By Angelina Hu
It’s no secret that video gaming in China is an industry constantly on its toes due to censorship. The Chinese government has been especially harsh on games in the last few years; they even have an approval system for new titles, which hasn’t approved a single game in half a year. Recently, however, it’s Genshin Impact that’s been feeling the strain of censorship from two sides at once: one, the campaign against ‘sexualized character designs,’ and two, the infamous campaign against feminine men.
The former has been acted on already, as announced by miHoYo on Twitter and seen in the version 2.5 beta. Jean, Rosaria, Amber, and Mona have had new outfit redesigns, which will be permanent on the Chinese server and optional on all other servers. In other words, here in North America, we can change between the old and new outfits as desired. All official media will be promoting the new clothes, however, as seen in Rosaria’s birthday art. In addition, another funny change is that character models go transparent when one glides and tries to peek under skirts. A small change, but evidently one the government saw as absolutely necessary.
On the other hand, the censorship of feminine men in China has been an ongoing issue for many months, but miHoYo has yet to implement anything or announce how Genshin will be affected. The photograph of a Chinese press conference discussing the subject –with photos of Venti and Gorou on the screen behind the presenter– has thoroughly made its rounds through the internet, and it has been somewhat of a debate in the community on what will inevitably happen to these two characters, as well as possibly Xingqiu in the future.
Venti’s one-year-without-a-rerun anniversary is also coming up in version 2.5, and as far as leaks have gone, there is no trace in sight of our favorite god-bard in the upcoming banners. Thus, speculation of him never having a rerun again or possibly undergoing a complete character redesign has taken prevalence as of late. Personally, I believe simply changing his gender to female on the Chinese server and allowing some sort of genderfluid toggling between feminine and masculine for him on the worldwide servers would do the trick. This would mean that 喵☆酱’s voice acting wouldn’t have to be scrapped on the Chinese server, since a masculine design change would favor a masculine change in voice actor as well.
Finally, miHoYo has handed publishing rights to Cognosphere for Genshin worldwide. This is likely to avoid censorship on servers other than China’s. In addition, leaks from the Chinese beta servers have shown alternate outfits for Raiden Shogun, Yoimiya, Ayaka, and Kokomi. Raiden seems to also be getting a new ult animation to go along with it, since her new neck-to-ankle modesty spells the end of her iconic ult katana era.
