Unlikely Storytelling - The Brilliance of HoYoverse's Worldbuilding
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 พ.ค. 2023
- The long promised sequel to my Transformers analyses. You don't need to have played Genshin Impact (or Honkai Star Rail/ Impact 3rd) for this video to make sense. I just wanted to highlight an incredibly rich approach to worldbuilding and a prime example of creative foresight that people who aren't already fans of HoYoverse/ MiHoYo's work will never for themselves. Hope you enjoy!
P.S. Sorry Zelda fans, "Zelda Theorist" is just too prolific a profession that it was the obvious choice of reference point (on top of all the flak Genshin gets for being a "Breath of the Wild clone"). - เกม
The worldbuilding and narrative are my favorite aspects of Genshin. It's a shame that many outsiders will write it off because it's a gacha game.
I couldn't agree more. It's SO well done and HoYoverse really deserves far more praise than it currently gets - for this and their other games too!
What I like about Genshin is that the story was written with the open world in mind.
A lot of open world feel like their just here to look good or because it's the trendy thing to do in the game industry.
But Genshin feel like they decide to do a open world because the story they had to told could only be say trough the open world.
Yep, absolutely! Genshin is one of the few open worlds that NEEDS to be an open world game. The storytelling and sense of wonder *need* it! I couldn't agree more!
‘Genshins deeper lore is just as well thought out and intricate as everyone else wants to think zeldas worldbuilding is’ couldn’t have said it any better lol.
As someone who started playing genshin expecting it to just be a zelda clone but with anime and a gatcha system i was blown away once I discovered that every weapon, artifact, item, and even fucking furniture had deeper lore. This is how worldbuilding for an open world style game is done.
When you contrast it to totk it really shows how much they just didn’t care about its world? Like what was the bargainer statue in the depths? What happened to all the sheikah technology? And i could’ve maybe accepted the lack of worldbuilding if the actual main story was any good, but uhh yeah, we all know how that turned out
No joke, the worldbuilding and lore of Teyvat is one of my favourite pieces of lore in fantays fiction on par with Lord Of The Rings and serves as inspiration for my dream to make fantasy stories.🔥🔥🔥🔥
No need to joke, I get it! Genshin absolutely deserves that praise and comparison, it's SO rich in detail! Best of luck with your own stories, you can absolutely write them! Just remember to take your time!! :D
When you said that genshin lore is like studying an actual lost civilization, that was actually so accurate for me
Im a huge fan of the Zelda series but Genshins storytelling is way deeper and can be pretty tragic too, I mean the backstory of the Inazuma god is that all her friends and her sister died some even by her hands so yeah pretty good storytelling
I'm glad you feel the same way! And yeah, the Inazuma plot may have been weak overall but Ei's story is anything but!
Sad that videos like this barely get any views but low effort memes shitting on Genshin gets millions of views :(
Yeah... Well, the best thing we can do is keep making or contributing to videos like these to help them stand out more!
And that's not me fishing for views by the way, there are plenty of super in-depth theorists out there, go and show them some love if you can!
Good video, and it helped me re-adjust my perspective. I started with Hoyoverse's previous game Honkai impact 3rd, where the backstory of HI3's protagonist is deeply tied to the world's lore. The traveler being an outworlder disconnected from the world's history made me initially feel like the lore of the world wasn't as important to Genshin's plot as in HI3, but your video made me realize the level of care and planning has for it's story. Thank you.
I'm very happy I could help you appreciate Genshin's world more! It's incredibly well put together and I highly recommend reading more about it if you can!
For what it's worth, there're several decently supported theories that posit that the siblings are actually native to Teyvat and just haven't realized that they have returned home due to the length of time since they left combined with possible temporal/mental shenanigans.
You articulated what ive been thinking all along, and its the reason ive been playing almost every day for years. The lore is deep and the payoff is sooooo worth it. I think all of sumeru demonstrates this, with the aranara world quest, the world quests following Jeht in the desert, and most of all the archon quest.
I'm so happy I could give voice to your thoughts like that! Even if the main quest writing has its low points, the lore and world quests are always so fascinating! I'm glad you're enjoying Genshin so much! And again, I wish I'd played from Day 1 myself!
You've nailed down everything that has been on my mind!!
