawn on the next daily reset), Normal Bosses respawn 3 minutes after their rewards are claimed. While Weekly Bosses (e.g. Stormterror, Andrius, Tartaglia, Azhdaha) can be refought as many times as the player wants (Andrius being the only one with a lenghty respawn period), their rewards can only be claimed once per week.
* AntiHoarding:
** Even if Version 1.1 removed the initial inventory cap, specific item types still have a limit on how much you can hold at any given time. You can only hold a maximum of 1,000 Artifacts and 2,000 weapons, while all other consumables and items (e.g. [[HyperactiveMetabolism apples, cheese and sunsettias]]) are each limited to 2,000 depending on their type.
** You can only forge up to 300,000 EXP worth of Enhancement Ores daily. Once you have reached that {{cap}} and attempt to create more on that day, an "Unable to forge" message will appear. Enhancement Ores forged from Magic Crystal Chunks don't count towards this, but that requires using Resin.
** Event-specific materials and currencies have expiration dates.
** You can only hold up to a maximum of 5 Condensed Resin.
* AntiPoopSocking: Original Resin is this game's energy/stamina resource which you consume to obtain rewards from Ley Line Blossoms, Abyssal Domains, and open-world bosses (You can still do these things without Resin, but you will not get rewards). Original Resin automatically refills on its own until it reaches its {{cap}} of 160. You can use Primogems and Fragile Resins to restore it by 60 each, but the game limits Primogem refills to 6 times a day, at an increasing cost that does not reset until the next day.
* AppliedPhlebotinum: The Lunar New Year event introduces Plaustrite, a naturally occurring element that is a byproduct of mining for about a month or so, but can make things float, like the Xiao lanterns (rather than rely on the heated air from the candles). It also explains Ningguang's floating Jade Palace and [[spoiler:the FloatingContinent seen in the sky at certain times.]]
* AprilFoolsDay: On April 1, 2021, Hu Tao took over the game's official Website/{{Twitter}} account because Paimon had a stomachache. The game's logo also changed to Hu Tao on Twitter and Discord, with a fake notification in the latter.
* ArbitraryHeadcountLimit: Parties can only have up to 4 characters at once. A GuestStarPartyMember can temporarily bring it up to 5.
* ArcSymbol:
** The four-pointed star symbol appears prominently: It is the shape of the portal that the Unknown God created in the prologue, it is the shape of Paimon's hairclip, it is in Dvalin's chest, Ruin Guard eyes are surrounded by one, it is in the stylized symbol for "eclipse", and most notably, it is the shape of the gacha currency Primogems.
** To a much lesser extent, Paimon's circlet/halo appears multiple times in the game as a symbol, such as the title screen.
* ArcWelding: {{PlayedWith}}, as the game never says which branches of the Hangout Events are canon, but one branch of Beidou’s Hangout Event has ties to one branch of Heizou‘s Hangout Event. The branch in Beidou’s event reveals that the Crux is involved in a smuggling operation to move goods out of Liyue without the Millelith knowing, with the branch in Heizou’s event revealing that the goods are sent to Watatsumi Island.
* ArcWords:
** Each chapter of the Archon Quest has one that corresponds to the country and its god in the story. The Prologue in Mondstadt has "freedom", the Chapter 1 in Liyue has "contracts", Chapter 2 in Inazuma has "eternity", Chapter 3 in Sumeru has "wisdom" and "dreams". Dialogue hints that Fontaine is set up to use "justice".
** In addition to "eternity," Chapter 2 has "ambition." The chapter examines the worth of people's ambitions, how the pursuit of one's dreams can end up being self-destructive, and why they are still worth pursuing despite this.
** "The true nature of this world" is a recurring cryptic phrase in the story, mostly said by certain antagonists (such as Tartaglia and [[spoiler: The Traveler's Sibling]]) to the Traveler.
** 天理 / "Tiānlǐ" / "Tenri", which can roughly be translated as "the will of Heaven" gets brought up repeatedly by the likes of the Unknown God, the Abyss Order, Morax, and [[spoiler:Beelzebul]]. Downplayed in the English version of the script, where the term in not translated consistently, appearing as multiple synonyms such as "Heavenly Principles", "Heaven", "Destiny", and "the Natural Order".
** "Erosion" is starting to be mentioned from chapter 1. [[spoiler:Rex Lapis notes how water can erode the hardest rock over time, Azhdaha's current state of mind is brought by Erosion, Ei specifically made the Raiden puppet to be able to withstand Erosion, and the Raiden puppet itself demands proof that Ei's change of heart is not a product of Erosion. Chapter 2 even reveals that the original citizens of Khaenri'ah are cursed and have been eroded, body and soul, into Hilichurls.]]
** Sumeru is surprisingly full of "Dreams", which is ironic since the citizens take pride that they never dream, seeing it as sign of irrational thought, unfit for the nation of "Wisdom". [[spoiler:This turns out to be a lie. The citizens don't dream because their dreams are being stolen, and the Dendro Archon states that dreams are rich bundles of human wisdom. And a major world quest takes you adventuring with a race of nature spirits who speak a lot of dreams, and they live in a dream world version of Sumeru.]]
* AreaOfEffect: Playable characters, {{Mooks}} and bosses have abilities that can hit everything inside an area.
* ArmorMeter: The {{Shield Bearing Mook}}s' shields, the Abyss Mages' DeflectorShields, and some Large Slimes and Fatui Skirmishers' ElementalArmor, have gauges that will deplete if you attack them enough. To break them faster, you can use certain attacks depending on the shield's type (e.g., wooden shields can catch fire, which will deplete their gauge quickly).
* ArrangeMode: The "Hypostatic Symphony" event features fights with stronger versions of the existing Hypostases in the game. Before the battle, you can adjust the difficulty of the battle in specific ways; from increasing the boss' level to making a stricter [[TimeLimitBoss time limit]], to "crippling" your characters in a way. The more "difficult" it is, the more points you will get when you beat the boss; reach a certain number of points to get rewards.
* TheArtifact:
** For a good chunk of time, Ulfr wanted to confess his feelings towards the flower shop owner Flora... [[PaedoHunt who is a child.]] This is a leftover from the beta, where Flora originally had an adult model before the release version changed her to a child model, and eventually they changed the dialogue to Ulfr seeing Flora as the little sister he never had.
** The adult NPC Dr. Edith refers to Ella Musk as her older sister. Ella Musk is a child. In the beta, Ella Musk had an adult model, just like Flora.
* ArtificialStupidity:
** While mooks will try not to enter deep waters as much as possible, sometimes their attacks may make them run into deep waters regardless, where [[PlayerExclusiveMechanic they cannot swim while you can.]] The Pyro Abyss Mages, though, take the cake: other Abyss Mages can safely teleport onto deep water as they levitate, but Pyro ones will find their shields vaporized by the water and end up falling and drowning.
** In relation to the above, Pyro-element enemies are by far the easiest enemies to fight in the rain due to their capacity for poor-decision making. Namely, Pyro Abyss Mages, Pyro Whopperflowers, and Pyro Fatui Skirmishers will activate their shields when engaging you in combat despite the downpour, which will then get depleted by the rain water and leave them stunned and vulnerable.
** Happens intentionally with DrawAggro skills; believable for more mindless enemies like slimes, but it is wacky that human enemies will happily redirect their attacks towards a dancing stuffed bunny.
** Campfires and similar burning objects deal a small amount of damage to anything standing too close. Hilichurls sometimes end up spawned on top of one and are incapable of moving unless you get close enough to aggro them--allowing you to just watch from a distance as they slowly burn to death.
** One of the random events involves giving overworld items such as apples or mushrooms to a randomly spawned NPC, Troubled Lianne/Lilian. Hilariousness ensues when Lianne spawns right next to the resource she is asking for (e.g., saying that she has had no luck finding apples right next to an apple tree).
** Fischl's Elemental Skill, "Nightrider", summons her raven familiar Oz to seek out and attack any available targets nearby. This can be become a problem in the Chapter 2-3 boss fight against [[spoiler:Signora]], which requires the player to stand near sources of heat or cold, depending on the phase, or suffer damage. While Oz will automatically target the boss when summoned, if the boss teleports to the other side of the arena while Oz is out, Oz will then begin targeting and attacking the source of heat/cold, potentially destroying a necessary resource for the player.
