Apple announced its 2021 Apple Design Awards winners yesterday, and Genshin Impact was among the games and apps honored at the event. It was named as the winner of the Visuals and Graphics category alongside sleepscape session app Loóna.
The Apple Design Awards is an annual event hosted by Apple at its Worldwide Developers Conference. The ceremony is meant to recognize app developers from around the globe. This year, awards were given to twelve apps and games that shined in six different categories: innovation, visual and graphics, interaction, delight and fun, inclusivity, and social impact. Apple described Visuals and Graphics winner Genshin Impact as a game whose “heart-pounding battle scenes and far-reaching landscapes push the visual frontier for mobile gaming.” In particular, it was praised for the way its “motion blur, shadow quality, and frame rate can be reconfigured on the fly.”
This is not the first award that Genshin Impact has won since its debut. In 2020, it picked up several awards, including Google Play’s Best Game of 2020, Apple’s 2020 iPhone Game of the Year, and Japan’s TGS Media Awards 2020 Public Poll. In addition, it picked up a couple nominations at The Game Awards 2020, including one for Best Mobile Game, and one for Best Role Playing. Adding on an award for Visuals and Graphics seems on par for the course.
While Genshin Impact took home the award for Visuals and Graphics, five other games were honored in the remaining five categories: HoloVista for Inclusivity, Little Orpheus for Delight and Fun, Bird Alone for Interaction, Alba for Social Impact, and League of Legends: Wild Rift for Innovation. All of the winners, including those for apps, are to receive a physical Apple Design Award as well as a prize package that includes hardware to help the developers continue to create high-quality apps and games.
If for whatever reason you haven’t checked out Genshin Impact and want to see why it’s received so many awards, it's currently available on mobile devices, PC, and PlayStation 4 and 5. Rumor has it that the game will also be coming to the Nintendo Switch later this year.