Genshin Impact Sumeru trailer explores floating desert ruins

A second Genshin Impact Sumeru video preview shows off the region’s desert and some of the sacred ruins that can be found there, as well as teasing a group of forest spirits and several mysterious floating ruins that players will encounter while exploring the Genshin Impact 3.0 update’s new location.

The teaser, titled ‘Of Rain and Sand,’ features some members of the anime game’s art team talking about the diverse environment across Sumeru, which ranges from dense jungle to vast, rocky deserts. “Sumeru is rather different from the major areas we’ve seen in the past,” says environment artist Jax Huang.

“The landscape of the rainforest gives the impression of endless mountains,” Huang continues, while “The desert has desert storms, oases, and vegetation that needs water… Rocks eroded by the wind and sand, and sacred ruins with historical elements.” We get to see some lovely wide shots of these incredible structures towering up between the arid rocks, before getting a glimpse of some stone architecture and statues built into a cave network.

Huang says the team has “been experimenting with design boundaries – we didn’t want to come up with a very realistic design, but we didn’t want to deviate too wildly either, to achieve a good balance between exoticism, fantasy, and realism.” It certainly gives Sumeru some rather striking visual diversity between the barren dryness of the desert and the dense, vibrant forest areas.

“When players first arrive in this fantasy forest, they will find a city built on a giant tree,” explains environment artist Maizi. Located in the area is a group of tiny forest spirits who can only be seen by children, Maizi says, and players who encounter them can attempt to gain their trust by helping them to solve “a series of crises hidden in the depths of the forest.”

Perhaps most tantalisingly, the second Sumeru preview teaser video leaves off with a couple of exciting details described by Maizi: firstly, “mysterious ruins floating upside down and tornadoes tearing through the sky” that can be discovered in the desert. The other tease is that of two giant robots – one buried deep in the forest, and another lying dormant in the desert. “It’ll be up to you to unravel the truth yourself,” teases Maizi.

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We don’t yet have a fixed release date for when we’ll be able to visit Sumeru for ourselves in Genshin Impact 3.0, but it seems likely that it could be coming in late August. In the meantime, we’ve got everything you might want to know about whether we can expect to see Genshin Impact 2.9 before the big 3.0 update arrives. Elsewhere in the world of the free-to-play game, voice actor and YouTube star LilyPichu recently commented that she put her entire paycheck from working on the game back into wishes.