* ArtisticLicenseSpace: The celestial motions in Teyvat's sky doesn't make a lot of sense when applied to RealLife logic. Both the sun and moon are always on opposite sides of each other (meaning there's always a simultaneous sunset and moonrise happening in the sky or vice versa), the moon itself doesn't change positions and phases so it's always full, and the stars in the night sky don't move relative to the world's rotation. It was stated by Scaramouche that the stars in the night sky (and by extension, the sun and moon) are a "lie", so it can be inferred that the sky is a deliberate setpiece constructed by Celestia.
* ArtShift:
** The game uses 2D-animated videos during backstory segments and narrations, narrating most [[FramingDevice like a fairytale]].
** Starting from Version 1.1, a web event may play out like a VisualNovel with 2D {{Chibi}}-fied depictions of the characters.
** The webcomic shifts into a [[SuperDeformed chibi]] or cartoony art style in the more light-hearted and comical moments.
* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: Great heroes receive immortality after the gods have chosen them to dwell with them in Celestia. They would then have the task of protecting the world alongside the gods. It's also possible for them to assume the form of something else, such as [[spoiler:Vennessa turning into a falcon that watches over Mondstadt]].
* AsymmetricMultiplayer: The Windtrace event features a multiplayer mode which pits three rebels, who have the ability to disguise themselves as certain objects in the world, against a hunter, who has the ability to track and capture the rebels. The rebels' goal is to evade capture until time runs out, while the hunter's goal is to capture all the rebels within the time limit.
* {{Atlantis}}: Enkanomiya is practically Atlantis, remnant of an advanced CrystalSpiresAndTogas civilization under Watatsumi, and the ancient people of Enkanomiya is said to have names such as Spartacus or Argos.
* AttackItsWeakPoint: The bulk of mooks and bosses have weak points that let you deal higher damage if you can hit them, and for certain enemies, hitting those points can stun them temporarily. In most cases, you need an archer to hit a mook's weak point, usually its head. For example, you can temporarily stun a Ruin Guard if you hit the glowing core on its head. Archers' weak point shots will always guarantee a CriticalHit.
* AttackOfTheTownFestival:
** {{Subverted}} in the 2021 Lantern Rite event. The Traveler and Paimon witness a shady figure loitering around the pyrotechnics for the Liyue Lantern Rite and go all over creation trying to get ''somebody'' to care enough to investigate what could potentially be a mass-casualty event. They end up having to do the bulk of the investigating themselves; turns out the shady figure [[spoiler:is nothing more than a bumbling thief trying to impress his way into a notorious gang, and who had no plans to attack the festival]].
** PlayedStraight however with the 2022 Lantern Rite event. The Traveler and Paimon aids Keqing [[spoiler:who are investigating a strew of fireworks theft that has occured in Qingce Village and enlists the help of Xingqiu and Chongyun who happened to be there for the same reason. It's revealed that the one in charge of the theft planned on setting off fireworks by Liyue's inner capital so that they can make a huge heist while the Millelith are distracted by the explosions occuring. Thankfully the plan was foiled before it was set into motion.]]
* AuraVision: Elemental Sight is an ability possessed by Vision holders that lets them detect elemental traces within the world. Such traces are highlighted as trails or markings on the ground in gameplay.
* AwesomeButImpractical: Completing Part II of Raiden Shogun's Story Quest will [[spoiler:lift the [[VortexBarrier storm around Inazuma]], allowing you to take your Waverider across the ocean into the main landmass, specifically Mondstadt and Liyue waters. While this is fine and dandy on paper, in practice, the lengthy time it takes to cross the vast ocean combined with Mondstadt and Liyue lacking Waverider spawn waypoints makes it an impractical novelty at best since both regions were never designed with ocean exploration in mind (aside from SequenceBreaking Musk Reef and the unnamed sun dial island off Mondstadt's coast if you somehow never bothered to visit these places via gliding or "ice-bridging" beforehand). There's also a broken bridge near Yaoguang Shoal that prevents your Waverider from accessing Dihua Marsh and the rest of the Bishui River. Sumeru also have Waverider spawn waypoint, but their Waveriders are limited to only traversing the rivers and cannot be taken beyond south of Port Ormos and enter the ocean.]]
* {{Backtracking}}: Fortunately, there are [[WarpWhistle Teleport Waypoints]] nearby to alleviate this.
** Some {{fetch quest}}s may involve this, like in Prologue Act 3 where after spending a significant time climbing Stormterror's Lair, you are forced to return to the ground level, activate three mechanisms, then return to the top of the lair.
** Even if you are already in the second region, Liyue, certain quests there may still require you to return to the earlier region, Mondstadt. While this happens as a part of the main story such as Chapter 1 Act 2, the "Unreconciled Stars" event also has quests that constantly move you back and forth between the two regions.
* BadassBoast: Characters' voiced lines upon activating their Elemental Bursts tend to be this.
-->'''Amber:''' No one escapes my sights!
-->'''Beidou:''' Power that ended Haishan!
-->'''Ningguang:''' Your life is mine!
-->'''Tartaglia:''' You can run, but you can't hide!
* BadassBystander: A generic fisherman named Jiangxue has a commission where you are supposed to defend him from monsters. When a [[{{Mecha}} Ruin Hunter]] shows up, [[OffscreenMomentOfAwesome the screen cuts to black momentarily]] as he destroys it... somehow. Paimon notes that he did not even visibly move. If you talk to him outside the quest, he only tells you that he has a Vision (of an unknown type), but after a disastrous incident, he [[RetiredBadass swore to never use it again]].
* BadLuckMitigationMechanic:
** The "Wish" gacha system consists of "banners" in which you can pay primogems to get random items, or occasionally characters. Some banners feature increased odds of receiving certain pulls, but five-star pulls are still pretty rare. However, the game tracks how long you've gone without a four- or five-star pull. If you've done nine pulls without getting at least a four-star, the tenth is guaranteed to be at least four-star. If you go 89 pulls (or 79, depending on the banner) without getting a five-star, the next is guaranteed to be five-star. The game also increases the odds of getting a five-star pull when you're within 15 pulls of the hard mercy limit. This is referred to in the game community as the "pity system." Players often treat pity as a resource, and try to manage it so that max pity will coincide with a banner featuring a desired 5-star character or weapon. Sometimes, the RNG will mess up their plans by being generous before the desired banner arrives, resulting in the player getting a 5-star, but not the one they were gunning for.
** Each character banner has a featured five-star character. When you pull a five-star character, it has a 50% chance of being the featured character. If it's not, the next time you pull a five-star character is guaranteed to be the featured one. The weapon banner behaves similarly.
** Version 2.0 adds the "Epitomized Path" mechanic to the weapons banner, which allows players to select a desired five-star weapon. When a player pulls a five-star weapon that isn't the one they want, they receive a "Fate Point." Receiving enough Fate Points guarantees their desired weapon on the next five-star pull.
* BeachEpisode: The entire premise of Version 1.6 is investigating the Golden Apple Archipelago - a cluster of small tropical islands - for a limited time, complete with Jean and Barbara getting their swimsuit outfits (a first for alternative costumes in ''Genshin Impact'' as a whole).
* BeginWithAFinisher: While in the open world (including fighting bosses) you can always open a battle with an Elemental Burst, certain places directly encourage this: in the Spiral Abyss domain and in some events like "Hypostatic Symphony" and "Energy Amplifier Initiation", your characters will always start with their Elemental Bursts ready even if you have not collected energy for them before.
* BigBadEnsemble: Besides the Unknown God who kickstarted the plot by separating the twin Travelers in the first place and [[GreaterScopeVillain is currently in the background of the game's overall narrative]], there are two prominent [[NebulousEvilOrganisation villainous factions]] who are responsible for causing several incidents and conflicts all over Teyvat, the [[CorruptBureaucrat Fatui]] and the [[AntiHumanAlliance Abyss Order]], and both have their dark, disturbing plans for Teyvat. Since neither group has struck an alliance with each other, this implies [[EvilVersusEvil both are in direct competition over total control of the continent]], something Fatui agents later confirm. Even the Raiden Shogun, the ruler and Archon of Inazuma, is set up as an antagonist within her nation.
* BigDamnHeroes: In Chapter 1 Act 1, the Traveler is caught in a dead end by the Millelith and almost arrested for murder, when they were suddenly saved in the nick of time by Childe who made quick work of the Millelith and escapes with the Traveler.
* BiggerOnTheInside:
** All domains are like this to varying degrees, no matter what kind of entrance or where exactly you find it. Even Domains that should be behind small crevices and caves inexplicably hold massive fortresses. The ones in Liyue are particularly egregious since they just straight-up look like pocket dimensions with a permanent evening sky, clouds near or that ''are'' the floor, and floating islands.
