Genshin Impact – release of Version 1.4

Developed and published by studio miHoYo last fall, Genshin Impact was originally released for Windows, PlayStation 4, Android, and iOS. It is expected that the game will soon be released for the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 5. Extremely popular with gamers, within just 5 months, the game has grossed over $874 million.

Set to arrive on March 17th, the next update for the game will rerun the Venti banner, with many fans predicting it will include 4-star characters such as Razor, Noelle, Sucrose. Some have suggested that Fischl may also be included in the rerun banner, as Fischl was a part of the first run of the Venti banner Ballad in Goblets, but most players would prefer to see Razor or Noelle instead.

Update 1.4 will also be introducing a new 4-star character called Rosaria, a polearm wielding cryo-elemental character. Her background ingame is described as “a nun, who outside her garb, seems nothing at all like a person of the cloth. Known for her sharp, cold words and manner, she often works along.” Fitting with her religious theme, she is expected to have the following Talents: Ravaging Confession, allowing Rosaria to appear behind enemies and attacking them with her weapon; Rites of Termination, which creates an ice lance striking the ground and periodically releasing blasts doing cryo-type damage; Regina Probationum, increasing Rosaria critical hit rate while attacking enemies from behind; Shadow Samaritan, increasing nearby party members critical hit rate after using her Rites of Termination talent; and Night Walk, which increases the movement speed of the party members during the night (6pm-6am).

Aside from that, there will also be several other game changes, including a new type of story quest that resembles a dating sim. Similar to the Lantern Rite, there will likely be many fun things to do during the Windblume Festival to celebrate the coming of spring.

Currently, players need to break down other artifacts in order to upgrade other artifacts. So it’s not surprising that there were rumors that version 1.4 will introduce Artifact ascension items that can be used exclusively to upgrade artifacts. This was actually confirmed when leaked by popular Twitter Genshin source @HoneyDodogama, revealing the following items:

• Sanctifying Droplet (1 star): This can be used to ascend your artifacts to Phase 1
• Sanctifying Water (2 stars): This can be used to ascend your artifacts to Phase 2
• Sanctifying Spring (3 stars): This can be used to ascend your artifacts to Phase 3
• Sanctifying Essence (4 stars): This can be used to ascend your artifacts to Phase 4

It’s also possible that some of these artifact ascension items may be changed to artifact EXP items. These include the Sanctifying Unction, which will reward the player with 2500 EXP, and Sanctifying Essence, which rewards 10,000 EXP. It’s not yet clear how these items can be obtained, but we should be finding out soon with the update coming tomorrow.