Liyue (, ) is a fictional nation in the video game Genshin Impact, developed by miHoYo. It is located in the eastern part of the game's continent, Teyvat, and serves as the main location for the first chapter of the game's main storyline.
The creation of Liyue took one year, and its design is based on Ancient China, with artistic references to China's Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, Huanglong Scenic Area, the landscape of Guilin, Fenghuang Ancient Town, and the Hanging Temple in Shanxi. This setting has been positively received, praised as a symbol of Chinese culture within the game.
Conception and creation
Geography The game development team stated that Liyue was created with a Chinese fantasy theme. From white-box testing to art design, scene creation, it took a year to complete. Liyue officially opened on March 19, 2020, and its area is 1.5 times that of the initial region, Mondstadt. In the game, Liyue is located in the eastern part of the continent of Teyvat, bordered by Mondstadt to the northeast and facing Mt. Tianheng to the west. Liyue features diverse terrain, with sandstone formations being a prominent feature, symbolizing the Geo Archon's leadership. The area includes shallow beaches, plains crisscrossed by rivers, towering mountains, and stone forests. Plants in the mid-altitude areas are dominated by poplar trees, with locust and pine trees at higher altitudes, while bamboo, plum, and ginkgo trees grow in the plains and riverbanks. Animals include cranes and lizards that inhabit the cliffs.
The development team also focused on constructing Liyue's ecology, including climate, vegetation, and wildlife. As Liyue is themed around the Geo element, warm colors dominate the scenery. Players enter Liyue from Mondstadt through a stone gate designed based on karst arches based on those in southwest China, resembling a thin strip of sky in the early stages, later completing the final design by referencing ancient Chinese plank roads. After passing through, they arrive at the alluvial river of Bishui Plain, known as "Dihua Marsh", modeled after the landscape of Guilin and Yangshuo, characterized by continuous stone peaks, dense water networks, and floating vibrant flowers. The iconic building, Wangshu Inn, is inspired by the Lingnan Diaojiaolou architecture, with its temperament resembling the inn in the movie Dragon Inn. The scene in Dihua Marsh reproduces the characteristics of Guilin's multiple waters and continuous mountains, depicting the details to reflect the life of the people of Liyue. The northern "Qingce Village" showcases a tranquil village with numerous terraces and is inspired by the Longji Mountain and Rice Terraces.
The tributaries of Bishui River wind down from Dihua Marsh, eventually merging into "Luhua Pool", inspired by the iconic calc-sinter terraces of Huanglong Nature Reserve in Sichuan. The Huanglong Scenic Area is the only well-preserved plateau wetland in mainland China, and the production team believed that Huanglong possessed a sense of "dreaminess" and "mystery" beyond reality. Therefore, they chose Huanglong as a reference for Liyue's "ecosystem". The prototype of Liyue's Luhua Pool is located in Huanglong's Five-Color Pond. The water in Luhua Pool uses a different material from other water surfaces in the game, giving it attractive colors under various lighting conditions. Additionally, setting high points around Luhua Pool is aimed at allowing players to "more easily experience its perfect side."
Zhuhua Pool, located next to Mt. Tianheng, is inspired by the famous Tianmen Mountain in Zhangjiajie National Forest Park. Mt. Tianheng features the "Jueyun Karst", shrouded in clouds and mist year-round, with plank roads and suspension bridges between the peaks. This place is the retreat of the immortals who guard Liyue. Zhangjiajie was chosen as the model because its fantastical landscape seems "a bit out of this world." In the game, Jueyun Karst is the retreat of Liyue's immortals, and Zhangjiajie's towering mountains and misty atmosphere fit this setting perfectly in the developers' opinion. Additionally, the sandstone peak forest of Zhangjiajie aligns with Liyue's theme of the Geo element.
Passing through Mt. Tianheng, the player arrives at Liyue's southeastern commercial port, "Liyue Harbor". In the game, the entrance to Mt. Tianheng in Liyue Harbor is inspired by the Tianmen Cave in Tianmen Mountain. The development team believed that entering Mt. Tianheng and discovering Liyue Harbor would create a strong visual and spatial contrast, highlighting Liyue's natural and cultural heritage. Liyue Harbor's architecture is influenced by the ancient town of Fenghuang in Western Hunan and the Hanging Temple of Mount Heng in Northern Yue. The pailou-like entrance and bridge upon entering Liyue Harbor were designed to convey a sense of ceremony and solemnity.
A new expansion area of Liyue, "The Chasm", was released with the 2.6 version update on March 30, 2022. The Chasm features a complex terrain with many unique ecological and geological environments and borders Sumeru. It is divided into an upper and a lower region, and completing tasks will unlock the underground mine area, where players can use the item "Lumenstone Adjuvant" to explore this region. Another new area, "Chenyu Vale", was released with the 4.4 version update on January 31, 2024. It is located in the northwest region bordering Fontaine. The area "Qiaoying Village" is known for producing tea, and its architectural design takes inspiration in the Huizhou architecture in Huangshan, Anhui Province.
