The Chalk Prince and the Dragon

 There's Agate in them hills!

This holiday season has marked the very first significant content update for the new Gatcha darling of 2020, Genshin Impact, where instead of getting a new character, new quest or an update event, fans were treated to a whole new chunk of land to explore, and I wanted to take a look at just how significant this actually wound up being to the Genshin experience. Now I wouldn't exactly call myself an addict to this game so much, but it had turned out to be one of my most played games of this last part of the year so there's certainly some attraction beyond the normal. I'm just constantly tickled by the idea that this game made it into the same ecosystem as trash like RAID: Shadow Legends and it's kin. I genuinely have fun logging into Genshin and that's just the sort of thing I'd never though I'd be saying for a F2P title, therefore judging the way that content is distributed might be an accurate way of judging how long this game will keep my favor before the next fad grabs my attention. So with that in mind let's talk about Genshin's Christmas chapter; The Chalk Prince and the Dragon.

Now first of all this update is completely free to all players, as it very much should be considering how much money this title made for it's owners in the first few weeks. That's a precedent I hope we're all expecting the team to maintain as it establishes the value of the package before even a step is taken into Teyvat. And Dragonspine, for those who haven't dipped their toes into the lore, is essentially the giant snowy mountain which can been seen practically anywhere in Mondstadt or Liyue. Whereas I originally believed this to be a part of Snezhnaya, (The realm of the big-bad Russian-inspired Fauti) and thus was confused why a presumably endgame area was coming as part of the first big content update, I was wrong, this is a standalone area featuring just the mountain with the cold weather being the natural consequence of high altitudes. Also, I do believe this to be currently, and perhaps enduringly, the highest point of the world right now, making this Genshin's version of The Throat of the World from Skyrim.

And as this new content is set in the snowy reaches of an ice mountain, tasking players with scaling such a perilous beast, it makes sense for the creators to 'borrow' another system from Breath of the Wild. That's right, just like with the visual style and basic gameplay, MiHoYo has adapted Breath of the Wild's temperature mechanic and bought it into Genshin, albeit in a much more rudimentary way. Basically, as you explore Dragonspine you'll find yourself accumulating a dynamic bar just above your health which is said to keep track of 'sheer cold'. Once that bar reaches fullness the player will start to take damage until their icy death. The cold can be kept back by lighting braziers with fire attacks, following warmth Seelies or activating these geo-looking lanterns that are scattered across the mountain. Rather disappointingly you cannot use generated fire from your attacks to whether the cold, as I tested extensively with Diluc, but I suppose that would take away the challenge, would it not?

So there we have a barrier to exploration, logic would dictate this is because there isn't that much to see and the developers wanted to gate players from seeing it all too fast. Or at least that's how my pessimistic mind would work. But after spending some extensive time in this world I can pretty much say that no, I was certainly off-base for this one. Dragonspine is actually surprisingly full to the brim of stuff to see and do, to the point where this almost feels like all the content you'd find over one of the game's reigons shrunk down and put in this one relatively tiny mountain. There's caves, puzzles, ruins, heights and enemies falling on top of each other, to the point where you can actually really start to appreciate the way the minimap actually takes height into account  and accommodates for that. (Otherwise this map would get overly cluttered fast)

Whatsmore, this place seems to have been built with an emphasis on freeform exploration first, which is where I feel that Genshin is at it's best. Most sidequests for this game pretty much devolve into fetching stuff or slaying small groups of the same enemies, and thus actually solving puzzles and seeing new things is where the magic moments are held and Dragonspire has been full of those. Just figuring out how to get to the summit alone was rewarding and required mastering this new mechanic where you'll come across enchanted Ice that can only be broken by accruing an effect that activates when you collect a crimson ore littered across the land. This alone has you paying a lot more attention to places in the environment where you see that ore and making notes or routes in your head, and I just love when Genshin leads into this sort of play; this is the golden heights of this game!

In terms of story, that's where I'm a little more hands-off on the content right now and that's because not all of it has actually dropped yet. Following the footsteps of the Fischl and Mona inspired Fallen Stars event, The Chalk Prince and The Dragon is actually releasing in parts across the month in order to segment content and progression in a way that keeps players coming back on multiple days. For my part I will say this helps establish a sense of scale to events, but only if you follow the routine, otherwise it's just an annoying gate to progress that you are forced to wait out. Thus I think it appropriate that the developers put in systems, during this event, to make coming back a worthwhile endeavour. In this instance it's actually a free 4-star sword called Festering Desire, which players can actually improve by going around and collecting materials that drop off of enemies slain in this new region, encouraging coming back on several days during this event. Although by that very nature it does put a time restraint on how long you can keep improving on this new sword, and not everyone likes that sort of pressure. (I sure don't.)

However I think the real disappointment in regards to Dragonspine was something I was really picking up all the way back in the reveal trailer; the distinct lack of new enemies. Don't get me wrong, there are a few new ice-types wondering about the place and 2 new boss enemies to contend with, but for the most part the mobs are identical and I think that's a shame. One of my issues with the regions already in the game, Mondstadt and Liyue, is the way that their enemy ecosystem is almost identical in a way that means general combat gameplay doesn't feel unique comparative to where you travel and Dragonspine has continued that tradition. Now this might be because Dragonspine is supposed to sit as this meeting point between the two nations, and that once we enter a new region they'll actually be new creatures, but all I have are my own hopes to believe that, now assurances have come from the team thus far.

But even with all that said, as far as additional content to a free game goes, Dragonspine is shockingly high value to it's players. Carrying unique rewards, (in it's domain) challenges (in it's 'Sheer Cold' system) and experiences, (in it's puzzles) there really is no reason not to give it a shot. I do wonder, however, for the new story content somewhat, which (like in the falling stars event) seems to be hinting at some larger reveal which the narrative is sharing. (And which the community unravelled eons ago. The story is about Gnosticism, we get it!) But all in all I can say rather heartedly that if this mountain is any indication of the sort of support that MiHoYo intend to maintain for Genshin then I'm down for the journey, even if it gets released in small chunks like this rather than whole nations at a time. This was really cool, team, I liked it.