Genshin Impact fans celebrate their hot and buff nerd, Alhaitham

Hoyoverse sneakily announced two new playable characters for Genshin Impact last night during The Game Awards 2022. The first was a young girl named Yaoyao, and the other was the reasoned academic Alhaitham. The scholar has played an extremely active role in player’s journeys in the new Sumeru region so far, and so now fans are celebrating his official announcement as a playable character at long last.

Genshin Impact is currently in its 3.3 patch and the devious baddie Scaramouche, now known as the Wanderer, has joined the story after a boss fight with him in the 3.2 patch. The mainline story of the game has taken place in a region called Sumeru since late August, and Alhaitham has aided the Traveler as an ally since then. He’s been with us pretty much every step of the way in the region and because of this, some fans speculated he would become playable in an earlier patch. But he was a no show until Hoyoverse surprise-revealed him last night.

Additionally, he was joined alongside Yaoyao, who was teased in prior art, but seemed to also come on a slower schedule than expected.

Fans are more than excited about the arrival of Alhaitham though, since he’s been a fan favorite throughout the Sumeru story. He’s made a name for himself being an ornery but well-intentioned nerd who pursues the truth no matter the cost to him. And as always with Genshin Impact fans, it doesn’t hurt that he’s buff and and hot too. Since the announcement, Twitter has been filled with fans excited about him as they post fan art, memes, and just general appreciation posts.

Of course it’s not all jokes. Fans also posted art after the announcement. I’ve collected some here for you to look at, respectfully.

We don’t have confirmed release dates for Alhaitham or Yaoyao yet. However, the marketing dropping now means that they will likely come in Genshin Impact’s 3.4 patch. This patch doesn’t have a release date yet either, but we can expect it to be released sometime mid-January, if the developers stick to the usual timeline.