Four years later, Genshin Impact is finally coming to Xbox — but HoYoverse still wants to squeeze you for a pre-order

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 20th 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.

Paying to pre-order Genshin Impact on Xbox Series X/S will net you just two regular wishes, 150,000 Mora (in-game currency), and a handful of character and weapon XP materials. You'll also get 10 food items that can be consumed to temporarily buff your party's stamina. This is broadly aligned with the pre-order bundles for HSR and ZZZ, and allow me once again to assure you that it's really not worth a tenner, and what you're really paying for is the preload for a game that players on other platforms will have had a four-year head start on. It's your money at the end of the day, but just be aware it's not exactly an economical choice.

HoYoverse has expressed interest in bringing their other titles to Xbox and Nintendo consoles for a while, most recently when Zenless Zone Zero's producer told us that his ambition is to see his game made available on all platforms. However, this is the first time that a HoYo title has broken out of the mobile/PC/PlayStation ecosystem that's been the studio's trademark triple-threat ever since Genshin's launch. I guess we'll have to wait and see if this marks the beginning of some major expansion for the company, or just a long-anticipated one-off.

Genshin Impact will release for Xbox Series X/S on November 20th, 2024, with what appears to be the preload available from the 18th according to the Xbox store listing. Note that despite the original launch on PlayStation 4, it looks like it won't be coming to Xbox One.