** In Liyue, the Adepti are spirits who often make their abodes small on the outside but massive on the inside. The biggest example in the story is [[spoiler:Madame Ping's teapot.]]
* BlackoutBasement: The Chasm: Underground Mines is a network of dimly-lit caves that requires a Gadget called the Lumenstone Adjuvant to traverse through, as not only does it light your surroundings to make it easier to see where you're going, but it's also needed to solve the area's light-based puzzles.
* BlackSwordsAreBetter: Played quite literally with "The Black Sword" from the [[BribingYourWayToVictory premium battle pass]]. It comes with a crit-rate boost and the unusual ability to [[LifeDrain heal you as you slash enemies]].
* BladderOfSteel: Content and stages that you can play on co-op do not freeze the enemies, unlike when you are playing solo in the open world. This means that {{mooks}} or bosses can still attack you as you browse your inventory. The NRE gadget introduced in Version 1.1 allows you to quickly consume food with the press of a button without getting into the inventory, to help with this issue.
* BladeSpam: A handful of claymore characters' ChargedAttack is a series of quick, relentless slashes with their claymore that slowly drains their stamina.
* BleakLevel:
** Each of the 3 first nations (Mondstadt, Liyue and Inazuma) have an area that is more ominous and/or dangerous than the rest of the map. Seirai Island and Tsurumi Island in Inazuma, however, take the cake. Seirai Island has a post-apocalyptic feel, being the place where a powerful god was slain and presenting a raging thunderstorm that the main character has to find a way to stop. The place remains mostly deserted with the exception of the occasional bandits and Fatui you have to beat, and a sanctuary with a talking cat miko, and two adventurers (plus a sculptor) and the music certainly doesn't help, giving a desolate vibe to an already hostile environment. Tsurumi Island manages to be even ''worse'', presenting a landscape perpetually engulfed in a thick fog that locked the island from the outside world and making it eerily similar to a [[Franchise/SilentHill Silent Hill]] stage. To top it all off the soundtrack of this area is bittersweet at best and utterly depressing at worst. All this perfectly matching the dark and tragic story of Tsurumi Island and its inhabitants.
** The Chasm: Underground Mines in Liyue is a bleak network of [[BlackoutBasement dimly-lit caverns]] that offers an unpleasant atmosphere. The upper levels are an AbandonedMine occupied by Treasure Hoarders and leftover remnants of the Fatui, and toxic sludge called Oozing Concentrations creeps out at nearly every corner. Once you go deeper from the mines into the TempleOfDoom below, you exit human-occupied territory and enter Abyss Order territory, making it apparent that things will only continue to get more bleak and hostile further down. Deeper down are untamed waterways inhabited by wild creatures like Geovishaps and Floating Fungi, and at the very bottom lies the Chasm Nail; a remnant of Celestia being corrupted by the Abyss Order. But... even that is not the end. Below the Nail lies the Chasm's Bed; an EldritchLocation of warped time and space that maliciously seeks to trap and devour its prey with illusions. All of these combined makes The Chasm: Underground Mines a very unnerving place to explore.
* BonusBoss: There are boss fights in the open-world map that do not appear in the main story and found in optional locations. Especially the Great Snowboar King in Dragonspine, whose location does not appear on the map.
* BoomHeadshot: When playing as a bow user, hitting human or hilichurl enemies in the head deals extra damage and knocks them back.
* BorderPatrol: A non-enemy example, as your FairyCompanion Paimon can also act like this. If you walk too far out of bounds beyond what the game currently has in its overworld, then Paimon will automatically take control of your character and take you back in-bounds, saying it is best to explore them later. Justified because said out-of-bounds areas are locations in development and mihoyo has not implemented them.
* BoringButPractical:
** Sweet Madame and Matsutake Meat Rolls are 2★ healing food. Not the best, but you can farm their ingredients easily through Expedition instead of having to manually harvest them, and they heal enough to be your mainstay healing items throughout the game.
** The Blessing of the Welkin Moon microtransaction deposits 90 Primogems per day over a course of 30 days (adding up to a total of 2,700 gems + an added 300 from the Genesis Crystals at purchase) for only $4.99 US, making it a slow but very efficient way to stock up on Primogems for wish banners.
** 3★ weapons might have lower stats and less flashy passives compared to their higher-rarity counterparts, but being common drops means that they can be refined and ascended much faster. With enough investment, they allow early-to-midgame players to have strong placeholders until they can acquire 4-5★ weapons.
*** The Harbinger of Dawn sword in particular is one of the stronger 3-star weapons, as it offers a 28% critical rate at above 90% HP at max refinement, and also comes with a critical damage secondary stat, making it a surprisingly great weapon for any sword-wielding damage dealer for a little while.
** Unlike other reactions, Vaporize and Melt have no secondary effects besides simply amplifying the triggering element's damage. However, they directly multiply your base damage and thus mainly benefit from your character's ATK stat[[note]]Elemental Mastery can still contribute to the damage multipliers nonetheless[[/note]], allowing you to consistently hit hard with your attacks.
** Geo[[note]]and Anemo to a lesser extent, as they are mostly Supportive[[/note]] chars can't do Elemental Reaction other than Crystallize, and in terms of ''potential'' damage output, they won't reach the level of Melt/Vaporize teams. But that means they can just keep on pummeling the enemy with brute force without having to bother with switching and set-ups, and some Geo chars like Itto can deal truly ''ludicrous'' DPS that can rival Melt/Vaporize teams. Geo characters are also often compensated by having their attack increased based on their DEF or HP stats, which results in a heavy hitter with significant durability.
** Thanks to PowerCreep, the 5-star characters offered in Standard Banner have lost their spot as top-tier character in the meta. That being said, they remain very reliable to use especially for new players, with straightforward kit and requiring less investment to get them up and running.
* BossRush: The final challenge of the Hypostatic Symphony event pits you against all three of the Hypostasis bosses in sequential rounds, in order from Anemo to Electro to finally Geo.
* BossSubtitles: Major bosses have a long description or [[RedBaron title]] going with their names close to their health meter.
* BottomlessMagazines: Archers never run out of arrows (and mages never run out of mana). A weirder example involves Hilichurl Grenadiers who yank Pyro slimes out of the ground every few seconds, and the exact spot they happen to be standing always has another slime at the ready; unless they are in shallow water, where they always ''fail'' to find a Pyro slime for obvious reasons (getting this to happen gives you an achievement).
* BowsAndErrors: Childe's technique when using a bow makes one question how it's even remotely possible for him to hit anything, as he stands hunched over with his bow held awkwardly and the string drawn only partway back. It may be a case of GameplayAndStoryIntegration, as Childe mentions he uses bows specifically because he's weakest at them, and the other archers in the game have better form.
* BribingYourWayToVictory:
** As usual for gacha games, you can spend real money for more Primogems, giving you more chances to get the characters and weapons you want from the Wishes, or allowing you to replenish your Original Resin to claim more challenge rewards.
** The Blessing of the Welkin Moon grants you paid currency up-front, and then gives you a daily stipend of Primogems for the next 30 days.
** At Adventure Rank 20, you gain access to a [[RewardsPass battle pass]], which grants you rewards after completing enough challenges listed on the pass. While you can get stuff with the free version, you can gain more rewards if you splurge for a paid version.
** The latter part of the Spiral Abyss can be frustrating to try to complete without any 5★ weapons or units, due to the time limits getting stricter, the game splitting your party up into two groups, and the encounters getting progressively tougher the higher-up you go. It is doable, as there are workable 4★ teams, but you better be a pro at MinMaxing.
* BubblegloopSwamp: The Dihua Marsh is a beautiful wetland and (if following the [[WideOpenSandbox intended path]]) the player's introduction to the Liyue region.
* ButThouMust:
** The game does not give you significant leeway in how the Traveler responds to certain dialogue. Among others, you ''must'' find [[{{Naytheist}} Keqing]] more trustworthy than [[TheChessmaster Ningguang]], you ''must'' act distrustful towards [[AffablyEvil Childe]], and you ''must'' accept dinner invitations from Lisa and Zhongli. You do usually get two dialog buttons, but in most cases, they either do the same thing or only change the very next line of dialog. Often the only real decision you get to make is whether to make fun of Paimon and how sarcastically you choose to answer.
** Averted, however, in Hangout Events: depending on the Traveler's dialogue choices, the story can split off into various "routes" and reach different endings that can wildly vary, and even the replies that do not shift the story's route have the possibility of offending the character you are hanging out with. They can even make the event end abruptly if you run out of hearts.
