The newest Genshin Impact update contains a lot of new and insane content and these are the top 5 new features coming with the 4.2 version.

1st Feature: New Zones

So, with this new update, comes many zones.

There’s a lot of peculiar landscapes we saw during the livestream. And from what I understand, these zones will be on the east side of Fontaine and you’ll get to visit places like this foggy forest with a strange tree.

One of the main things about this zone in particular is that it has these contaminated bacterial zones that you’ll find all over the place and you’ll need to cleanse them by utilizing a new aberrant ability, which are those temporary skills you obtain while underwater. But we’ll learn all about this more from a new world quest that will explain what’s the deal with those contaminations.

Still, we’re not done yet. There’s another cool place called the Fathomless Tower that we’ll get to explore and it will be a critical point in the storyline that explains some of the things about the Primordial Sea, so I am personally interested to learn more about it. And besides, who doesn’t love a good old mysterious tower exploration?

And when it comes to questing, it’s been officially confirmed that Act V of the Hydro Archon quest will be included with the 4.2 update and on top of this, Furina’s personal story quest is also going to be available.

2nd Feature: New Events

As always, we’re getting a bunch of new events.

Now the main one is going to be focused around this cute mechanical penguin that you’ll need to fix and improve together with Freminet.

The event is made up of 3 stages:

In the first one, you’ll need to play a small mini-game where you guide the penguin to its objective on this grid, while in the 2nd stage will require you to go underwater and look for parts to use on the Penguin.

Finally, the third stage will be a combat mini-event, and here you actually get to fight alongside your mechanical penguin friend. He will apply different effects for the battle and to me. This looks like the coolest part of this main event.

Now, if you put in the effort and finish this quest, then the biggest reward is going to be a free copy of Freminet, which is pretty cool. But you know what’s even cooler?

Bongohead is making a return. That’s right, the pokemon-esque Fungi event is making a return, and it seems like the developers made optimizations for this event, so I am interested to try it out.

Another event called Graph Adversarial Technology Experiment Log or, as I like to call it, just exchange stuff with your friends event. So basically, submit photos, use patterns or exchange them with your friends and obtain this new unique gadget called Zoom Lens that allows to zoom in before taking a photo.

Finally, Misty Dungeon is also making a return. This combat event is known for being a pretty cool place to test various characters you don’t have since you can use their trial versions.

And as always, Leyline overflow event will also be available sometime during the new update.

3rd Feature: New Characters

So, with the 4.2 update, we’re finally going to be able to pull for the legendary archon Furina, who is a 5-star Hydro Sword user. If you want to quickly experience this 5-star character in the new version, buying Genshin Impact Accounts directly will be a good choice!

And from what it looks like, she can switch between Ousia or Pneuma by using her charged attacks. And this will matter because her skill will summon Hydro companions to the battlefield and they will differ depending if she was aligned with Pneuma or Ousia.

I am a huge sucker when it comes to cute little critters, but Furina goes over the top by summoning more than 1 of them!

However, I think the biggest thing about her is her burst. To put it simply, it will deal some Hydro DMG and then put the whole team into this special state and whenever someone loses or gains HP, their damage and healing will be boosted.

It’s clear that Furina will be a unique hybrid that boosts the team but also applies Hydro with her skill, which will be an important factor to consider.

But on a lighter side, one of Furina’s passives decreases the CD of aberrant abilities you use underwater and get this. When one of her summons from the skill are on the field, she can walk on water. Talk about powercreeping Kokomi.

Moving over, Charlotte, a 4-star Cryo Catalyst, will also be available to summon for. I think it’s funny that Hoyoverse decided to release 2 Cryo Catalysts back-to-back, which was one of the element & weapon combos that we’ve never had prior to 4.1.

But I think it’s a good that they have done this because playing a Cryo Catalyst is pretty funny with all things considered. So, it really shouldn’t be locked behind a 5-star.

Also Read: Genshin Impact 4.2: Details About Furina Buffs & Changes

But, what does Charlotte do? Her skill shares some similarities to Nahida’s skill, so she can tap it and deal some damage or hold it down and take a snapshot with her camera of several enemies.

