Genshin Impact’s stories are getting boring but there’s an easy fix

Genshin Impact’s storyline is one of its biggest draws, aside from the almost 100 different characters with their unique fighting styles. However, there’s one element that needs a simple but game-changing fix… its endings.

If you’ve played more than a handful of Genshin Impacts story quests, you likely know how most of the tales end. Almost every adventure you go on, players will often head into a quest, meet an NPC, and then witness as they turn evil and you have to defeat them.

This story beat is all over Genshin, so much so that it’s now fully predictable and arguably expected. Anytime an NPC is added to the story, you can instantly mark them down as evil, completely removing any element of surprise.

Variation is key

Of course, having a twist villain in a story is usually effective, but when the community doesn’t see it coming.

What Genshin needs to do then is turn this trope on its head. Perhaps a villainous NPC is redeemed? Or maybe an NPC is turned into a villain, only for it to be revealed that they’re being blackmailed or forced by the big bad? Alternatively, completely ignore the villain aspect and keep stories simple; one NPC is in danger and needs you to complete a task.

Essentially, we need more variation in the storylines. If one has become this predictable, then it needs to be changed or, at the very least, mixed up occasionally.

A common problem

These cliched villain reveals are a well-known frustration among the game’s community, with many players saying they “hate how this happens literally every single time, in every single quest, it’s seriously getting old.”

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Others joke that it feels like “a necessity to always have that random one-off Story Quest NPC to become a twist villain at the end” rather than something that fits the story.

Of course, it deserves to be said that sometimes, these designs fit well into the main story. If a villain is hiding in plain sight in the main update’s adventure, then having NPCs that fit the bill makes it exciting and tense, but not every single NPC.

While many often joke that “you’d expect The Traveler and Paimon to catch on by now with how many times it’s happened,” others offer a more unique perspective on the reason why the game does this.

“It’s because the playable characters tend to be ‘complete packages’ so to speak,” commented one player, explaining how the characters have “already experienced and overcome their biggest conflicts in life, so the character quests often wind up as being windows into their outlooks/mindsets through an NPC’s conflict to let the playable character face a situation that can mirror their own past to show how they’ve grown.”

A lot of the game’s playable characters have backstories filled with that same betrayal, loss of trust, or death, making these quests pretty similar for a high percentage of the game’s heroes. However, while it’s understandable that this style of quest helps flesh out those characters more and presents regular touching tales, it doesn’t stop it from being extremely repetitive, dulling any emotions they’ll bring.

Genshin Impact’s quests are undeniably well thought out. They help make the characters loveable, vulnerable, and well-rounded. However, if NPCs keep becoming villains, these stories will become boring and inherently predictable, destroying any sort of motivation to sit through the dialogue. 

All Genshin needs to do is change the endings to some of those quests because, eventually, one of the characters will see it coming, right?