** When activating the Ruin Golem at Devantaka Mountain, Jazari tells the Traveler that it's important to follow the instructions. However, the player is not given any instructions, and the only prompt is to activate the machine and use it to "punch." This results in the Golem's arm falling off, and Jazari then chews you out for breaking it.
* CallARabbitASmeerp: Within the universe, cameras are called Kameras.
* CallASmeerpARabbit: Dandelions in this game are flowers with seeds that are scattered in the wind, but that's about where the similarities with real dandelions end. They're a source of [[BlowYouAway Anemo]] energy and can be made into a potent enough wine that official real-world recipes suggest substituting ''absinthe'' for it.
* CallBack:
** In Mona's story quest, Mr Zhu wants you to defeat a slime that swallowed his ring. Paimon then suggests luring the slimes to their place since she kept the slime bait that you previously used in Diluc's story quest.
** In the "Chalk Prince and the Dragon" event, Albedo explains that the Festering Desire is a cursed sword that can corrupt and poison its wielder. After remembering how the Traveler had a unique ability that allowed them to purify Dvalin's corrupted tears (which happened in the Prologue chapter), he concludes that they can properly wield the sword without any consequences.
** During the "Three to Get Ready, and Here We Go" quest in the Moonlight Merriment event from Version 2.1, the Traveler and Paimon at one point came across Xinyan having a conversation in Liyue Harbor with Beidou about taking her to Inazuma. During the Labyrinth Warriors event in Version 2.2, the plot is kickstarted by Xinyan's permission to stay in Inazuma being brought to a sudden end when the event she came for is cancelled.
* CallingParentsByTheirName:
** Much to her father Kuan's annoyance, Yiran insists on calling him "Manager Kuan" because she thinks he needs to set an example as the supervisor of the Blackcliff Forge.
** Kujou Sara refers to her adoptive father as "Takayuki," likely because Kujou Takayuki raised her solely to be obedient with little familial love.
* CastFullOfPrettyBoys: So far, ''all'' playable male characters are some form of {{Bishonen}}.
* CastHerd: Most characters are affiliated with a faction or categorized into groups, such as The Seven, the Knights of Favonius, the Liyue Qixing, the Fatui, the Abyss Order...
* CataclysmBackstory:
** [[spoiler:Khaenri'ah]], an ancient civilization in Teyvat, collapsed 500 years ago. The [[spoiler:Ruin Guards and Ruin Hunters]] are its remnants within the current civilization.
** Within the Brightcrown Canyon, the storm god Decarabian built a ring-shaped ancient city, complete with a tall tower serving as his residence. Unfortunately for him, a war broke out to dethrone and slay him, and his people deserted that place. Sometime later, Dvalin made the ruins of the tower his resting place, leading the people to call it "Stormterror's Lair" when Dvalin became corrupted.
* CatFolk: The setting has cat people, named the Kätzlein. So far, three members of this race are present in the game: Draff, his daughter [[CatGirl Diona]], and their ancestor, Olaf.
* CentralTheme: Both the main quest and several character quests seem to carry a consistent theme: The consequences of refusing to let go of old grudges.
* CerebusSyndrome: Mondstadt is pretty standard fantasy fare and Liyue, while touching on somewhat heavier topics, is still pretty tame. Inazuma however, holds nothing back. Foreign merchants are trapped in Ritou, unable to leave the city, let alone the country, there's an outright civil war raging against its borderline fascist shogunate, and the wilderness is devastated by excessive Electro energy, leaving very little safe routes to navigate each island. And that's without going into the main story or the sidequests, where things range from [[spoiler:the first few on-screen deaths, bandits perfectly willing to kill [[WouldHurtAChild children]] and [[BadBoss their own men]] to get what they want, a SerialKiller disguised as a rambling old coot, and an island of perpetual fog where its long-deceased habitants are trapped in a GroundhogDayLoop as a result of attempting to sacrifice a child to their patron god.]]
* ChainLightning: When you hit an enemy with an Electro-Charged reaction, the lightning will also affect another nearby enemy with the Hydro status.
* ChallengeRun: In the "Hypostatic Symphony" and "Energy Amplifier Initiation" events, you can choose to impose added conditions for the fights, like time limits, increased boss HP, or resistance to certain elements, to increase your score.
* ChangingGameplayPriorities: In the early game, the focus is more on the exploration aspect and the story. It is easy to become sidetracked on the open-world finding collectibles like treasure chests, Mysterious Seelie, and elemental Oculi. But once you find most or all of those, and when you have caught up with the story quests, the focus of the endgame shifts more on character progression such as finding rarer weapons/artifacts and upgrading them to tackle the harder content... All while waiting for new story content to arrive.
* CharacterNameLimits: The character's name can be a max of 14 characters and cannot contain spaces.
* CharacterNarrator:
** Dainsleif narrates the various Character Miscellany videos on Website/YouTube that explain the gameplay mechanics of the playable characters.
** The Ferrylady narrates Zhongli's debut trailer.
** A handful of [=NPCs=] tell major backstories with in-game 2D animated clips. For example, the bard Venti narrates the story of the two dragons in Mondstadt, while a minor NPC in Liyue tells you a story about Ningguang.
* CharacterSelectForcing:
** Story-related quests inside Temples involve puzzles and out-of-reach areas that only certain characters can solve. For example, the "Outrider Style" quest has doors that only open by killing the enemies on out-of-reach platforms. This situation forces the player to use an archer to snipe them from the ground. It also doubles as an AntiFrustrationFeature wherein you can select Amber as a "[[GuestStarPartyMember Trial]]" character if you do not have any ranged units in your current party.
** Certain domains have traits that either give you gameplay bonuses or punishes you when you are playing characters with one or more certain elements. Spiral Abyss also has "blessings" that give you a buff towards certain elements or mechanics (such as having a shield).
* ChargedAttack:
** The playable characters can unleash a more powerful attack (at the cost of Stamina) by holding down the main attack button. The properties and animations of the charged attacks differ depending on the character.
** You can also charge certain abilities as well, creating a completely different but more powerful ability.
* {{Checkpoint}}: Dungeons have Doors of Resurrection that serve as respawn checkpoints in case you fell off a {{bottomless pit}}.
* ChekhovsGun:
** In a back alley of Mondstadt, there is a door blocked by a [[GeometricMagic circular magic seal]]. No one seems to know how to open it. ''Much'' later, at Adventure Rank 38 or above, you travel with Mona from Liyue to Mondstadt, and (after shenanigans) she decides to stay there for a while. Her hydro-magic skills allow her to remove the seal, and the magic lab inside becomes her new home.
** In Sal Terrae, Liyue, there is a big hole with a magic seal that leads into an underground cave. There seems to be no way to open the seal. Only in Zhongli's story quest (you have to hit Adventure Rank 40) do you open it[[note]]the mechanism that allows you to unlock the seal does not appear until you play this quest[[/note]], leading to the Traveler discovering what lies inside the Goddess of Salt's hideout.
* ChestMonster: Whopperflowers disguise themselves amongst the flora that you can pick in the wild. However, hints allow you to spot them; they do not produce a [[NoticeThis spark]] unlike the actual flowers, [[TrueSight elemental sight]] does not highlight them, and their icon shows a speech bubble when interacted.
* TheChosenMany: Lore-wise, the gods grant a "Vision" onto people who keep holding onto their ambition even in desperate times. The Traveler, being from another world, is outside this "system"; however, they have an as-of-yet unexplained [[UniqueProtagonistAsset trait]] where they can take on an elemental power without a Vision simply by interacting with the Statues of the Seven. Venti later explains that the Vision is a sign of Celestia accepting their holders as future gods, calling the holders "allogenes". If we believe their names, allogenes - aka the "[[TitleDrop Genshin]]" - are SemiDivine beings, somewhere between a mortal and a god.
* CollectionSidequest:
** The Oculi (e.g., "Anemoculus" in Mondstadt and "Geoculus" in Liyue) are orb-like collectibles usually found in the wild, in tricky-to-reach places. You can "offer" them in the Statues of the Seven to increase the statues' level; the level increase gives your characters added stats (including stamina) and increases the "healing limit" of the statues, as well as the Traveler's constellation upgrades for each element and some other valuable items.
