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Genshin Impact update 5.7 is out, and while new 5-star character Skirk is the star of the patch, many players are more focused on two of the oldest characters in the game. Genshin mascot Paimon and 1.0 standard 5-star Keqing have both been recast in English for the new update content, and their old performances will also be replaced in future patches. After almost five years, it's the end of an era, folks.
Keqing has a following of her own, having initially inspired the reliable Keqing Mains Genshin theorycrafting community, but Paimon is the bigger change here. As the face of the game and the protagonist's companion-turned-interpreter, Paimon has more dialogue than anyone else in Genshin, so her recasting will affect virtually every corner of the game.
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Compared to the performance of Paimon's previous voice actor, Corina Boettger, who, like many other HoYoverse voice actors, was replaced in the aftermath of strikes and protests tied to the now-suspended SAG-AFTRA video game actors strike, the character's new voice is noticeably softer and deeper.
Boettger said last month that, after another Genshin actor was replaced, they "sent notice to HoYo saying that I would no longer voice Paimon until they became union, so they'll probably just replace me." This followed player blowback over some of Boettger's comments on the voice actors strike itself.
Paimon's English voice direction has been divisive among Genshin players for many years. Some have always found her cute, but others felt her voice seemed to grow sharper and more shrill over the years, and coupled with the character's intrusive writing – often repeating or summarizing information as a writer's convenience, and sometimes quite obnoxiously – this gave her something of a rude reputation, making her English performance one of the less popular options.
Many have argued that Paimon is more likeable in Chinese or Japanese, and the character's new voice does seem to lean in that general direction, though it's still recognizably Paimon. (I have thousands of hours in this game, and with only audio to go on, I can pretty easily deduce that this is Paimon speaking.)
The initial player response to her new English voice seems widely positive, with many players likening it to the 1.0 or even 2.0 version of Paimon. YouTuber Nessamess has a useful side-by-side showing the difference in direction over the years.
"Hopefully it stays that way because I preferred early voice Paimon," one player says.
"She's much softer now," agrees another.
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