Genshin Impact developer MiHoYo has announced that new in-game events will be coming alongside the release of Hu Tao next week. The studio finally announced yesterday that Hu Tao will be the next playable character to join the game’s roster. Fans of Genshin Impact have been waiting anxiously for MiHoYo to confirm Hu Tao’s release during the game’s 1.3 update after several rumors and leaks about the character came out in the weeks before and after the launch of the update.
The game’s ongoing 1.3 update began almost a month ago with the release of Xiao and the start of the Lantern Rite Festival event. But unlike previous updates, which saw multiple new characters being released, Xiao was the only new character announced for the patch before it launched earlier this month. In spite of this, fans still hoped that MiHoYo would eventually release another new character before the end of the 1.3 update. The studio finally confirmed this right before the patch’s release but did not reveal which character would be added to the game until yesterday.
MiHoYo announced the new events for the next phase of the 1.3 update on the Genshin Impact Twitter account, previewing some of the things that players can look forward to for the rest of the update’s lifespan. Firstly, the studio finally revealed the banner where players can attempt to summon Hu Tao, called “Moment of Bloom,” which will also include three already available 4-star characters, namely Chongyun, Xingqui, and Xiangling. As with every featured character banner, players will get to try out Hu Tao as well as two of the other banner characters in the character trial event.
Hu Tao’s story quest, called “Papilio Charontis,” was also announced for release alongside the character, which will give players a chance to get to know more about the new Pyro polearm user. Players will also get the chance to earn Primogems and other rewards with the new “Vishaps and Where to Find Them” expedition event, the name of which is obviously a play on the movie series spin-off from the Harry Potter franchise.
Other than the new events, the ongoing “Epitome Invocation” weapon banner has been extended to coincide with the rest of phase 2 of the 1.3 update, which was expected considering that the banner features what is considered as Hu Tao’s best weapon (at least for now). The banner also includes new weapons that are pretty unique in that their stats increase when the player includes more Liyue-based characters in the party.
There’s definitely still a bit more for players to experience before the current patch ends and Genshin Impact moves on to its 1.4 update sometime next month. While the 1.3 update has been relatively smaller compared to its immediate predecessor, which added a brand-new region in Dragonspine, the Lantern Rite Festival was still able to provide players with at least a few entertaining activities, particularly the Theater Mechanicus tower defense mini-game.
Source: MiHoYo/Twitter