Early Access impressions of Genshin Impact v7.0 featuring Snezhnaya

This experience article is a little late we know, but unfortunately I had a really gnarly power outage stretch before the official release that lasted another week. Regardless, having spent a good bunch of time in an early access period of the new region, I have a lot to say. Snezhnaya is the final major region of Genshin Impact and is home to the Fatui, ruled over by the Cryo Archon. It’s a very frigid northern region with themes and names inspired by that of Russia and eastern European cultures. It’s huge, full of wonder, and excellent lore to uncover.

My experience was incredible and I’m very excited that others get to delve fully into Snezhnaya for their own, especially for those players that have been around since launch in September of 2020. This might genuinely be the prettiest map in the game with the haunting desolation of the frozen landscapes blended with the gorgeous snowy mountains and snow-coated settlements. You’ll notice that it is, in fact, actually cold in gameplay. For those of you that have experienced Dragonspine you’ll be familiar with the mechanic, although Snezhnaya’s is more forgiving with varying levels of “cold”.

Don’t worry about how daunting the map might seem at first despite its massive size and varying verticality. You guys like trains, right? It’s not quite an Astral Express, but you will have your own train to navigate Snezhnaya and take you from locale to locale. You’ll stay nice and cozy in your main car that contains everything you need, including access to your Alchemy bench and the Adventurer’s Guild. No matter where you go, your train has your back for both travel and your daily needs.

The gameplay additions have been interesting and fun, especially with the three new characters. To start off, you’ll have this fancy headpiece that enables you to deconstruct certain ice structures to give you the materials needed to build your own. This could be heat sources, bounce pads for more height, grapple points, and more. Not only can you get creative with your puzzle solving and traversal/exploration, but Traveler gets a gun this update! That might sound like a weird exclamation given the characters that do already use guns, such as Chevreuse, Navia, and Clorinde, but we’re talking full blown third person shooter gameplay with Gears of War-adjacent cover systems.

Throughout the map you’ll find these Shadow Realm zones you can enter for a shooter challenge. You’ll be making full use of your loadout of weapon(s), grenades, and even in some cases buildables to defeat a group of foes before taking on boss-type enemies. You’ve got a unique stamina bar upgradeable by collecting a new type of resource, a slide that carries momentum and will continue down slopes, and the ability to spring and vault over obstacles. It’s honestly a really fresh mechanical addition to Genshin, so I hope everyone else enjoys it as much as I have.

The new characters introduce a new kind of reaction as previously mentioned in the update article. Odette, Alyosha, and Cryo Traveler bring in the 7.X patch cycle with the Stellar Glimmer reactions. These are done with Electro x Cryo for a Stellar Superconduct reaction and Anemo + Cryo for a Stellar Swirl reaction. Characters with a lynchpin can enable these for your whole team, so keep an eye out for them. By default, Sandrone, Odette, and Cryo Traveler can perform and enable the Stellar Glimmer reactions, so as long as you have one of these characters in your party, you’re ready to go. Odette makes a powerful off field Cryo DPS that really supercharges your Stellar teams, especially when paired with Yae Miko for Stellar Superconduct from my experimenting. Alyosha is a fun Electro character that uses his dog to attack enemies after marking them to help keep your team alive. Traveler is actually a really respectable on-field carry, so if you didn’t pull Sandrone or don’t own any of the other characters buffed for Stellar, Traveler is a fairly solid option.

On top of everything else, the music in Snezhnaya is incredible. The ambient tracks around the region are all great with the biggest standout for me personally being the battle theme. 7.0 introduces probably one of my favorite overworld battle themes in the game, so I’m excited for everyone else to experience it.

I didn’t get to play the Archon Quest, so we’ll all be excited to see how that turns out. I did, however, get to play through a bunch of World Quests. If you’re a story and lore enjoyer (also such as myself) you’re in for a genuine treat. There’s expansions to characters we’ve heard named maybe once or twice before as well as new additions to deepen the intrigue and interest. From more information about Anastasya Snezhnaya (yes that’s her last name) to other characters she’s involved with, a deeper look into the harbingers, etc, there’s so much to uncover.

It’s easy to say that every update is the best update yet for Genshin Impact and yet somehow 7.0 delivers even more. From the potential to be the best region we’ve ever gotten to the fun mechanical additions to upcoming characters, there really is no lack of enjoyment to be found within. We’re only in the first release of this patch cycle, but I think everyone should be excited and look forward to this update and what’s to come.