Genshin Impact review bombed in China after underwhelming Lantern Rite event rewards reveal
Game's social media account, plus those for KFC and Pizza Hut, plummet in followers.
Genshin Impact has been review bombed and its official Douyin (TikTok) account has lost nearly 1m followers after the recent version 4.4 livestream announced that three only dollops of Intertwined Fate material will be gifted to players during the game's Lantern Rite event.
Before the 4.4 livestream, Genshin's official Douyin account had 9.35m followers, but as of writing, it's down to 8.41m.
Lantern Rite is a yearly event in Genshin Impact that celebrates Chinese New Year in-game, dishing out regular rewards like a free four-star character picker and Primogems, the currency used to buy the Intertwined Fate material used for pulling characters in the gacha system.
Although 2024's rewards are not too much different from previous Lantern Rites, the frustration from Chinese Genshin Impact fans this year seems to stem from the lacklustre Lantern Rite rewards on top of the recent announcement that a free character skin selector is only available when purchasing a new PS5, while developer HoYoverse's other mainline game, Honkai: Star Rail, gifted a free five-star character for simply logging into the game.
The upset doesn't stop there, as the official Genshin Impact page on popular Chinese video sharing site BiliBili is also losing followers and getting review bombed with an increasing number of one-star reviews. Regular collaborators such as KFC, Pizza Hut and Heytea are taking collateral damage, meanwhile, as Genshin fans unfollow their official social media channels too.
It seems HoYoverse might be aware about the loss in followers, as prominent Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail leaker hxg_diluc on X spotted an increase in some suspicious bot-like accounts following Genshin's BiliBili account after its loss of followers.
All this drama might be familiar to longtime Genshin Impact fans, as similar criticism was made from players around the globe after the reveal of the game's first anniversary rewards were deemed underwhelming.
Eurogamer has contacted HoYoverse for comment.