** In Version 1.2, the "Crimson Agate" in Dragonspine works similarly to the Oculi, in that you must look for them and then offer them to the "Frostbearing Tree" to get rewards. The difference is that a handful of Agates appear inside special chests, and once the tree reaches a certain level, you will be able to take five combat and timed challenges (which refresh twice a week) that you can complete, getting more Agates to level the tree up.
** There are achievements for finding and following Seelies to their destinations.
** For a more minor case, there are achievements for collecting all books within the same series.
* ColorCodedElements: The seven elements of Teyvat are all heavily associated with a vibrant, well-differentiated color because of their importance within the game's mechanics, and most Vision bearers' elements can be identified due to similar color schemes. The Traveler, lacking a Vision, gains the color of their current element in the details of their costume.
** [[BlowYouAway Anemo]] is [[WindIsGreen a light mint green color]].
** [[DishingOutDirt Geo]] is [[YellowEarthGreenEarth a vibrant, goldenrod yellow]].
** [[ShockAndAwe Electro]] is [[PurpleIsPowerful a very vivid purple]].
** [[GreenThumb Dendro]] is associated with a bright yellow-green or chartreuse. Also brown, as wooden objects (shields and brambles, for example) have Dendro properties.
** [[MakingASplash Hydro]] is [[WaterIsBlue blue]].
** [[PlayingWithFire Pyro]] is orange, though [[FireIsRed red]] takes priority in the colors of most Pyro characters.
** [[AnIcePerson Cryo]] is a light, almost white, shade of [[BlueMeansCold cyan]].
** [[NonElemental Lack of an element]] is grey, which can only been seen in the background of the character menu at the start of the game before interacting with the Statue of the Seven.
* ColorCodedEyes: The easiest way to identify the Archon in each country is by their eyes, which will always be a brilliant shade of the color that represents their element.
* ColorCodedForYourConvenience:
** To differentiate between the two types of Ley Line Outcrops, the Blossoms of Revelation are colored blue, while the Blossoms of Wealth are colored gold.
** Vision gems have distinct colors according to their elements. Although the Traveler does not carry one, the gem accessories on their clothing also glow the same way, which is useful to tell which element they are currently using.
** The game highlights story-related quests with yellow waypoints, circles, or [[NoticeThis pillars of light]] in the open-world map and color-coding Daily Commissions with purple. World Quests, {{Random Event}}s and limited-time event objectives (such as those from "Unreconciled Stars") are colored blue to separate them from the rest.
** Teleport Waypoints (including Domains and Statues of the Seven) initially glow red but turn blue once you have activated them.
* ColorCodedItemTiers: All items (weapons, artifacts, food, ingredients, materials, etc.) have colored backgrounds associated with their rarity (in ascending order: gray, green, blue, purple, orange/gold). Characters also share the same color coding scheme, though they are only tiered 4★-5★.
* ColorWash: Certain Elemental Bursts will tint the screen with colors depending on the element. For example, Fischl's Burst covers the screen with purple, while Diluc's Burst makes the screen glow bright orange (akin to the dawn sky, his Burst's namesake).
* CombatStilettos: Almost all the female characters have either full-on high heels or raised-heel boots, including claymore-swinging [[StoneWall tanks]] like Noelle. Special mentions go to Keqing--who, in addition to ''wearing'' stilettos, has a combat ability called "Lightning Stiletto"--and Diona, who does not wear high heels but stands on tiptoes all the time anyway.
* CometOfDoom: A meteor shower kickstarts the plot of the "Unreconciled Stars" event. Problem is, the meteorites have scattered across the land, and those who touched the meteorite shards have gone into a deep sleep that no one can wake them up from. Only by getting rid of the meteorites can the Traveler and Fischl save the people from their condition.
* CommonplaceRare: Carrots can be obtained from the wild and expedition, but can only purchased from Wanmin Restaurant. Most other vegetables can be purchased at food vendors, but strangely, carrots aren't among them.
* TheComputerIsACheatingBastard:
** All enemies have numerical levels, which mostly [[LevelScaling keep pace with]] the maximum level your characters can currently achieve. The last few levels of the Spiral Abyss, however, have enemy levels go all the way up to 100; your units cannot level past 90. You cannot even go above 80 until Adventure Rank 50, and you will unlock level 90 enemies in domains well before this point.
** Enemies never need to worry about dangerous environmental effects like Sheer Cold or Balethunder.
* CompletionMeter: In the world map, there is a percentage counter that tracks how much you have explored in a certain region. Once you reach specific thresholds of exploration, up to 60%, you can receive rewards from the respective Reputation [=NPCs=].
* ContentWarning: Similar with ''Honkai Impact 3rd'', the PC port of the game starts with a warning of possible ill feelings like [[EpilepticFlashingLights flashing effects-induced epilepsy]] and headaches due to visual motion sickness while playing, and advices players to stop playing and seek help if such happens.
* ContinuingIsPainful: If you lose a boss battle, then you will respawn somewhere nearby and lose your charged Burst. If you used up all your health items, then you will have to go out and grind for the ingredients again to make some more before you retry the boss since leaving does not refund consumed items. Per the mobile game standard, there is no save/load system, only quit and restart, so going back to an earlier save is not an option. However, for a handful of bosses, there may be a pot conveniently placed nearby that lets you cook without delay for more food instead of having to go somewhere else to cook new food.
* ContinuityNod: You can only receive the Daily Commission Quest from Godwin after you completed Glory's. The dialogue lines upon meeting him for the first time also mention that the player already met Glory before. There are also commission quests from Glory that, story-wise, happens after you finish Godwin's.
* ContrivedCoincidence: A few [=NPCs=] mention that no-one has gotten an Electro Vision for over a year since before the beginning of the game’s events. The Electro Archon isolated Inazuma and began the Vision Hunt Decree around that same time as well. [[spoiler:However, Ei’s voice lines reveal that she doesn’t give out Electro Visions, and that the element of a vision is determined by a person’s ambitions and some other criteria that she can’t describe.]] This ultimately leaves it up in the air as to why no-one has gotten an Electro Vision since that time.
* CookingMechanics: You can collect ingredients in the wild and then cook them whenever you find a bonfire and a pot. The cooking process involves pressing a button with the right timing to get superior results. Having done enough "perfect" cooking for certain food (the number of times needed differs depending on the food's quality tier) leads to you "mastering" the dish, allowing you to cook multiple of the same food [[GameplayAutomation automatically at the same time]]. There are various dishes that you can cook, granting different effects such as replenishing HP or giving you a temporary buff. Characters are also better at cooking certain food than others, either making unique versions of specific dishes or having a chance to double the yield of foods of a particular buff category.
* CooldownManipulation:
** The "Slowing Water" Ley Line disorder (that appears in certain domains) increases your skills' cooldown timers by 80%.
** A handful of characters have skills, passives or Constellation upgrades that speed up or reset skill cooldowns for themselves, or the other party members.
** Certain weapons also have this as their passive effect, such as the Sacrificial Sword having a chance to end an elemental skill's cooldown after damaging an enemy with that skill.
* CoolBoat: 1.6 introduces Waveriders, tiny boats that run by magic and allows you to explore the oceans without having to be concerned about Stamina. They're also surprisingly well-armed, and can take on sea fortifications with ease.
* CoolSword: A good proportion of weapons have intricate designs or flashy decorations, especially when they receive visual upgrades [[EquipmentUpgrade when ascended]]. A number even have lore-wise justifications on why they look this way, such as the Royal Longsword's carvings and embellishments testifying the stature of its owner.
* CoOpMultiplayer: There's a Co-Op mode that allows up to four players to explore and battle enemies together in real-time. It comes with limitations though; it pauses Story Quests for everyone, and guests cannot access shops, cannot pick up Oculi and cannot open chests, even if the host can.
* CosmeticAward:
** You can get special namecards for your profile from clearing certain achievements, maxing out your characters' RelationshipValues, reaching Reputation lv 7 in each city, as event rewards…
** You can get custom Wind Gliders from reaching Reputation lv 8 (the maximum) in each city and leveling the Frostbearing Tree in Dragonspine to 12.
* CosmicMotifs:
** All characters are associated with a {{fictional constellation|s}}[[note]]Although some like Leo Minor, Crater and Corvus does exist in real life though shaped differently[[/note]].
** Mondstadt ("Moon Town") and Liyue (璃月, roughly "glassy moon") have the Moon in their names.
** The Qixing refers to the Big Dipper stars. The titles for each member (Yuheng, Tianquan) refer to the Chinese names of the stars of the Big Dipper. It is even the Chinese name of one of the characters (Beidou), whose meaning InUniverse is also associated with [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast death]].
