Emotional HoYoverse president says ‘sharp’ Genshin Impact feedback made the team feel ‘useless’

HoYoverse president Liu Wei gave an emotional speech at a Genshin Impact event in China, explaning how recent criticism from fans made his team feel “useless”.

Following a livestream showing more information on the game’s upcoming version 5.0 update, which adds a new desert region called Natlan, Liu – known as Da Wei in-game – made a surprise appearance on stage to address fans at the Genshin FES event in Shanghai.

Pausing at times to cry, Liu told attendees that the team had been suffering the past year because of feedback aimed at previous updates.

“Over the past year, both the Genshin team and I had experienced a lot of anxiety and confusion,” he said (as translated by YouTube channel SentientBamboo).

“It’s because last year we truly felt like we went through some really hard times. We heard a lot of noise [feedback] and some of it was really, really sharp and cause our entire project team to feel really useless.

“Some people felt that our project team was really arrogant, saying that they don’t listen to anything. But it’s like [presenter] Aquaria said – we’re actually the same as everyone, we are also gamers. We all feel things other people feel too.

“We simply heard too much noise. We needed to calm down and discern the true voices of the Travelers.”

Liu explained that at the start of the year when the development team was “feeling really lost” they started to travel the world and speak to the players about their feelings on the game and what it meant to them.

“I heard all sorts of sounds, and felt everyone’s love for Genshin, and also heard the troubles some people experienced, along with the reasons why some people haven’t returned to the [game’s] continent of Treyvat,” he said.

“Listening to the sounds of those Travelers’ feedback gave us all a great deal of encouragement. That’s why after returning I had many meetings with the team, and after many meetings we reached a consensus –  the only thing that cannot be changed for Genshin is the journey we’ll experience with our Travelers. Everything else can be changed.

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“So that’s why you saw so many changes in the Natlan stream. It doesn’t matter whether it’s content, in-game benefits or game improvements, we think as long as Travelers are happy we can change anything.”

He added: “I know that in the future we may still be lacking in some parts. I also know that even today we still can’t meet everyone’s expectations. But after the anxiety and confusion the team and I experienced over the past year I feel we also received a lot of courage and trust from Travelers.”

Genshin Impact’s verion 5.0 update will launch on August 28.