Adepti
The xianren () or just xian (), localized as "adepti" in English, are unique and central to the mythos of Liyue and are portrayed in Genshin Impact as divine or semi-divine beings who protect the region under the mandate of the Prime of the Adeptus, Rex Lapis.
In traditional Daoism and Chinese folklore, xianren are Daoist immortals who attain transcendence through discipline and cultivation, often retreating from the mortal world to dwell in sacred mountains. The locations where the adepti live are accordingly called dongtian (), sacred Taoist sites. Of them, the player's home (called the "Serenitea Pot" in English) is named after the famous dongtian Luofu. However, while traditionally, all living beings can become xian, the developers purposefully deviated from traditional concepts of the xian by restricting the adeptus status to non-humans.
The game localizes the full title of the adepti as "mighty and illuminated", a translation of the term , which literally means "three eyes and five manifestations". This term is historically associated with Huaguang Tianwang, a Daoist protector deity featured in Journey to the South, a Ming-dynasty novel, and other late imperial Chinese supernatural literature.
Music and art
The original soundtrack of Liyue adopts the traditional Chinese pentatonic scale. The instrumentation blends traditional Chinese instruments such as the dizi, erhu, guzheng, and pipa with Western orchestral music, fusing folk music with symphony. The original music was composed by Yu-Peng Chen and performed by the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, recorded in the Shanghai Symphony Hall over five days. Some of Liyue's character songs use modern musical styles, such as Qiqi's character song which uses a synthesizer, and Hu Tao's theme which imitates the style of 1990s Hong Kong zombie movies.
The scene art director stated that the game does not meticulously recreate the real-world prototypes but rather extracts elements and reconstructs them to present a form of moderate fantasy. During the production process, the team visited many scenic spots in China for inspiration. miHoYo's director and vice president of game operations, Yin Chunbo, mentioned that the team was initially worried that, as a private game company, their requests might be rejected by scenic areas. However, the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee's publicity department and the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism wrote recommendation letters for them.
Setting
Culture Liyue is the China-inspired region in Genshin Impact. It is located in the eastern part of Teyvat and is the oldest established nation on the planet. Liyue reflects many traditional Chinese cultural elements in its customs and traditions. This can be seen in the Oriental-inspired names across Liyue, which are preserved in the English version of the game through pinyin. The clothing worn by the characters also draws heavily from Chinese aesthetics; most non-playable characters wear outfits inspired by the fashion of the Qing dynasty, blended with some modern elements. Clothing can differ depending on the character's occupation and social class. For example, sailors and workers wear round-necked, double-breasted short shirts with leggings and wrist guards, while women mainly wear qipaos, large-collared shirts with long skirts, and short shirts with short skirts. As for playable characters, Zhongli's costume has the design of a magua and a changshan and Hu Tao's costume resembles a Tangzhuang. Her hat draws from those worn by officials during the Song and Ming dynasties. The storylines and dialogue related to Liyue uses many Chinese historical allusions and poems. Liyue's cuisine is intricate and diverse, represented by two main culinary traditions: "Li" and "Yue" cuisine, which parallel China's Eight Great Regional Cuisines. Most of the dishes featured in Liyue exist in real life or have real-life inspirations such as squirrel fish.
Liyue also features two major traditional festivals: the Lantern Rite and the Moonchase Festival, which correspond to the Chinese New Year, Lantern Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival in real life respectfully. The design of festival activities in the game also refers to traditional Chinese customs, such as fireworks, paper lanterns, lantern riddles, kites, and lion dances. During the Lantern Rite, on the first full moon night of the year, people release "Xiao Lanterns" and "Mingxiao Lanterns" into the night sky, and setting off fireworks is an indispensable activity for the people of Liyue. The Moonchase Festival celebrates the autumn season, with streets and buildings adorned with festive decorations, and some businesses setting up stalls and advertising to attract customers. Liyue's performing arts are modeled after Peking opera, and the developers even created an original opera piece entitled "Divine Damsel of Devastation", sung by opera performer Yang Yang. Finally, Liyue embodies Chinese xianxia traditions, with areas like Jueyun Karst and Chenyu Vale rich in lore about the adepti. Some playable characters are directly tied to this, such as Xiao, a yaksha with the goal of protecting the people.
Lore Thousands of years before the game's events, an ancient civilization of Lang-Gan was established in the area that is now The Chasm as part of the unified civilization of Teyvat with Zibai serving as Celestia's divine envoy to Lang-Gan. During the War of Funerary Flame, 6000 years before the game's events, the Heavenly Principles cast down a Celestial Nail on Lang-Gan for the purpose of cleansing Abyssal corruption. Zibai, unwilling to leave her people to die, intervened to temporarily stop the Nail, allowing the inhabitants of Lang-Gan to escape. However, she died from her attempt to stop the Nail and Lang-Gan was ultimately destroyed; however, Istaroth, the Ruler of Time, managed to preserve her soul by freezing her in the moment of her death and imbuing the fragments of her shattered soul into her Three Deadly Selves while also creating the shadowmoon to preserve her soul. The impact of the Celestial Nail also led to the creation of The Chasm, with the remains of the Nail remaining deep underground as the Spiritstone.