Genshin Impact's 'Voices of Nature' short documentary with Discovery aims to bring nature conservation and climate change awareness to the playerbase
This is the latest in an ongoing effort by HoYoverse to educate its players on different topics and themes explored in their many titles, including Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail.
Genshin Impact developer HoYoverse is looking to make their smash-hit title into more than just a beloved game and cultural phenomenon. With its latest collaboration with educational channel Discovery, HoYoverse is now also aiming to turn Genshin Impact into a platform for ecological awareness and natural preservation.
As part of its collaboration with Discovery, HoYoverse released the short documentary titled "Voices of Nature" on Genshin Impact's YouTube account to entice players to listen to the plight of various ecological systems in the world like the ocean, the coral reefs, the snowy mountain, the forest, and the desert.
The documentary explores the relevance of each ecological system and the benefits it offers to the world, from the ocean's role of cooling the atmosphere, to the rich biodiversity housed within the coral reef, to the snowy mountain's effort of regulating water levels, to the forest's vital role of providing oxygen, and to the desert's part of regulating heat and air purification.
The roles that each of these ecological systems, as espoused in the documentary, are important factors that we should protect. By doing this documentary, Genshin Impact and Discovery hopes that by giving nature a voice in which to emphasise what must be done, we could then listen and take action.
What's in the documentary Voices of Nature?
The short documentary also expounds on the harrowing reality of just how much climate change has affected the world.
By 2050, ocean plastic is estimated to outweigh all of the ocean's fish. As of May 2022, the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has reached its highest concentration in human history.
3.66 billion people live in areas of high vulnerability to the negative impact of climate change, becoming victims to ecological disasters like droughts, floods, heat waves, extreme weather events, and sea-level rise.
In 2022 alone, the world lost an average of 11 football fields worth of primary rainforests every minute. If you need to visualise it in numerical value, an average football field measures at 360 feet in length, which means that in just 1 minute, we lost 3960 feet of the precious biome.
That's why it is of utmost importance for the voices of nature to reach our ears. It is only through our collective action that we can prevent even more damage to the earth.
Genshin Impact's world of Teyvat takes a great deal of inspiration from our natural world; the green pastures of Mondstadt inspired by the plains of Europe, or the lush rainforest and abundant desert of Sumeru inspired both by the Amazonian Rainforest and the deserts of the Middle East and North Africa for example are all mirrors to the beauty of nature.
If we can appreciate how HoYoverse rendered these in a 3D game for our enjoyment, shouldn't we also treasure their real world counterparts?
Not the first time Genshin Impact has educated player base on real-life locations
This isn't the first time that Genshin Impact and HoYoverse has dabbled on educating its player base on the role of real world locations and cultural traditions it was inspired by. In 2022, Genshin Impact shone the light on the centuries old art form of Chinese Opera through the creation of the 4-star Geo character Yun Jin. In the same year, Genshin Impact also highlighted the relevance of Chinese cuisine in the ingame foods of Liyue through the "Gourmet Tour: Liyue Cuisine Collection".
While in 2020, Genshin Impact explored the many scenic areas of China which played huge inspiration to the design of Liyue in the "Travels Afar" Scenic Spot Collaboration Documentary series. An example that being the topographical design of Jueyun Karst and Mt. Tianheng was inspired by Zhangjiajie's karst landscape.
But even simple character trailers have inspired players to spring to action.
Ahead of Dehya's debut in the previous version 3.5 back in 2023, her character teaser "Dehya: Dawn Over the Sand" — which explored Dehya's efforts to start a fund for the education of orphans living in Sumeru's poorer area in the desert — inspired many Chinese Genshin Impact players to donate to the 'Project Hope' charity, a public service drive started in 1989 that aimed to establish schools and promote modern education in the many poverty-stricken rural areas in China.
HoYoverse has also produced educational documentaries regarding the wonders of the universe, due in part to Honkai: Star Rail being set in outer space.
Bringing in professional astrophysicists and scientists, the documentary series "Knowing The Universe" gives players a chance to peek into how the universe works and maybe even inspiring younger audiences to delve further into scientific disciplines like astronomy and physics.
Yan Ku is a full-time dog parent, part-time (gacha) gamer, and part-time writer.
For more gaming news updates, visit https://yhoo.it/YahooGamingSEA. Also follow us on Twitter, as well as our Gaming channel on YouTube, and check out Yahoo Esports Southeast Asia’s Facebook page!
