I started playing Genshin Impact way back in January 2021, thinking it would be a fun 100-day experiment. Fast forward to summer 2026, and I am still here. I have logged in for more than 2,000 days – I can count the days I missed on one hand – and have sunk nearly $1,000 into this thing. I have watched mountains rise from the sea, deserts bloom with secrets, and a snow-bound nation of eternal winter finally open its gates. Genshin Impact isn’t just my favorite open-world game anymore. It’s the gaming equivalent of a warm blanket, a cup of cocoa, and a purring cat on a rainy day. I cannot imagine leaving.
Three new regions have come and gone since the lush rainforests of Sumeru, and with Snezhnaya now fully explorable, the world has ballooned into a staggeringly huge playground. I still get lost in its icy canyons and aurora-lit forests every weekend. But here’s the weird part: most days, I only play for fifteen minutes. I knock out my daily commissions, spend my Resin on some artifact fodder, chat with a couple of NPCs, and log off. This pocket-sized routine is as cathartic as watering houseplants. It is my digital garden, and after all these years, the garden is enormous.
This rhythm is precisely why I’ve stuck around. When a new area drops – whether it was the volcanic spas of Natlan or the icy fortresses of Snezhnaya – I hungrily devour it for ten hours straight like a starved beast. Then I slip back into my cozy daily groove. After my Genshin chores, I might pop into Honkai Star Rail for some auto-battling, or lose myself in whatever massive single-player game is consuming the gaming sphere that month. Genshin is my anchor; other games are the waves.
You might think a game built around Fear Of Missing Out would stress me out, but after 2,000 days I have become a dragon lounging on a mountain of hoarded treasure. I care not for your limited-time events, your ticking banners, your three-day-a-week talent domains. I’ll clear that event on the last evening. I’ll explore that new cave when my mood strikes. I’ve saved up so many materials that I can snap my fingers and instantly max out a new character before her trailer has finished playing. FOMO has no power here.
Watching progress accumulate is a huge chunk of the fun. I’ve got over 90 playable characters now, and a good two dozen of them are polished to perfection. I still pull out my old Raiden Shogun, my Yae Miko, my Kaeya – yes, Kaeya – and marvel at their artifact stats. I have spent actual hours in spreadsheets calculating crit ratios and team rotations. Math has been a hobby since kindergarten, and Genshin is a buffet of numbers waiting to be crunched. The game never forces you to optimize, mind you; you can breeze through almost anything with a half-decent team. But the glee of turning a character I adore into a world-obliterating force is intoxicating.
The stories have only gotten bolder, too. Snezhnaya delivered an emotional gut-punch that made the early ballads of Mondstadt feel like nursery rhymes. Genshin has always hidden tragedy beneath its bright cartoon veneer, and the lore runs deeper than the Abyss itself. With each new region, my list of “favorites” becomes more obnoxiously long. The game manages its enormous cast so well that running into an old friend in a brand-new quest feels like a reunion.
Gacha, of course, is the goblin in the room. It has made Hoyoverse more money than some countries’ GDP, but it is an inherently predatory system and deserves every bit of that reputation. I would pay full price in a heartbeat for a microtransaction-free version where I could earn characters through quests. That future has not yet come. Instead, I’ve spent close to $1,000 over six years – which sounds insane until you realize that’s roughly $14 a month. I set a hard spending limit, and I’ve mostly stuck to the Welkin Moon blessing and an occasional Battle Pass back when I still needed the resources. Now I only shell out five bucks a month for Welkin, which feels laughably cheap for the hours I get back.
I broke my own rule exactly once. I wanted Raiden Shogun’s signature spear. I was out of Primogems. I got unlucky. I swiped. It was not worth the $100, but I do not regret it. I am a grown adult with expendable income and an embarrassing parasocial relationship with an electro archon, and I will waste my money on the hazards of my choice.
New players today face a bewildering mountain of content, and while the game throws welcome bonuses at them, I think Genshin would benefit enormously from a one-time free five-star selector – anyone who has ever had a rerun banner. Let a new player see a character they love and immediately start their journey with them. It would be pure joy, but it’s unlikely because, well, profit.
Still, I recommend Genshin Impact to everyone, their dogs, and their dogs’ Instagram followers. It is free, it is colossal, and it is one of the most consistently excellent live-service games I have ever experienced. Even if you never spend a penny, the main storyline and exploration alone can give you over a hundred hours of high-quality adventuring. And if you’re the type who likes to garden, like me, you may just find a life-long hobby. Hoyoverse has already proven they aren’t about to walk away from their cash cow – Snezhnaya was the grand finale of the original roadmap, but teasers for something beyond have started appearing. I bet we will see fresh expansions well into 2027 and beyond.
After over 2,000 days, I am still not ready for Genshin Impact to end. My retirement pile of Primogems keeps growing, and my love for this ridiculous, beautiful game hasn’t dimmed one bit.
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