** The Eclipse is a recurring motif in the backstories; the Hilichurls have an occult tribe that worships a symbol of the eclipsed sun, while the "Breeze Amidst the Forest" book mentions something about the Eclipse Dynasty (which is then [[OrwellianRetcon renamed]] Blacksun Dynasty since Version 1.1).
* CrapsaccharineWorld: Within the first few minutes of your journey through Teyvat, you are treated to an ''absolutely gorgeous'' view of [[https://snipboard.io/A0xXNo.jpg Mondstadt's countryside.]] A few minutes after that, and you see a dragon flying threateningly just above you, and the further you go down the story, it's evident there's something sinister brewing in the darkest corners of Teyvat.
* CrapsackWorld: As time goes on, it becomes apparent that the current state of Teyvat is ''not good''. [[spoiler:The destruction of Khaenri'ah resulted in a GreatOffscreenWar so cataclysmic in scale that it resulted in the deaths of untold millions, including several Adepti and two Archons. Several imprisoned gods lie dormant beneath the earth waiting for a chance to escape so they can resume their war with the present Archons, uncaring of the many mortal lives will be lost in the process. The Abyss Order operates on a scale from anywhere between trying to turn humanity against the gods and actively trying to annihilate them, and the Fatui are also scheming to conquer Teyvat one Gnosis at a time. And the gods of Celestia are suggested to be not much better, and will destroy any civilizations that go far enough in defying them.]] And the grand majority of humanity remains largely oblivious to the sheer number of world-ending threats on their doorstep.
** Inazuma, thanks to the Electro Archon's efforts, is a highly isolated nation where everything will be frozen for all eternity. There won't be anything new from the outside world, and the Vision Hunt Decree ensures there won't be anything new from inside either. And this is before taking into account the lethal conditions in some parts of the nation, the constant thunderstorms, and the roaming bandits and ronins. It's an AndIMustScream on a nation level.
** Sumeru is ruled with an iron fist by the Akademiya, who [[spoiler:placed their own Archon under house arrest out of staunch refusal to accept that her predecessor is dead]], and despise the arts and anything "unproductive" to such a degree that they actively persecute anyone who attempts to indulge in such. [[spoiler:And the Akasha Terminal, which was initially believed to simply be an advanced piece of technology used for quick access to information, turns out to actively harvest the people of Sumeru's dreams, culminating in the Akademiya's sages trapping the entire city's population in a LotusEaterMachine in a bid to harvest a large amount of dreams in a short timeframe.]] Sumeru is ''also'' threatened by the Eremites, a race of desert warriors trying to resurrect their patron deity so they can wage open warfare with the Akademiya-ruled government.
** Snezhnaya is implied to be one. Ruled by an Archon with no love, the country is enveloped in eternal winter where you can freeze to death just by standing still. Such an environment naturally breeds grim, pragmatic people, as evidenced by the ''Snezhnaya Does not Believe in Tears'' achievement and Teucer's nursery rhyme.[[note]]"You break a pinkie promise, I throw you on the ice. The cold will kill the pinkie that once betrayed your friend, the frost will freeze your tongue off so you never lie again."[[/note]]
* CrateExpectations: In the wild, you may find breakable crates and barrels that may occasionally hold Mora, items, and chests. However, crates and barrels within the cities are unbreakable.
* CripplingOverspecialization:
** Purely offensive characters such as Razor, Xiao, and Klee suffer from this if without support. Those who have kits purely focused on attacking eventually fall due to lack of recovery or have attacks the enemy greatly resists or is immune to. This is especially prominent if their buffs encourage them to stay in the field by deactivating during switch-outs.
** Discussed InUniverse with the Kamuijima Cannons in Inazuma. They're powerful weapons built by the Shogunate Army which fire explosive Electro projectiles at targets and are even capable of bringing down the containment dome around Tatarasuna, and Xavier notes that it's because of these cannons that the Sangonomiya Resistance was unable to push their forces any closer to Narukami Island. However, they're completely immobile and cannot be relocated, so once the front line was pushed back to Nazuchi Beach (far out of the cannon's range), they have fallen into disuse by the army, meaning they're only ever good at defending the Kujou Encampment. This flaw inevitably works in the Traveler's favor, however, since it allows them to freely use the cannons to break into Tatarasuna and scare the Fatui.
* CriticalHit: Characters have stats that increase the chance and percent-based damage of their critical hits. A handful of weapons and artifacts also give their users an increase in either critical hit rate or damage, as well as effects that occur on a critical hit.
* CriticalHitClass: Cryo characters tend to specialize in dealing critical hits. The Cryo Resonance effect (put 2 Cryo characters in a party) increases the crit rate of the whole party by 15% against enemies that are affected by Cryo or frozen. The Blizzard Strayer artifact set increases crit rate against ememies affected by Cryo by 20%, and further increases it by another 20% if the enemy is frozen.
* CrystallineCreature:
** Geovishaps are {{Rock Monster}}s whose bodies are primarily made out of crystal, with rocky outgrowths of spikes on their backs and limbs.
** Azhdaha is an enormous dragon made of golden crystal -- an in-universe legend claims that he was originally a single massive crystal that was carved into the shape of a dragon by Morax, the patron god of Liyue.
* CrosshairAware:
** The game highlights AreaOfEffect attacks as circles on the ground, showing their destination and radius.
** If a Ruin Guard's missiles lock on to you, a crosshair will appear on the character's body.
* {{Crossover}}: The first one this game did was with ''VideoGame/HorizonZeroDawn'', with Aloy as a new Playable Character.
* CrowsNestCartography: You fill in the map by visiting the Statues of the Seven. Their waypoint markers are the only visible things on blank portions of the map.
* CrutchCharacter:
** The three StarterMon characters have useful skills, abilities, and elemental synergy but have inborn traits that lower their overall effectiveness, giving you the incentive to build other characters to fill their weakpoints. They are never a part of any banners, so even if you want to invest in them, getting their constellations is an exercise in RNG.
*** As an archer, Amber is useful in puzzle-solving segments, especially the timed challenges where you need ranged Pyro units to shoot and light things up. However, she cannot do too much to increase her overall DPS output, and it is not particularly high in the first place. Most bench her in favor of the much higher DPS or utilities that the other archers have.
*** Lisa is the most useful among the three [[DamnedByFaintPraise when]] [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman it is constantly raining or on a body of water.]] Otherwise, her reliance on {{charged attack}}s becomes much more of a liability than anything.
*** Kaeya's kit gives him the best longevity among the three, as his abilities are solid but not remarkable. Most critically, he is not that useful when fighting ice-elemental enemies (like Cryo slimes, Cryo Regisvine, and Andrius), so you must invest in other characters if you want to get anywhere past level 40.
** Noelle, the character granted by the Beginner's wish banner, is a complicated example. Noelle can be made to hit hard, tank huge hits, and heal all party members, but her Elemental Skill cooldown is a lengthy 27 seconds and her Elemental Burst has the second highest energy cost level at 80. Combine that with Geo's lack of offensive reactions and she lags behind in crucial damage dealing, shielding, and debuffing that other characters can benefit from.
** GuestFighter Aloy has great stats, a good 4-star weapon made for her and abilities given to players for free. Unfortunately she doesn't have constellations when she came out so her potential lags behind others. Even worse for new players is that she cannot get above level 20 because her materials are in Inazuma and getting into the area requires several Archon quests locked behind more than one FameGate.
** The Gladiator's Finale and Wanderer's Troupe are crutch artifact sets, which respectively give a useful but not great boost to your basic attacks for melee characters and a boost to charged attacks for ranged characters. They are useful in the early-game because they can be farmed from the open world bosses, but if you want to do real damage, you should invest in the artifacts dropped from the domains for more significant boosts in power.
* CutAndPasteEnvironments: Single-room Domains for farming materials have the same layout of a circular arena, plus a tree near the exit where you receive the rewards.
* CutscenePowerToTheMax: In both the cutscenes and the manga, all characters can do many things with their elemental powers. However in the actual game, their abilities are limited to a very narrow arsenal of skills to make the gameplay as balanced as possible. Ningguang and Childe, for example, are the most notorious case.
* CycleOfHurting:
** Your playable characters become stunned for a moment as they take damage. Unfortunately, it is also possible to get stun-locked if the enemies use their multi-hitting attacks and {{combos}}, especially if surrounded. For example, the Whopperflowers have a sequence of projectile volleys that are normally hard to recover from once they hit you since the succeeding projectiles come rapidly.
