It’s official that Fontaine is finally the next destination in Genshin Impact. And these are the top 5 new features coming with the 4.0 update.

Feature 1: New Region

I am sure a lot of you are anxious about the whole water exploration mechanic. And honestly, it looks pretty decent.

First of all, you can use any character to swim around, not just the Traveler. And there is no annoying Oxygen bar to worry about. So, you can take your sweet time exploring the depths, although there is a stamina bar for sprinting. But you won’t die or anything if it runs out. And there are even these currents that you can swim to and increase the speed.

But when it comes to the actual Fontaine region, it looks amazing. The devs were clear that you will barely see any empty spaces when going underwater. There’s chock full of stuff to explore, many different and cute water creatures living here and some you can even utilize for various things, like gaining a shield and there are tons of different areas to explore on the ground. So, you won’t be just swimming underwater all the time.

Now, when it comes to new enemies, we saw some cool designs of these Clockwork Meka. But there’s also two new bosses that got introduced.

The first one is called Icewind Suite. And this boss fight is going to be really unique because you’ll need to do adapt to different mechanics that you’re not used to seeing. And the other boss is going to be the big Mr Crab with a volcano on its back called the Emperor of Fire and Iron.

However, probably the biggest change we are going to see in the game is going to be this system called Arkhe. But vision users from Fontaine have this unique attribute and the Arkhe is made up of two opposing energies - Ousia and Pneuma.

But basically, characters from Fontaine will yield this power and you will be able to use against enemies of Fontaine or other various objects.

For example, the Clockwork Meka who holds a shield can be removed from it if you use one of the Fontaine characters. Or, in other example, if Ousia and Pneuma energies are aligned, the Annihliation reaction is triggered, and it generates energy.

As far as I understand, it’s not as intricate as the elemental system. But it will be the unique aspect of any Fontaine character that you pull for. Like to me, all of these sound superabstract as now and we’ll need to see how these mechanics work when the update is live.

Finally, in order to reach Fontaine, you will be able to either take a boat from Sumeru or if you have completed the Archon quest in Mondtstadt, you will be able to quickly teleport to Fontaine instead.

I guess Hoyo finally realized a lot of new players have a massive backlog of quests before they can reach a new region. So, it’s really nice to see there’s some help to fast forward this process.

On a final note, the Archon’s quest will persist from 4.0 to 4.2 update, which is great to hear this. Because the Archon quests of each nation are really exciting when playing through without filler content in between.

Feature 2: New Events

With the new 4.0 version, we’re getting a bunch of events.

Now, the major event that will be happening is going to be called Mega Meka Melee, which consists of a few activities, including some underwater timed challenges, a combat game mode and a rhythm mini-game called Dance Dance Resolution. And your reward for completing these mini-games is going to be good-old Benny boy, along with tons of materials shown here.

The next event called Relic Records will require you to collect different types of mats and defeat the monsters in the Fontaine region. To me, this looks like an introductory event to help us get better acquainted with the new region.

Then, there’s also going to be a Photo event. It’s pretty simple. Take some photos of Fontaine region, learn more about its locations and get some rewards.

There’s also a dedicated combat event called Verdict of Blades. It seems like it will be using few unique mechanics to make the combat feel a bit more different, so that’s kinda nice.

Finally, we can see all the events condensed into one place and from the looks of it. There’s also going to be a Leyline Overflow event some time later.

However, in my opinion, the biggest surprise here is the free Lynette that everyone will be able to obtain as long as they have reached Adventure Rank 25. And if that’s not all, there’s more love coming from Hoyo for the beginner players and you’ll also get enough materials to get Lynette to first ascension.

Feature 3: New Characters

Finally, we will take a closer look at the 4.0 characters.

Lyney

Starting with Lyney, he’s a 5-star Pyro Bow user. And it seems like he will have a similar playstyle to Ganyu.

His charged shot has two levels. The first charging level is just a regular charged shot while the 2nd one can become a Prop arrow and after unleashing, it will deal increased damage and summon a Grin-malkin hat. But I prefer calling it the cat in a hat. This little buddy of his will taunt the enemies and have some health. But when it expires or gets destroyed, it will deal Pyro damage to enemies.

Finally, his burst turns him into the cat in the hat. You can move around with him, damage the enemies and then, afterwards, explode to deal damage once more and create a new cat in the hat. So, it looks like his burst feels very similar to Fischl’s and I feel like his entire kit is like a mix between of Ganyu and Fischl.

Lynette

Now, the other one of the two performers is Lynette.

