Genshin Impact is quite the deceptive game. On the surface, it seems like a gacha-adventure title is all about stereotypical anime adventures and the power of friendship. To be fair, it still kind of is about all that. But fans of Mihoyo (in particular fans of Honkai Impact 3rd) know that the company loves to hide a lot of dark elements and nihilism beneath a thin facade of whimsy.

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Genshin is no different, so let’s talk about some of the darkest things the devs let players get away with.

10 Murder Thousands Of Semi-Intelligent Creatures

Genshin Impact: Diluc Staring Down A Hilichurl

First and foremost fans have to realize just how messed up the whole Hilichurl situation is right? These are the primary monsters that the Traveler and their Teyvat companions end up fighting, but why are they even fighting them? Hilichurls aren’t willing invaders, they suddenly appeared on Teyvat a few centuries ago. They aren’t as primitive as the game makes them seem, since they have farmland, capture livestock, build settlements, and have their own traditions. Yet, every time the player sees one (even if they’re dancing or sleeping) they're incentivized to murder them in cold blood for their drops.

9 Ruin An Attempt At Crossing The Language Barrier

Genshin Impact: Ella Musk Communicating With A Hilichurl

So, how about those Hilichurl Commission Quests with Ella Musk? Whether its "Language Exchange" or "Poetry Exchange", these quests are where a lot of players first start to regret murder in regards to the Hilichurls. Why? Because this tiny intelligent child manages to bridge the Language Barrier between Hilichurls and humans, proving that the two species can work towards peace! Well, this conversation only happens if the player and Ella successfully sneak up on a Hilichurl. If, for example, the player runs in and murders all of them instead, the mission with still "progress", but Ms. Musk won't be happy in the slightest.

8 Aren't We Killing A Lot Of People?

Genshin Impact: The Traveler Right Before They Slash Into A Fellow Human

There’s a lot of killing going on in Genshin Impact. The Devs themselves have actually been counting all the monsters and animals alike players have been slaughtering, and the number is pretty huge. And, that slaughter doesn't just apply to creatures. Whether it's the Fatui or some random Bandits, the Traveler sheds a lot of blood. While it's not exactly canon that Tartaglia or Diluc are in the Travelers party (though there are fan theories that say the opposite), it sure is dark thinking about how many Fatui need to be killed in order to ascend either of them to level 80. Honestly, there's a lot of murder in the official manga/comic as well, along with tons of other interesting bits of trivia. 

7 Purposely Slaughter Some Harmless Pigeons & Ducks

Genshin Impact: Venti Talking To Timmie After Killing The Ducks

Timmie of Mondstadt is an avid bird lover and seems to connect with the pigeons outside the city even more than the other kids around him. He’s even developed a bit of a complex about these birds, clearly seen with a particular line of dialog when the birds fly away. “They do come back usually... But what happens if one day they leave and never come back again? Just like daddy.”

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Knowing all this only makes it that much more horribly hilarious that players can kill the pigeons & the ducks right in front of his face. In fact, seems like Genshin Players are constantly competing to see who can wipe out this patch of pigeons the quickest. 

6 Listen To Sob Stories, But Do Nothing To Help

Genshin Impact: Venti Talking To Anthony In The Fountain At Night

Speaking of Mondstadt NPCs, how many players have gone around and talked to all of them in the City of Freedom? If players exhaust all the dialog options and investigate the city at different times throughout the day, they’ll discover that a lot of people in Mondstadt (Liyue as well) have their tragic backstories. Whether it’s the sick girl Anna who throws coins into the fountain every day in the hopes it'll cure her, or her brother Anthony who grabs the coins from the fountain at night to feed them, or even the Blind Orphan Glory who waits for her beloved Godwin to return from an Expedition. All of these people have problems the Traveler can easily solve just like they’d solve any one of their Daily Commissions, yet players aren’t really given the option.

5 Hunt Both Tiny Animals & Baby Animals

Genshin Impact: Venti Lining Up A Shot On A Baby Boar

Genshin Impact gets compared to Breath of the Wild a lot, and that's a relatively fair comparison. Both games have a lot of collecting, climbing, and combat. But, they also share one other key mechanic...the ability to hunt animals and turn them into meat! Though, unlike BoTW, in Genshin, players can actually find and kill baby animals as well, adding more atrocity to an already horrible act. And, the worst part is, the babies don’t drop more meat or anything unique either.

4 Force Your Enemies To Drown

Genshin Impact: Amber Dragging A Geovishap Hatchling Into The Water

Does anyone else feel a pang of intense guilt whenever they knock an enemy into the water? The drowning animation in Genshin is just so frantic and desperate! It feels so awful to kill enemies this way even though it's usually a huge timesaver. Pre-Update 1.2, players could actually bait a lot of enemies into the water of their own volition, such as the Whopperflowers, but that's not as easy anymore. Still, there are many players who utilize sneaky tricks to get Mitachurls, Cicin Mages, and other tanky enemies into the water to save themselves some time & trouble.

3 Let All These Adorable Playable Characters Die

Qiqi

Obviously, players have the ability to let their controllable characters die. Just like in most other games, when any of the characters currently deployed take too much damage, they "pass out". Though, in Genshin, because this party of 4 isn't technically canon, these characters are sort of...dying. They fade out of existence when they drown! Some of them have comical death animations, some have pretty basic ones, but there’s one particular character whos death animation & voice line are so sad that it needs to be mentioned.

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Qiqi is a little Cryo Zombie Girl who was killed during the Archon war, revived by the Adepti, then sealed by them in Amber because their power caused her to go rampant. Since then, Qiqi has obviously escaped, but when she dies in combat, the normally emotionless Zombie Girl fearfully states “Don’t want to be sealed away again!” before fading away. Of course, people would only know the context behind this quote if they looked into Qiqi's hidden details (which all characters in the game seem to have). Still, it just feels so awful seeing adorable characters like Qiqi, Klee, Sucrose, or even Diona go through this pseudo-death.

2 Play Hide & Seek With Childish Jiang

Genshin Impact: The Traveler Playing Hide & Seek With Childish Jiang

There are a lot of dark Side Quests and Commissions in Genshin Impact, but none of them seem to compare to Childish Jiang’s. This NPC is found at the top of the hill in the Sea of Clouds region. Jiang seems very...childish, for his age, and this oddity is only made clearer when he asks the Traveler to play Hide & Seek with him. But, as the game goes on, and Jiang unintentionally hints at more of his tragic past, players quickly discover just how messed up this whole situation is. Obviously there's no need to spoil the entire quest, but let’s just say that Mihoyo really nailed it with the little details in this one.

1 Force Gods, Children, & Powerful Warriors Into The Mines

Genshin Impact: The Expedition Screen With A Zombie, A Maid, And Liyue's Commerce Head Out On Adventures

This last one isn’t exactly a canonical event or even related to the narrative of Genshin Impact, but it is funny nonetheless. Sometimes, in games like this, where players take control of great warriors or Gods, the mundane aspects of the game are what end up being the funniest. So, when players discover they can send their characters on Expeditions to pick crops or dig for ore in the mines, they’ll usually choose the characters they use the least, and constantly redeem and send them back out in an endless loop. What this means, in-universe, is that the Traveler is potentially sending Archons, children, or even royalty (looking at you, Kaeya) on errands for them, never showing them any of the attention they so rightly deserve.

Next: Genshin Impact: 10 Tips For Completing Liyue: The Harbor Of Stone And Contracts