** Amusingly, Pyro Abyss Mages near a body of water are prone to this too. If you can bait them to teleport above the water body, this effectively defeats them. The constant Wet effect will break their shield, stunning them. After a while, they will do Pyro attacks while revitalizing their shield... except they still stay hovering above the said body of water, which will result in their shield getting depleted and stunning them over and over. Rainfall will also make them stuck in the same loop without any body of water. And if they happen to teleport over ''deep'' water, they will drown after their shields are down.
** Players can invoke this by luring enemies inside small tents (like the ones near Fatui or Treasure Hoarder Camps), and then spamming the {{Charged Attack}}s of a sword-wielder. The knockback will prevent them from getting up, and the lack of space will ensure they stay in place for you to beat them up.
* DamageIncreasingDebuff: Vaporize and Melt reactions directly increase the damage of the attack that triggers it, so that the Pyro, Cryo or Hydro afflictions (whether inflicted naturally, through a self-buff, or another character's attack) become this for an attack of the elements that trigger Vaporize or Melt with them. The Superconduct reaction (Electro + Cryo) also inflicts physical resistance reduction on its victims, so that your characters can deal higher physical damage onto them.
* DamnYouMuscleMemory:
** You can miss the Luxurious treasure chest that you get at the end of every World Ascension quest in its entirety if the last Electro particle of Electro Hypostasis you destroy happens to be the one that is right next to where the domain exit shows up. This can be a result of instinctively trying to interact with the pop-up, only realizing too late that it is the exit, not the treasure chest.
** For PC players, when you are alternating between Portable Waypoints and Custom Pins in the map screen, muscle memory can make it hard to realize that the Delete button actually [[https://i.redd.it/mq2n23wyak561.png swaps positions]] between the two user interfaces.
** On mobile phones, the control layout for ''Honkai Impact 3rd'' isn't the same as ''Genshin Impact'', so switching between these two miHoYo games can require adjustments. For instance, the [[LimitBreak ultimate ability]] button sits above the attack button in ''Honkai'', yet it's located on the lower left of the attack button in ''Genshin''.
* DarkFantasy: Teyvat may look like a colorful HighFantasy world. But make no mistake, Teyvat has a very seedy history behind its colorfulness and as the world lore shows, it's filled with [[EldritchLocation bizarre locations]] and [[EldritchAbomination malevolent entities]] everywhere. Combined with the fact that there are many organizations that willingly use horrifying powers like Delusions, to the point of endangering a whole country just for their god’s wishes. Adding up by the fact, many small events that look seemingly harmless become far more darker once the true story is out or connected dot by dot by looking up for clues and hints on it.
* TheDarkSideWillMakeYouForget: According to Kaedehara Kazuha, [[TheCorruption Tatarigami]] magnifies interests into dangerous obsessions. [[spoiler: A blade that was tainted by Tatarigami turned someone's hobby for collecting swords into a hoarding addiction, and once he was finally persuaded to sell that blade it immediately took control of the buyer by playing on his desire to prove his skill in the martial arts. The sword is itself an example of this, as its ambition to reach Inazuma after its smith was exiled was twisted into a desire for revenge against the Shogun.]]
* DatingSim: Hangout Events are character stories formatted like this, with dialog choices that alter the story (unlike [[ButThouMust how it usually goes]] in ''Genshin''), a choice to restart them to see [[MultipleEndings different paths/endings]], and an obvious (G-rated) romantic atmosphere. These were introduced in Version 1.4, but more are added in later updates.
* ADayInTheLimelight:
** Playable characters have the spotlight in their Story Quests while the Traveler and Paimon help them for a series of missions.
** Each region explores the backstory of its respective Archon (e.g., Barbatos in Mondstadt, Rex Lapis Morax in Liyue)
* DeadlyDodging: You can dodge special projectile attacks (such as the Large Hydro Slimes and Hydro Abyss Mages' water ball attack) and make enemies hit their ally instead.
* DeathFromAbove: Each character has a "Plunge Attack" that you can perform while gliding (or simply falling from higher terrain, such as a cliff or stairs). The character will fall straight down from above, smashing the ground and dealing [=AoE=] damage to nearby enemies and objects.
* DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist: Losing all four active party members will not result in a GameOver but will merely respawn you at a nearby spawn point since the game works on a drop-in/drop-out basis like most mobile [=MMORPGs=]. The only real penalty is that whatever resources you spent in tough battles like cooked food will not reset, so you will have to replenish them manually.
* DeathMountain: The Dragonspine mountain, covered in perpetual snow. It is so cold that there is a special 'Sheer Cold' mechanic slowly freezing you until you start to quickly take damage, which requires you to keep warm near a heat source. It is so cold that the grass will not ignite from Pyro attacks. And there are certain ice formations that you can only break by imbuing yourself with magical heat from certain gemstones; normal flames simply will not do.
* DeathOfTheOldGods: Something that comes up often in the backstory is that besides the Seven Archons, there used to be more gods ruling over Teyvat – who appear to have died or disappeared. For example, the God of Salt used to rule over the area called "Sal Terrae" before [[spoiler:her followers betrayed and [[MercyKill killed]] her]]. Furthermore, not even all of the Seven Archons are the first in their roles.
* DeepImmersionGaming: Theater Mechanicus from the 2021 Lunar New Year event. It appears at first to be a tabletop game with a ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' vibe to it, then gameplay starts, and you are right there in the middle of it, battling waves of {{Mooks}} and setting up your towers by hand. Considering the {{Magitek}} nature of this universe, it could just be [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane something else...]]
* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: One reputation-related request has the name "Manly Jack's Manly Journey of Manliness." He wants you to [[RealMenEatMeat give him cooked meat]].
* DevelopersForesight:
** The Contending Tides challenge automatically disables weather gimmicks like rain and thunderstorms to keep them from interfering with the fights. This ensures that players are unable to abuse the Electro-Charged, Frozen and Vaporize reactions, as well as prevent random lightning strikes from getting cheap [=KOs=] on either you or the enemies.
** Pyro Hilichurl Grenadiers, who throw Pyro Slimes at the player, have plenty of consideration put towards them. Hitting them with Hydro while they're holding a slime will put it out and make the thrown slime only deal physical damage, while Electro will cause the slime to blow up in their face. And while they can dig Pyro Slimes out from most locations, they'll fail if they try to dig one out if they're standing in a pool of water.
** The Perpetual Mechanical Array is located inside underwater ruins that can only be accessed during the "Sakura Cleansing Ritual" World Quest. However, since the boss is required to fight in order to obtain Ayaka's ascension materials, for the time being until the ruins are unlocked, a temporary shortcut portal is open to warp players to the boss directly. At the same time, the boss room pre-unlock will have transparent barriers to prevent players from cheesing the ruins that way.
** In Sumeru, the player has two different ways to first encounter a Withering Zone as part of a quest - either by progressing the Archon Quest, or by progressing the Aranyaka World Quest chain. The relevant dialogue in each quest changes depending on whether that is the player's first encounter with a Withering Zone as part of a quest.
** During the "Dual Evidence" world quest of Old Notes and New Friends, the player is tasked with visiting three different locations in order to obtain the full clearance of the Scarlet Sand Slate. It is possible to find one of the locations and complete its puzzle before reaching the location where Paimon and the Traveler realize this (and in fact is quite likely given that it's on the way to the quest location in question), and if so Paimon and the Traveler will make note that one of the symbols is already done for them in the quest cutscene.
* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu:
** The climax of Chapter 1 Act 3 has [[spoiler:the Traveler, the Liyue Qixing and the Adepti teaming up to fight against Osial, God of the Vortex, culminating in Ningguang dropping the ''entire'' Jade Palace on top of the ancient god, ending the threat for good.]]
** Chapter 2 Act 3 has [[spoiler:the Traveler defeat Ei in single combat, due to a combination of the Traveler being empowered by the Visions in the Statue of the Omnipresent God and Ei not having her Gnosis]].
** In the past, the head of the Kujou Clan challenged the Raiden Shogun and won against her, becoming the first head of the Tenryou Commission. If her duel against Kamaji is any indication, she probably fought like a normal and didn't use any of her elemental or divine powers; still, it's an impressive feat to beat an immortal warrior with thousands of years to hone their skill.
* DieChairDie: Certain objects in the overworld and domains are destructible by varying degrees: storage objects like jars and crates are breakable by any attack, cracked piles of stones are meant to be broken by strong impact attacks (Geo, claymore, explosion)[[note]]Normal attacks only deal ScratchDamage[[/note]], and thorny vines can only be destroyed by fire and are otherwise indestructible.
