While it seems we are still some way from Genshin Impact 5.0 (assuming we don’t miss a couple of iterations on the way from 4.6) it seems that the landmark versions number is not going to be all good news, especially if you are playing on a slightly older device.
Genshin players on PlayStation 4 and some older Android and iOS devices are going to see a decrease in graphical fidelity as the game moves forward, so says HoYoVerse.
In a post on HoYoLab the Genshin devs said: “Dear Traveler, In the future Version 5.0 of Genshin Impact, the developers will be upgrading the overall visuals and functions of the game.
This upgrade will also mean higher performance requirements. While striving to keep the minimum device requirements for Version 5.0 the same, we will use stricter performance optimization strategies to ensure stable functioning of the game after the version update.”
The post went on to further say, “Visual performance will be reduced (compared to the current version) after the Version 5.0 update on the above devices.
E.g.: When playing the game on the devices mentioned above, the resolution of some image details and smaller objects will decrease, the effect range of some special effects will decrease, etc.”
From that, it doesn’t seem as if the effect will be overly dramatic, at least at first but the concern will now be as Genshin Impact plows on towards version 6 that support for these aging systems might ultimately be dropped altogether as the developers push towards a better looking game overall.
Systems the Genshin downgrade will affect
The following devices were specifically listed as the ones that will be affected going forward/
iOS
Models with an A12 processor (or lower)
Android
Models with a Snapdragon 865, Dimensity 1200 (8050), Kirin 9000SL, or Samsung Exynos 1080 processor (or lower)
PlayStation
PlayStation 4 Series (all)