Genshin Impact's biggest reveal ever makes players thirsty for bad guys and hungry for Dendro

Genshin Impact
(Image credit: Hoyoverse)

Genshin Impact released a motherload of information over the weekend, including Dendro and Fatui teaser videos which have set the hook for many players.  

The newest video from the official Genshin Impact YouTube channel details the Fatui Harbingers who've been working behind the scenes of some of the game's biggest plot moments. We've already met a few Harbingers – including the playable character Tartaglia (Childe), wandering anarchist Scaramouche, and the now-deceased La Signora (Rosalyne) who the other Harbingers mourn in this trailer following her death at the hands of the Electro Archon, Raiden – and now we've gotten a look at the rest of the villains. 

The identities of these Harbingers are still a bit fuzzy, but rough backstories for each of them can be pieced together from lore snippets buried in artifact descriptions, collectible books, and other details sprinkled throughout the game. The Genshin Impact Fandom wiki has a pretty comprehensive collection of everything we've learned so far, if you want to dig deep. 

The important thing is that this video puts faces and voices to the Harbingers we haven't met in-game and, not unexpectedly, many fans have instantly become smitten with them, with plenty of players calling for more Harbingers to become playable in future updates. Tartaglia's questionable motives and Scaramouche's outright antagonism didn't stop the Genshin Impact community from building shrines in their honor, so it's no surprise that the abrupt reveal of eight new characters has caused widespread cases of Down Bad.

That's only the latest reveal, too. Another recent video kicked off teasers for the upcoming Sumeru region with a deep-dive on the Dendro element. Genshin Impact 3.0 characters have now officially been revealed, and the Dendro users Tighnari and Collei – who appear briefly in the final moments of the Fatui teaser – are the headliners. Together with the Dendro Traveler, these two will enable Dendro teams in just a few months. The new Electro user Dori is also interesting, but the reactions tied to Dendro have put the element front and center. 

A Hoyoverse combat designer who goes by Aquaria described Dendro as the final piece of the puzzle for Genshin Impact's combat system, and an element with a "higher degree of synergy" than most. Dendro will retain the Burn reaction caused by Pyro, and update 3.0 will introduce two new reactions: Bloom, caused by Hydro, and Catalyze, caused by Electro. Bloom spawns Dendro seeds which can seemingly be altered through other reactions, while Catalyze apparently empowers Electro attacks – which is presumably why the other new character in 3.0 is Electro. 

Together, these info dumps, coupled with last-minute reveals for update 2.8, have framed what's likely the biggest reveal in Genshin's history. The Dendro and Sumeru teasers are also set to continue in the weeks ahead, presumably leading up to the release of update 3.0 in August. 

Genshin Impact 2.8 is just days away and its banners have finally been confirmed. 

Austin Wood

Austin freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree, and he's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize that his position as a senior writer is just a cover up for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a focus on news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.