* DifficultButAwesome:
** Characters such as Beidou, Xinyan, Noelle and the Starter Trio (especially Amber) aren't as favored as other characters due to requiring more gear investment and practice to get the most use out of them, thus many fan-made guides put them in the bottom tier. However, it can be very rewarding to develop and practice with these characters and see them clear bosses and the Abyss as the likes of Diluc, Ganyu and Hu Tao.
** The Starter party (Amber, Lisa, Kaeya) sans Traveler, lose viability fast and need their Constellations maximized to keep up with the heavy damage dealers. Problem is, you cannot obtain them while trying to pull for Limited-Time characters as they will only be available in the Standard Banner. With no way to increase their chances among the other featured 4-star characters and weapons, and not having a rate-up in any banner, it is very tedious to fully upgrade them. With enough time and investment, however, the starting trio can pull their own weight against end-game challenges.
** [[StuffBlowingUp Overload ]] is generally considered the hardest reaction to utilize in combat as it can cause harm to the player themselves, set grass on fire that will burn the player, or send smaller enemies flying out of melee range. However, when used successfully (such as combining Xiangling's Guoba with Keqing's Stellar Restoration), the result it setting off explosion after explosion in the enemy's face, absolutely decimating small to mid sized opponents and dealing massive damage to large opponents and bosses.
* DiscOneNuke:
** The Sword of Descension, a 4★ One-handed Sword, can be gained extremely early into the game, being effectively handed out for free with no extra steps required, does extremely good damage, and is probably the best 4★ weapon for the Traveler, as through Refinement, it gains a unique skill that boosts its ATK when [[SituationalSword equipped by the Traveler]]. The catch? It is only available to [=PS4=] players who pre-registered; other platforms or fresh players are out of luck.
** As with most gacha games, lucking out and getting a 5★ or unintentionally overpowered character in your first few draws can trivialize combat in the early game... and, to an extent, the late game. A handful of players opt to "reroll" by playing the first ~30 minutes of the game on a series of new accounts until a lucky wish happens.
** ATK buff food in general, as all ATK buffs from food are ''flat'' buffs, meaning, compared to your current ATK stat, they offer a greater proportional increase to your damage output. The strongest of them, the 5★ Adeptus Temptation, buffs up to 372 points, which can easily double or even triple your damage output when compared to your attack stat ([[GuideDangIt though good luck getting it that early unless you know what you are doing]]). They tend to fall off in the late game since 372 attack is not as large of a margin compared to your characters, but they are still useful for speeding up fights.
** Noelle is guaranteed to come with your first 10 wishes in the Beginner's Wish. Although she'll lose viability early, she is very useful until then. Noelle is much more durable than the starting team and due to being a Claymore user, she hits harder but slower. Her Elemental skill blocks damage and heals, while her Burst is very accurate, deals plenty of damage, and lasts a decent time. Due to her durability, simple kit, and access to weapons with heavier damage, Noelle makes the early game easier until a better character is acquired or has more investment.
* DiscountCard: Reaching Reputation Level 4 in a particular region gives you a discount at shops in that region.
* DoNotTouchTheFunnelCloud: [[BlowYouAway Anemo]]-elemental characters and enemies usually have access to skills that create mini-tornadoes or spheres of wind that suck in and damage the nearby opposition like a vacuum. Emphasis on "nearby" since the winds have a very limited range.
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: During the Tatara Tales quest chain in Inazuma, you work with a man named Xavier to attend to Mikage Furnace, a massive plant where Jade Steel was forged until civil war broke out and production had to be halted. To wit, the Furnace: is kept under a massive containment dome you can't go through until later on, being fueled by an extremely powerful yet dangerous energy source, has a cracked central core dumping out hazardous material that'll drain your health unless you shield yourself, and is at a risk of eventually exploding the entire island it's on unless someone manages to patch up this core. Balethunder even makes a popping, clicking noise that sounds a little like a Geiger counter going off. No wonder fans speculate about whether it's meant to be one big reference to the Fukushima plant disaster of 2011.
* DoubleEntendre: The "Scent of Spring" shop in Liyue sells vases, but the shopkeeper's dialog deliberately makes it sound like something... else.
-->'''Ying'er''': Just imagine, the warmth of their bodies, the smoothness of their curves under your hands...
* DownerBeginning: The game starts with the twin Travelers attacked by the Unknown God, a mysterious individual whom they cannot even fight back, and is also the one who took away their [[DimensionalTraveler dimension-traveling abilities]]. At least, that is what the [[PlayerCharacter player twin]] narrates to Paimon.
* DoWellButNotPerfect: Some achievements require stalling out a boss until it enters a certain phase or performs a certain attack, even if the player's team would be able to down the boss before it reached that phase. A few require allowing the boss to perform its LimitBreak, which the player should normally prevent from happening.
* DrawSwordDrawBlood: The Black Sword is a cursed blade that thirsts after fresh blood, driving its wielder to bloodshed just to nourish itself. In-game, it [[LifeDrain restores HP]] for critical hits, but only once every 5 seconds.
* DreamApocalypse: In Chapter III Act II, [[spoiler: the population of Sumeru City is trapped in a dream world where they are forced to relive the day of the Sabzeruz Festival over and over. At first, Dunyarzad is alive and well, but repeatedly having her dreams extracted exhausts her to the point she becomes too weak to continue taking part in the festival, forcing the Akademiya to substitute her with an emotionless puppet. The main characters are concerned that after ending the dream, they will never get to see Dunyarzad again. The Traveler is so upset after recovering a letter from Dunyarzad that was intended to assist them in their search for Lesser Lord Kusanali that they thank the puppet. Fortunately, this trope is {{Subverted|Trope}}, as Nahida is able to save Dunyarzad's life. Everyone else is a real person who was trapped in the dream with them, so they continue to exist after the dream ends.]]
* DrunkRolling: In the Drunkard Gorge road of Mondstadt, you may come across an NPC named Greg. If you talk to him, he at first tries to strike a friendly conversation with you, in which you can have a dialog choice where you are saying nonsense. But later, one dialog choice can make Greg point out that you are pretending to be drunk, and he chooses to stop talking with you. [[spoiler:He is one of the Treasure Hoarders, who you commonly find as enemies]].
* DubNameChange: Multiple, mostly concerning the English translation. To name a handful: [[TitleDrop "Genshin" as the in-story concept]] to "Allogenes", "God's Eye" to "Vision", "Heart of God" to "Gnosis".
* DuelToTheDeath: The Raiden Shogun oversees a variation in Inazuma. Duelers challenge each other in her throne room, and the Shogun executes the loser. This scenario killed Kazuha's friend, and [[spoiler:she dispassionately does Teyvat a great service by obliterating Signora, the loser of a duel with the Traveler]].
* DumpStat:
** A downplayed example; for artifacts, if their main stat is either DEF increase, HP increase or Healing Bonus, players tend to sideline them in favor of artifacts with more offensive stats. It is not that those stats are useless, as characters do gain from those stats - the catch is that those characters tend to be support ones. Players also consider artifacts that have two or more of these as their sub-stats lacking. This is inverted for Geo characters like Albedo or Itto, whose Elemental Skill damage scale off of DEF.
** When it comes to artifact set bonuses, those that provide RES (resistance) of any kind are rarely favored. Enemies frequently come in assorted elements so maximizing resistance for one element won't protect from another. Artifact sets that provide that bonus are meant for the early game, or require a 4-piece set to unlock a bonus with offensive stats.
* DungeonCrawling: A core gameplay element wherein your party members enter dungeons (called "domains") to clear quests inside. These areas can also include platforming sections and/or environmental hazards that you must navigate.
* DynamicEntry:
** If a teammate's Elemental Burst is ready, its icon will appear beside their portrait. Tapping that makes them swap out with the current character and instantly unleash their LimitBreak.
** Nothing's stopping you from gliding ''way'' above an enemy and open a battle with a [[DeathFromAbove Plunging Attack]]. As bonuses, it also greatly reduces fall damage and there is an Achievement for Plunging for 5 seconds before hitting your target.
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* InexplicablyIdenticalIndividuals: Catherine, the woman who welcomes you to the Adventure Guilds, appears in every single region. Each "Catherine" is supposedly a different person, much to the Traveler and Paimon’s (and the player’s) confusion. The one in Inazuma tells you that she actually uses teleport points to move between different cities, but it turns out she’s just joking… maybe.