Genshin Impact just added a gorgeous new region inspired by traditional Japanese culture, and players want to reach it on their own terms—or get unceremoniously teleported back to land trying.
In Genshin Impact, ice bridges are a time-honored tradition, nearly as old as the game itself. It’s fairly simple: Some characters—for example, cryo swordsman Kaeya—can use their abilities to freeze patches of water. Rapidly chaining these patches together by switching characters repeatedly or playing with friends means you can get yourself a nice, long bridge going before portions you’re standing on melt. Players have naturally taken to using this method to reach far-away, sometimes off-limits areas. But developer Mihoyo has ensured that there are limits to how effective this technique can be. Case in point: the new land of Inazuma, added as part of today’s huge 2.0 update, is turning away would-be ice bridgers by the boatload—or boatlessload, as it were.
In the lead up to the 2.0 update’s release, players memed relentlessly about trying to ice-bridge their ways to Inazuma. As a result, even though the update has only been out for a half a day, countless players have made attempts. On sites like Reddit and YouTube, they’ve documented their efforts to cross the entire dang ocean on rapidly deteriorating floats of their own making—a process that can take around 30 minutes depending on which characters they use to do it. But they’ve all hit the same wall: Once players get tantalizingly close to the nation in question, the game abruptly warps them back to the Guyun Stone Forest area, where the ship to Inazuma awaits.
Players are bummed, but not entirely surprised.
“Bummer to get teleported back after half an hour of pressing E, but it’s not like I expected we could get in just like that haha,” wrote one player on the Genshin Impact subreddit who made an attempt. “I went in knowing it’d all be for naught.”
Others at least appreciate the detail Mihoyo put into an open ocean that most players will never traverse.
“I was Kaeya bridge-ing my way over when I began to be pelted by an endless stream of lightning,” one player said of the now-notorious lightning that begins striking after you reach a certain point, which fits Inazuma’s elemental theme. “It was actually somewhat terrifying for a chill, 28-minute stroll to turn into sudden anxiety over a thunderstorm.”
RIP ice bridges—for now, at least. But where there’s a will, there’s a way, and Genshin Impact players will never stop at least attempting to solve all their problems with ice bridges.