Genshin Impact developer Hoyoverse released a preview video on Thursday showing new information about its upcoming Sumeru region. There’s a lot in the roughly three-minute long video, but highlights include new information about Sumeru, jokes from six characters, and more information about the enemies we’ll encounter in their lands.
The preview video, titled “Prelude to Wisdom,” is part of an ongoing series showing players what to expect during their travels to Sumeru. The video begins by setting up the basic guiding principle of the region: knowledge. The developers emphasize the central role of researchers in the country and how rational its people are. We also hear that the people of Sumeru are not able to dream and that they wear strange headphones that may have something to do with this phenomenon.
If we’re talking lore, though, here’s what you need to know: The biggest tidbits coming from the preview are the character reveals, of which there are plenty.
Here are all the ones we saw:
- We took another look at researcher and ranger Tighhnari.
- Alhaitham is a piece that we will know in a port city. It comes from the Haravatat of the Akademia, which functions as the first university and governing body.
- Dehya, described by the developers as “Desertfolk”, is a cat-eared mercenary from the Hermits.
- There is the horned dancer Nilou, who defied Sumeru’s values by embracing the arts.
- We saw General Mahamatra, Cyno sitting spectacularly in the desert, but we didn’t get more information about him yet.
- Nahida is a “mysterious girl” whose design re-rides a fairy. She is rumored to be the new Archon of Dendro. (Which is a game-specific term for the entity that serves as the region’s god.)
Sumeru includes lush forests and barren deserts. As such, we will encounter a wide variety of enemies, including a common enemy, the hermits. They are a group of mercenaries who come from an ancient civilization in the desert, and will appear as common enemies like the Nobushi in Inazuma. The video also showed common fauna of the region, such as a mossy version of wild boars found in other regions, new types of mushrooms, a giant ostrich-like plant bird, and leopards.
Apparently, the land also hides some secrets in the sand. There are robotic artifacts with which we will fight in desert temples and mutated beasts. The developers hint at some sort of unknown “deterrent” used by the people of the desert in crisis, but we’ll have to wait to find out what it means.
Sumeru will be added to Genshin Impact as part of the game’s big 3.0 update. In addition to the information shared here, the region will introduce a new grass-inspired item called Dendro. This is a giant update that will release much of the content shown over the course of several months. You can read everything you need to know with our Genshin Impact Update 3.0 walkthrough.