Genshin Impact Patch 1.1 Is Live--Here's What's New

Genshin Impact's Patch 1.1 is now live, and can be downloaded on PC, PS4, and mobile. As the free-to-play game's first big update, it adds an extension on the main storyline, as well as a handful of new characters and a whole lot of quality-of-life updates. Patch 1.1 also updates the game to be playable on the PS5 as a backwards-compatible game.

Patch 1.1 introduces "A New Star", which is the third and final part of the Act 1 Archon quest. It requires Adventure Rank 35 to play, as well as completion of previous Archon quests. A new story quest for Fatui character Childe has also been added, which is unlocked at Adventure Rank 40.

The update also adds a new wish banner along with two new characters--Tartaglia, better known as Childe, a Hydro user first introduced in the Act 1 Archon quest, as well as Diona, a Cryo cat-girl bartender who is often talked about around the city of Mondstadt. The new event banner also increases the chance of pulling characters Ningguang and Beidou.

While new characters Zhongli and Xinyan seem to have been added in the new patch, they won't be made available until the next event banner, which is likely to drop around the end of November.

Beyond the new game content, a huge number of changes have been made to game systems. The resin system has been tweaked as promised, with the holdable limit now sitting at 160. A new system called City Reputation has also been added, which gives new rewards for completing story quests, bounties, and errands in each region.

The Reputation rewards add heaps of new quality of life items, including recipes for a portable stove, portable teleport point, an alchemy recipe that allows you to store unused resin as Condensed Resin, items to help track down treasure and items in the open world, and more.

New menus have also been added, including a Character Archive that shows all playable characters in the game even if they haven't been unlocked, as well as a similar Archive for weapons, books, and items.

The update can now be downloaded and played in all regions, after the game went down for a maintenance period prior to the patch. Mobile players will have to download an update from the App Store or Google Play and then download the game files in the app, while PS4 players can choose "Check For Update" in the options menu if the update doesn't load automatically. PC players can update straight from the game launcher.

As with the game's initial download, some players are seeing incredibly slow download speeds as everyone tries to update--if you're having this problem, it can usually be fixed by restarting the app.

Check out the full list of patch notes here to make sure you're across the game's extensive changes, and make sure you log in in time to claim the Patch 1.1 downtime compensation. The next big update for Genshin Impact will arrive on December 23, bringing with it a new area called Dragonspire.

In GameSpot's review of Genshin Impact, the game scored a 7/10. "Overall, Genshin Impact is a solid game hampered a bit by the restrictions its free-to-play model imposes," wrote reviewer Heidi Kemps.