Now, I am not sure what kind of potential this skill has, but you gotta admire her Normal and Charged attacks. They look so satisfying. It makes wanna build her as a damage dealer no matter how unfit this may be.

And there is a reason why I mention this. Her burst will create this field and deal damage to enemies inside. But at the same time, it will also heal your characters. So, I think this burst kinda gives away the fact that Charlotte is going to be a healer. But no matter what, I will still try to build her as a damage dealer because those Normal Attacks look too good.

And remember those Zoom Lens I’ve mentioned. Charlotte has a unique ability that allows her skill to take pictures mid combat when using this gadget. So, it’s interesting to see that while you can use this gadget with any character, she has a special use case for it.

But, let’s quickly talk about the banners now. In the first phase, Furina as well as Baizhu will have their own featured banners. But what’s interesting is that it will be possible to pull for Charlotte during this phase as well. So, both new characters are available during the first phase while in the second phase, Ayato and Cyno will be the featured characters.

So, if you have saved up a lot of Primogems and your plan is to pull for Furina, chances are you might also obtain Charlotte, so two Steambirds with one stone.

Obviously, in the first phase, you’ll also be able to pull for Furina’s signature weapon, so keep that in mind.

4th Feature: New Enemies

This time around, the new weekly boss is going to be a massive whale. And I know what you’re thinking – how fast a whale player will beat this whale, right?

Anyway, this is actually a pretty interesting fight because during the first phase, this big beefy boy will unleash tons of AoE attacks. So, you’ll need to run around like crazy and dodge them.

But what’s interesting is that you’ll notice he has this thingy below his health bar. From what I understand, there will be special ways to build it up because you’ll need to defeat the Whale this way.

However, what’s really cool about this fight is that the whale will literally suck you into his belly and then a new foe, a really cool foe shows up and you need to duel him to death. So, this fight seems to be pretty complex but interesting and hopefully it won’t get tiresome after repeating it over and over for materials.

And speaking of repetition, a new world boss called Hydro Tulpa will be waiting for you, so you can slaughter him and take its materials to level up your characters.

He looks pretty cool. I like his design, but like with every other world boss, they’re just there to get demolished within a minute.

5th Quality Of Life

When it comes to Quality of Life changes with 4.2 update, there’s actually quite plenty of them.

First of all, the weekly boss fights for new players had to be a bane to deal with, especially when you pull that sweet new character. And you realize that you can’t level their talents if you haven’t unlocked a specific region and completed its Archon quest.

This changes with 4.2 update and now, you can just quick challenge any of the weekly bosses even if you haven’t unlocked their fights through the story.

The next one on the list is a feature that I wanted to see for a long time and that’s giving more control over your quests. Up until now, if you used one of those keys to unlock a hangout or a story quest with a character, often you would end up causing some conflicts for other quests, like when it says a character is busy in another quest. So annoying.

But, now you can choose to just unlock a quest and then later you can decide to accept it, which means fewer characters being busy when you need to complete other quests. You will even get to see a window with pre-requisite conditions for a quest, so you’ll know what to expect.

Now, when it comes to the next quality of life feature, it’s pretty small but still matters and it will increase the amount of pins you can have on your map from 150 to 200. There will also be a batch delete function for pins, so you don’t have to go around and keep selecting and deleting one pin at a time.

But then, there’s probably the most important change, at least for me, and that’s Genius Invokation TCG getting sped up. Basically, there will be an option to enable where every single animation gets accelerated. And from the previews I saw, it actually looks like the game doesn’t feel sluggish anymore and I’ll be real.

Part of the reason why I didn’t really get into this game mode was literally because of how slow it felt and I kid you not. This might actually convince me to go and play this mode again, because I still haven’t unlocked everything.

And what’s even better, you’ll also be able to share decks with each other, thanks to the Sharing Code feature. So, now, I can just copy top meta decks and enjoy my life as a slacker.

Finally, Stellar Reunion has been optimized. This event for players who return after taking a break from the game will offer more relevant rewards, and you can even get story keys if you haven’t collected them.