Is Genshin Impact pay to win?

Genshin Impact is a massive game with a sprawling open world to explore and dozens of characters to collect. It’s also free-to-play, utilizing a gacha model of monetization. But does Genshin Impact force you to shell out money to get ahead in the game?

The short answer is no, it doesn’t. The long answer is below.

What does money get you in Genshin Impact?

To start, there is no PVP content in Genshin Impact. There are no in-game leaderboards that you can climb by whaling. You will never be put in a situation where you have to compete against other players who have potentially paid for powerful gear.

“Winning” in Genshin Impact probably means clearing the Spiral Abyss with a perfect score of 36 stars. This is the hardest content in the game and is entirely doable with only 4-star characters and weapons, or even incomplete teams with fewer than four characters. However, you’ll have to make up for the power deficit with mechanical skill, smart strategies, or simply grinding for great artifacts. 

Paying for more pulls gets you a greater variety of 5-star characters, enabling a greater variety of teams. It can also get you more powerful weapons, increasing the strength of your teams. Spending money in Genshin Impact buys you the luxury of clearing the Spiral Abyss with the teams you prefer, rather than the teams that are optimal. You can clear the Abyss either way, but now you can do it more easily or with your favorite character instead.

If you have no interest in the Spiral Abyss and prefer to stick to open-world or story content instead, there’s even less pressure to spend. Combat outside of the Abyss is quite easy, and as long as you have at least a few decently built characters, you shouldn’t have an issue with most of it.

Does Genshin Impact have powercreep?

Genshin Impact does not have powercreep to a meaningful degree. Powercreep is a phenomenon where newer units are constantly made stronger and stronger, making older units irrelevant and forcing players to keep obtaining new units to progress in the game.

Yes, newer characters in Genshin Impact often have more interesting kits and can be very strong indeed. But they can also be complete duds. Most often, they are perfectly fine, but not overpowered. More importantly, a character’s value is often defined more by how well they work with teammates rather than their own individual strength. 

For example, Kokomi is a healer who deals very little damage on her own but is very good at making enemies Wet. By itself, this is about as effective as a Magikarp using Splash. But pair her with any two Dendro units and Raiden, and now you’ve got a powerful Hyperbloom team. Kokomi is a great healer, but it’s her team synergy with various other characters that makes her an attractive pull. Unless Genshin Impact makes significant changes to combat mechanics, there are plenty of ways to introduce new, interesting characters without resorting to powercreep.

That’s not to say the gacha is a good thing. I won’t defend the gambling. But if you’re worried that you’ll have to spend money to keep up with the hardest content in the game, then you can rest easy.