Liu “Dawei” Wei, the co-founder and current president of miHoYo, discussed the challenges the Genshin Impact developers faced during the early conception of the game.
At Genshin Impact FES 2023 in Shanghai, China, Wei went over the early development history of the game. Wei acknowledged that if miHoYo — which was a small team filled with young but inexperienced developers at the time — knew how difficult developing Genshin Impact would be back when the project began in 2017, the studio would have likely given up on it. The lack of an engine and inexperience in creating an open-world game made the development of Genshin Impact more difficult than the studio anticipated.
However, the development team was rejuvenated after the completion of Mondstadt in 2019. Unfortunately, the response toward the closed beta caused some to see the game as a ripoff of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Although Wei didn’t name Breath of the Wild in his speech, the accusation of Genshin Impact plagiarising Zelda was a popular criticism. One fan even smashed their PlayStation 4 console to protest the release of the game.
The accusations of plagiarism took a heavy toll on the development team. According to Wei, many of his colleagues were crying and saying “Why is this happening?” and “What did we do wrong?” “Let’s prove ourselves,” Wei said. “Let’s make the part of Genshin that everyone didn’t see!” The establishment of Liyue in Feb. 2020 gave players a better understanding of what miHoYo was building with Genshing Impact, leading to a more positive perception of the game.
Three years after its release on Sept. 28, 2020, Genshin Impact continues to dominate mobile sales charts worldwide. The critical and commercial success of Genshin Impact paved the way for Honkai: Star Rail, a sci-fi open-world role-playing game that took inspiration from its predecessor. Honkai: Star Rail is currently available on PC and mobile, with a PS4 and PS5 port in the works.
Genshin Impact is free to play on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC and mobile. An anime series by Demon Slayer studio Ufotable is in production.
Source: Twitter/X