The most expensive open-world game that isn't GTA 6 will finally reveal its last confirmed region as Genshin Impact teases "Snezhnaya and the future" after 6 years

Open-world RPG Genshin Impact was announced alongside a years-long plan that would see the playable Traveler visit the main regions of the world of Teyvat. On Friday, April 24, more than five years after the game's September 2020 release, the last known region in that journey, Snezhnaya, will finally be revealed ahead of a release expected closer to this fall.

Developer HoYoverse announced the Snezhnaya reveal in social media posts today. "Behind the Scenes of Genshin Impact 'To Snezhnaya and the Future' airs on April 24," it wrote in a post revealing the Friday stream (which you can watch here).

The post includes a preview of Snezhnayan environments and the regional symbol, the distinct spires of which affirm that it's styled after Russia much the same way that the previous region, Natlan, took cues from Africa and Latin America. The current region, Nod-Krai, is something of an appetizer for Snezhnaya and echoes Baltic and Nordic countries and myths.

In 2023, we learned via documents released as part of a lawsuit involving a HoYoverse subsidiary that Genshin Impact had cost roughly $100 million to develop, and costs a further $200 million per year to grow and maintain. We don't have exact figures for current development costs, but HoYoverse has only grown in size post-Genshin and development costs have only risen industry-wide.

Conservatively, we can estimate that more than $1 billion has been spent on Genshin Impact's development, which rivals the rumored budget figure for GTA 6. One of the most expensive and profitable games of all time sits on the scales opposite the most-anticipated game of all time. The former will be 'completed' in the same year that the latter is released. It's a big year for big budgets and big worlds.

The Snezhnaya arc will carry into 2027, of course, and since HoYoverse clearly hasn't gotten sick of making billions of dollars off unavoidably predatory gacha monetization, we can also assume that Genshin Impact will continue beyond that. The "future" component of this Snezhnaya announcement is doing the work of Atlas, reassuring Genshin Impact players that the game isn't going anywhere.

Where Genshin Impact could head after Snezhnaya has been the subject of quite some debate among lore-heads. Increasingly, celestial, otherworldly beings have gotten involved in the story, leaving the door open for a trip to another realm entirely. The base narrative is also built upon the central Traveler very literally traveling between worlds (currently, pursuing their estranged sibling), meaning we aren't explicitly tied to Teyvat.

HoYoverse already has one game about soaring through the galaxy in Honkai: Star Rail, an urban action game in Zenless Zone Zero, and near-future sci-fi action Varsapura on the way, so I'd wager Genshin will stick to its fantasy trappings wherever it goes – and whatever country it borrows from – next.

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