Horizon Zero Dawn's Aloy is coming to Genshin as a free 5-star cryo bow user. Her bow will be a Playstation exclusive drop it seems. From the blog post:

All Travelers who have reached Adventure Rank 20 or above will be able to obtain the event-exclusive 5-star character "Savior From Another World" Aloy directly through in-game mail. This event will be divided into two phases.

Phase 1

After the Version 2.1 Update. During the event, all Travelers who log into Genshin Impact on the PlayStation®4 or PlayStation®5 system will be able to obtain Aloy directly through in-game mail.

Phase 2

After the Version 2.2 Update. During the event, Travelers who log into Genshin Impact on any available platform, and who have yet to obtain the character during Phase I will be able to obtain Aloy directly through in-game mail.

Good stuff. I had a quick look at Inazuma this afternoon, I stopped just after the fairly slow opening section, with Inazuma open to explore come tomorrow. Looking forward to it.

You just finished the Liyue Harbour battle/Childe storyline, Curtis? You can straight-line the Dainsleif quest (actually pretty damn good) and the Inazuma prologue after that I think, should only take a couple of hours or so. An electro character is pretty essential when you get to Inazuma itself.

After the slow opening hour I was able to sink some time into exploring the first of the main Inazuma islands yesterday. Had a blast looking for secrets, trying my hand at some puzzles, fighting cool new enemies, and playing through some of the new Archon Quest. Digging the new traversal mechanic as well. Looking forward to getting back to it.

I managed to get Kamisato Ayaka! But I have been playing way too much of this game as was signed off work for 2 weeks I will see if I can get used to the dash. I've already put a lot of time into Kaeya though as my Cryo character!

Nice going with Ayaka! She's awesome, and if I could get used to that dash I'd spend every one of my primos to try and get her.

Sucks about the frame rate and crashes though. Can't say I've noticed any issues on PC.

Ah I didn't realise!

I must say that the music for Inazuma is fantastic, a completely different atmosphere from the rest of the game. Mysterious, brooding, electric. Whoever's in charge of the music deserves recognition because it's simply incredible. The use of the traditional Japanese instruments too is just a superb touch.

I would recommend rolling for Kamisato, she has a 10% chance to craft double weapon ascension materials which is useful, and her ice run allows her to move on water! Which is a timesaver. Also her super special talent whatever it's called, is immense.

Please don't tempt me! I have Mona who uses the same kinda sprint to cover water quickly, and yeah it's great for that. Still can't get used to it in normal play, but that's my problem to deal with.

I've loved Ayaka's design since the beta and playing through her story quest very nearly broke my will, but as she'd share the same sustained damage dealer role as Keqing in my team (but with a sprint I don't like) I know I just wouldn't use her. 

Still...    No. Mustn't.

Klee's a funny one, I don't use her at all outside of combat as being so short not only makes her the game's slowest character, but also the worst for climbing, plus she has to swim to cross puddles. In combat though, her AoE pyro attacks are so damn good at proccing vaporise and overwhelm that she's had a place in my team since I got her. Animation cancelling is a must though, as her default attack chain can feel a little clunky if you wait for the follow-through.

S'pose I better get used to that sprint then.

Just create a second PSN user/account on your PS5 using a temporary online email address.

Replay the first couple of hours or so until you're acclimatised, then switch back to your main account.

The 2.1 update is go! We get the final part of Inazuma's Archon quest, two more of Inazuma's main islands to explore, new bosses, new weapons, fishing, a load of events, free primo's, and new characters including the Raiden Shogun herself. It's all looking good. 

Damn, the current community outrage is something to behold. Calling it a direct reaction to the almost non-existent anniversary rewards is too simple, rather the anniversary seems to have lit the touchpaper of a meths soaked bundle of recent issues - from the fact that its a year in and there's still no endgame content beyond the Spiral Abyss (itself an incredibly poor piece of endgame content), to the last three 5-star characters being hugely underwhelming, to the mounting annoyance that any criticism on the official forum and Reddit are being deleted. 

The results of all this newly unleashed dissatisfaction are seeing every official social media post flooded with negative replies and the review bombing of the game on mobile. It's gone from 4.6 stars to 2.8 stars on the Google Play Store in the last 48 hours. 

Remarkably, Mihoyo seems to be ignoring the whole ruckus which is only fuelling the fire.

I've got my popcorn to hand and I'm having a blast.

Anyhoo, the new island seems pretty good and I'm well up for another shot at Hu Tao. The two new geo dude characters they showed off look pretty cool as well, and they seem to have gone down very well judging by the err, gushing enthusiasm flooding the Twitter replies. 

The Genshin community is nothing if not super fucking horny.

No idea. It might just have been some really poor attempt at a joke, there's an NPC called Ella Musk in the game and the tweet asked people to follow a new Twitter account set up in her name as a community challenge, with the Elon invite being the "reward". 

The whole thing was just really fucking weird and poorly judged, especially with the community so pissed off at miHoYo right now.

Still hooked. From the carefree playground of Mondestadt to the increasingly complex world design and environmental hazards of Dragon Spine and Inazuma, I can't see that I'll get bored of this particular virtual world anytime soon.