I'm so happy to hear that, thank you very much! I'm glad I finally got around to making this video!! :D
now that LoZ:Tears of kingdom is out
after genshin is out
we can joke about it being a genshin look-a-like lol
That would be hilarious xD We can do that for Tower of Fantasy for the time being at least~
Most people who see a gacha game expect a fanservice that makes you cringe. Hoyoverse actually followed that trend on the very beginning of Honkai impact 3rd (in my opinion) by making the protagonist the most unlikeable being I've ever seen, but as the game and story progressed that initial disgust turned into a mild annoyance, until she finally grew up from a childish teen with a powerfantasy (and a concerningly hateful view on anyone who is not in her already established friend crew or a man... sorry I may have just read too many fanfics that depict Kiana as a feministic brat (by that I mean the cringe Woman superiory kind of fem activist not the female equality activist kind)). When genshin released and the game caught my interest (the time when Klee was first released) I started it and was shocked at the depth of each moment in the game. The story eventually go so progressively complex that I actually had to look back to remember certain things, but it never felt like I was disconnecting myself from the story, now admittably like most I thought inazuma had the least interesting story part, but I would say that actually works as the nation was in a enforced stasis and everyone was supressed from expressing themselves, making the story of understandably monotone. Sumeru served as a gigantic lore dump that was meant to overwhelm as the entirety of tevyat connects with Sumeru. honestly I feel like Honkai impact 3rd had a weak start, but eventually hoyoverse realized what was wrong and added the 3rd dimenions to a painting, while using that knowledge in their other works.
That's a good way of looking at it: HI3 and earlier games walked so Genshin and Star Rail could run. HYV is a great example of a creative team learning from the past and continuing to evolve, you have to love it!
@@SonicRooncoPrime if I am looking the correct way on hoyoverse and they actually have a board with "DON'T DO"s then Starrail might actually be one of the best stories that will rival genshin... though the lack of collectible material would mean they have to be a little less discreet about certain descriptions.
such a great video and a core strength of Genshin that people missed. Maybe because not a lot of games do this as well as Hoyoverse did it. T
This is why speculating or cooking Genshin theories are one of the most fun things to do, even when I'm not playing the game.
Either way you gained a sub!
I'm so glad you feel the same way! I absolutely LOVE Genshin's worldbuilding and it makes me so mad that it took me so long to get into it. And you're right that it's a ton of fun too!
And thank you so so much for subscribing, I hope I don't let you down!!! :D
Great video 👏🏻
I can respect this, could you also make an analysis on Xenoblade Chronicle's world?
Thank you so much for liking the video! I'm afraid I still haven't been able to play XC3 yet so that'll have to wait. I do like the worldbuilding in XC1 and 2 though!
@@SonicRooncoPrime do Xc1 first, I think it's the most interesting
Zelda games' lores aren't meant to be connected. The timeline is just for fun.
I know not many take the timeline seriously, as I said in the video I just wanted to compare the two: Zelda is a series that *pretends* to have a rich lore while Genshin is a game that absolutely does.
The lores of OoT, MM, WW, TPH, ST, and TP (as well as LCT) are definitely meant to be connected, and do a decent job of it, though with a much lighter emphasis on the depth and breadth of the lore than Genshin Impact has.
While I strongly agree with your general points, to be fair I don't think that anyone in Breath of the Wild actually worships Hylia, since I don't recall anyone mentioning anything about their religion at all except for the ancient Sheikah who mention a Goddess. Not even the Zora preist who performs a wedding in front of a Goddess Statue (which was a landmark that was also coincidentally in the only place in town with enough space to perform a wedding at).
Also, if it actually happened it would make more sense for people to start worshipping Hylia again than it would for people to start following the tenets of dead real world religions, since Hylia actually exists in Hyrule and could hypothetically be discovered again some way or another, of she ever felt the need to get worshippers, whole the same is *probably* not true for Blorbo, the hypothetical ancient Indo-European god of Smoked Meats.
Edit: Is like that old chestnut about how if every real world religion was completely wiped out with no records relating, no one is likely to ever rediscover Episcopalian Christianity again since any specific sect (at least) is almost certainly fake, but if all knowledge of science and the relevant documentation were completely wiped out, people in the far flung future will develop pero much exactly the same theories we have now eventually since those are just models to describe things that actually exist. If Hylia exists, then there's really no real reason why she can't be discovered again even after her worship got lost and forgotten, especially if she decides to make contact herself for whatever reason.
The lore is the only thing that keeps me playing genshin lol