With its fourth anniversary rapidly approaching, Genshin Impact is finally set to launch on Xbox. HoYoverse’s flagship gacha title released in September 2020 for PC, mobile, and PlayStation 4, with a PS5 port coming in hot a few months later. But despite persistent rumours that it would soon become available on other platforms, this is the first time there’s been anything approaching official confirmation.
Spotted by Wario64 and shared to the prolific and trusted leaker’s Twitter account, an Xbox store listing for Genshin Impact has suddenly popped up, with the news later confirmed during Gamescom Opening Night Live 2024. There’s no release date listed on the base game — which currently states that it’s “not available separately” — but a click through to the listing for the Xbox Pre-Order Bundle edition reveals a few illuminating facts.
According to this page, Genshin Impact will hit current-gen Xboxes on November 18th of this year, and you can pre-order it right now for £9.99. If you’re wondering why a free-to-play gacha game has a tenner price tag, it seems that Microsoft will be mirroring Sony’s time-honoured practice of gating HoYoverse preloads behind a paid bundle containing a few small in-game bonuses. We’ve reported on this practice for the PlayStation 5 releases of Honkai: Star Rail and Zenless Zone Zero, so while it’s still annoying, it’s not all that surprising.