Summary
Genshin Impacthas an expansive world that prides itself on the level of exploration freedom it grants players. Like most open-world games, it is equipped with a myriad of mechanics to make exploration more interesting. InGenshin Impact’s case, Elemental Sight is front and center of its exploration package, and is one of the game’s cornerstones, allowing players to see Elemental Trails, which are essential for exploration, puzzle-solving, and creating combat strategy.
Elemental Sight: Genshin Impact’s Spin on Interaction Mechanics
The use of Elemental Sight is imperative to the success of The Traveler, the protagonist journeying through thevarious regions that make up Teyvatin search of their lost sibling. At its core, Elemental Sight is a tool for uncovering hidden information, but accessing it requires having a Vision or high elemental sensitivity. This is because a Vision is needed to utilize the power of one of the seven elements. That’s not always the case though, as seen with the Traveler. UsingGenshin Impact’s protagonist as a reference, familiarity with the elements is the primary catalyst of channeling Elemental Sight.
Beyond pinpointing objects with Elemental Trails, the mechanic can also pick up interactive objects once activated. Like most exploration mechanics found in games, Elemental Sight turns off automatically after covering a certain distance and needs reactivation if the player wishes to continue using it. It also has a limited range and will only pick up objects in its defined radius, even if they are visible. Only five characters in the story are confirmed to be able to use this ability:The Traveler, Amber, Lisa, Rosaria, and Yanfei, with the protagonist being confirmed to be the most effective user and Lisa coming in at a close second.
Elemental Sight Has A Variety Of Use Cases
The method of using Elemental Sightcomes in different forms across gaming consoles: clicking the middle mouse button on a PC, clicking the left D-pad button on a PlayStation, or pressing the eye icon on the mini-map on mobile. Beyond Elemental Sight’s primarily utilitarian nature, HoYoverse also equipped the exploration mechanic with an impressive color palette where each color represents something unique. This patterning helps players understand what they expect to find, unlike other open-world games that highlight all objects of interest in the same color. When toggled, the screen takes on a monochromatic hue, and various objects and entities of interest will stand out in their respective elemental glows.
Some interactable entities like chests, raisable gates,Ruin Machines, and NPCs glow white, the color used to note objects not currently affected by an element. Red represents fires, exploding barrels, torches, and things associated with the element of fire. As expected, blue is attributed to objects with wet status and hydro ambers. Light blue represents frostburst barrels, mist flowers, and recently deactivated flamethrowers. Yellow is commonly associated with the earth and, as such, is used for objects with geological relevance, like ores. Purple indicates a connection with electricity, like electro crystals, current puzzle stones, and electro-rock piles. Green represents grass and similar objects like haystacks and wooden objects. Turquoise is notably used to represent anemo ambers.
However, it is important to note that not all entities highlighted by Elemental Sight can be interacted with, and not all interactable entities are highlighted. Elemental Sight can pick up the elemental trails left behind by enemy bosses during the weekly Bounties and those betweenSeelie and their Seelie Gardens. Certain quests and all hidden exploration objectives also require Elemental Sight, as they are not officially recognized as quests and, as a result, are not marked on the mini-map. It can visualize the energy routes between Phase Gates to determine possible teleportation destinations. Certain combat situations can also benefit from using Elemental Sight, as it enables players to see the elemental traits assigned to enemies, which allows players to pinpoint their weaknesses.
