Genshin Impact previews new region after tech glitch special program

MANILA, Philippines — Genshin Impact fans know the game's update schedule by heart. By the second phase of a current update, the official social media account of the game will announce a preview or a special program of what travelers can expect to see in the upcoming version.

Hoyoverse's Genshin Impact has strayed from this schedule once before — during the rise of COVID-19 cases in China in the previous months — but has since returned to its usual timetable.

Usually, the special program is done in different languages, with only a handful of times it being just one program with different subtitles. It is usually shown live on Twitch and will then be posted on YouTube after a couple of hours.

The program for Version 2.8 last Saturday, July 2, followed the usual format of having an English stream live on Twitch with the YouTube version being made available afterwards. However, the livestream of the program proved to be a disappointment to fans as the stream suffered from buffering, lags and back-and-forth timestamp jumps.

Fans usually would have let this go, but a crucial sneak peek was teased and would eventually be cut off from the stream due to technical issues. This left fans wondering if what they had just seen was official content or not.

The content in question was the preview of the upcoming region, Sumeru. Genshin Impact follows the story of the Traveller (the player) as they traverse the land of Teyvat and its seven nations. Sumeru would be the fourth nation introduced in the game and is set to be released in the upcoming Version 3.0.

The special program should have ended with a short preview with an upcoming unknown character's (who many believe is the Dendro Archon) voiceover as images of the region were shown.

Unfortunately, fans tuning into the English stream saw a handful of seconds and then the stream cut back to the program's earlier segment and would then go offline — cutting off the preview altogether. The issue was not seen in other versions of the stream, with Genshin Impact's official social media accounts posting the preview minutes after the special program had ended.

HoYoverse eventually issued a statement apologizing for the technical issues experienced in the English stream and invited fans to tune in to the YouTube version of the stream wherein the full program, including the Sumeru preview, would be shown without any glitches.

Dear Travelers,

We apologize for the the stream delay, the originally scheduled Special Program on Twitch at 20:00 experienced technical difficulties, please go to our official YouTube channel to watch starting at 7/2 12:00 PM (UTC-4).

>>>https://t.co/bfvOH8FiR3#GenshinImpact

— Genshin Impact (@GenshinImpact) July 2, 2022

Version 2.8 updates

Besides the Sumeru preview, Genshin Impact has teased new characters and story quests in their upcoming version as well as the return of the previous summer event, the Golden Apple Archipelago.

This year's summer event will feature characters Fischl, Xinyan, Mona and Kaedahara Kazuha, who will also have a story quest released in the coming update. The event will see unexpected storylines from each of the characters with a free character outfit for Fischl as one of the rewards.

Along with Fischl, the character Diluc will also have an updated outfit (for in-game purchase) with an intriguing background story that will feature in a new challengers event called “Hidden Strife".

Lastly, a new playable character will be made available. Detective Shikanoin Heizou of the Tenryou Commission is an Anemo-Catalyst user from Inazuma, the first melee catalyst user in the game. His release is accompanied with a Hangout Event wherein players can experience being a detective for a day in Inazuma.

Genshin Impact's Version 2.8 will be released on July 13.