At first, I honestly thought she is going to be a dedicated support for Lyney. But it seems like she is more of a support that you can use with many characters.

Basically, her skill has a similar feeling to Yelan’s. You can either tap it to deal damage or hold down the button and enter this shadowy state where she runs around and has an ability to mark an enemy. And then afterwards, when the skill ends, she deals damage to the marked enemy.

I am not sure how useful it is going to be in combat, besides applying Anemo. But having more characters who have an increased run speed is great. Because Genshin’s exploration is getting bigger by almost every update.

And as for her burst, it’s really cute. Just like Lyney, she summons a cat in a hat and it will periodically deal Anemo damage in an AoE. In addition, this burst has elemental absorption. And what’s cool about it is that the element it absorbs, it will shoot out the same element attacks to enemies.

This will be really interesting to see if it applies enough of the elemental gauge, so that some characters who utilize Vape or Melt can perform it more consistently.

Also, I am not sure if Lynette has an ability to group the enemies, like other Anemo characters. But maybe this will be possible with constellations.

Also Read: The Best Guide To Wanderer In Genshin Impact! - Best Artifacts, Weapons, Teams, Playstyle & More

Freminet

And then, we finally have the last sibling, Freminet.

He is a 4-star Cryo Claymore user who has a cute penguin Pers that helps him in combat.

By activating his skill called a Pers timer, his normal attacks will increase Pers Pressure Level and unleash waves of frost damage and other varying attacks that will combo on top of each other. These attacks will vary on the Pressure Level and honestly, he seems way too interesting for a 4-star, so here’s hoping we can have some fun with his playstyle.

Also, if you use him in your party, he will reduce the underwater sprinting stamina bar by 35%. So, right now, he is the most OP character when it comes to underwater swimming.

But let’s not forget that we also got a sneak peek at the banners and the first phase will have Lyney and Yelan with Lynettte while the 2nd phase will have Zhongli and Childe as well as Freminet.

By the way, the 2nd phase banner is a nice nostalgic callback to 1.1 if anyone remembers. And the 5-star bow for Lyney will also be featured.

Feature 4: New Equipment

If it’s a new major update, you know we’re getting some new equipment. And in this case, we’re gonna be able to farm 2 new artifact sets.

However, Hoyo seems to be playing sneaky here and I cannot talk about these artifacts officially. Because nothing has been revealed about them. But on the brighter side, we’re getting 5 new craftable weapons and 5 new Battle Pass weapons as well. If you find it difficult to obtain or craft these weapons, you can directly purchase a Genshin Impact Account. This will save you a lot of time and energy.

What’s cool about the Battle Pass is that these new weapons will be added alongside the existing ones. So, if you’re still not done refining some of them, you can still take your time or start collecting new ones.

Also, for those who you who have powered through fishing quest to obtain The Catch, a new 4-star sword will be available if you’re ready to go on another fisherman’s phase.

Feature 5: Quality Of Life

Couple of a few more things I want to mention come from the developer’s discussion.

First of all, 8 of these artifact sets are going into the strongbox. And I cannot tell you how happy I am to see Emblem and Tenacity in here. Because as much as I love Shimenawa’s set, I was mostly in that domain trying to obtain godlike Emblem pieces. And I don’t even have to tell you how salty I would feel after trying to farm the Tenacity set and all I am getting are Pale Flame HP Drops.

Also, we will be able to destroy 4-star artifacts more quickly with the new button added, although I am not sure who’s crazy enough to waste that precious artifact experience here but more power to you, I guess.

And for those 5 people who are still playing Genshin TCG, you’ll be able to now observe duels, which in all honesty, it’s a cool feature to have.

Then, there’s a really cool party system update. Not only will characters enter with unique animations and stand in awesome poses, but the party screen will also have different backgrounds.

Finally, I am not sure about you, but this is one of the top anticipated quality of life changes that I needed. We’re actually getting a multi-layered map.

Part of a reason why I stopped exploring Sumeru’s desert regions is because it just became too overwhelming to navigate the areas without a proper map system. So, now that we have this, I might actually just go back and see what’s hiding in the desert.

All in all, we’re getting a new region of Fontaine that features underwater mechanics, a bunch of events that give out free rewards, including the new 4-star Lynette. While when it comes to the banners, phase 1 will have Lyney and Yelan with Lynette, and phase 2 will feature Zhongli with Childe and Freminet.

Finally, two new artifact sets, 5 new craftable weapons and Battle Pass are also coming with the new update. And there’s the new fishing sword. But that’s basically 4.0 in a nutshell.