HoYoverse had their Genshin Impact 4.4 Livestream back on January 19, 2024. Besides their announcement about the upcoming banners and events, the details of Lantern Rite rewards created a not-very-positive frenzy in the fan community, especially the Chinese base. Here's a clearer take on Genshin Impact losing players if you have not been aware.
About the controversial Lantern Rite 2024 rewards
Lantern Rite is the biggest festival in Genshin Impact, even more than the anniversary itself, as it celebrates the Lunar New Year. That's why it is understandable if players look forward to a good deal of rewards for the occasion. Hence, it is natural for players to expect the maximum rewards at this time of the year.
However, the developer confirmed recently that each player will get 3 Intertwined Fates. Although there are other goodies such as free character skin and a free 4-star character up for grabs, the announcement still disappointed the fan base.
This is considered too humble as other HoYoverse's game titles (Honkai Star Rail, Honkai Impact 3) even granted their players free 5-star characters.
Genshin Impact accounts lose millions of followers overnight
The Chinese player community reached a point where they felt "heartbroken and disappointed". As they deemed this a disrespectful act, the Genshin Impact TikTok account lost more than a million followers within 24 hours. The number went from 9.6 million down to 8 million.
The situation on Bilibili (a big video-sharing platform in China) is not better as the players are review-bombing with very low rates. Even worse, players also accused Hoyoverse of compensating for the loss by buying bot accounts.
The news soon reached the global player community. And they did not take it well. A player said,
"I figured with the amount of money (that) it costs to get a five-star and the amount of success that the game has had over the years, that they should have been more generous with the free stuff, especially on holidays."
What will HoYoverse do to prevent Genshin Impact losing players?
FYI, the Chinese community's rage at HoYoverse led to better results before. The devs were forced to buff Zhongli back in 2021.
The same situation of Genshin Impact losing players and getting low ratings happened before on the 1st anniversary. Although it is unlikely that they will give out 5-star characters for free, let's see if they would add any more rewards to calm the player base down.
>>> Also read: Genshin Impact 4.4: Redeem Codes, Xianyun Banner, Free Skins & More