Genshin Impact is finally giving away an older limited 5-star, and its sixth anniversary genuinely changes the value of the gacha

Genshin Impact celebrates its sixth anniversary during Version 7.1, A Rekviem for the Underworld.

The update launches September 23, with HoYoverse detailing its final content lineup during the September 12 Special Program.

Two new 5-stars, Vesna and Vodyanitsa, arrive alongside another Snezhnaya Archon Quest, Ronova as a Weekly Boss and the long-awaited return of Moonchase Festival.

The change that may matter most to players' accounts is much simpler: one limited 5-star character can be claimed for free.

“Free 5-star” no longer means only the standard banner

Version 7.1 introduces an anniversary event called Tabletop Troupe: A Gathering on Adventure's Eve.

Eligible players will be able to choose one character from a pool of six older event-exclusive 5-stars.

- Baizhu - Nilou - Varesa - Tartaglia - Chiori - Clorinde

This is separate from Genshin's familiar Wanderlust Invocation selector.

All six normally belong to limited Event Wishes and would otherwise require Intertwined Fates during one of their reruns.

For Genshin's economy, that is a more meaningful change than simply placing another ten pulls in the mailbox.

The new Archon Quest is part of the requirement

The limited selector is tied to Version 7.1 progression.

Players will need to complete the latest Archon Quest before inviting one of the six eligible characters during the version.

HoYoverse will also provide enhancement materials for the selected character.

That prevents the slightly absurd version of a free reward where a player receives an old 5-star and immediately discovers that building them requires days of reconstructing an entire material stockpile.

The reward also becomes an incentive to continue through Snezhnaya's main story.

The annual standard 5-star is still being given away as well

The event-exclusive selector does not replace the free standard character offered in recent anniversaries.

That annual selector returns too.

An eligible account can therefore receive two free 5-star characters during the anniversary period: one from the standard pool and one event-exclusive character from the anniversary lineup.

That distinction matters because the new reward is not simply replacing something players already expected.

HoYoverse is genuinely increasing the number of characters available without pulling.

The rest of the anniversary package still contains twenty wishes

The anniversary rewards also include 1,600 Primogems and 10 Intertwined Fates.

The Primogems are worth another ten wishes.

Across mail and login rewards, that means twenty pulls in addition to the two character selections.

Dust of Enlightenment, Sanctifying Elixir and additional resources fill out the package.

The Initial Top-Up Bonus is also being reset, which naturally targets a very different category of player.

The limited selector is more interesting because HoYoverse wants it to come back

HoYoverse presented the new event-exclusive selector as a feature planned for future anniversaries rather than a one-time experiment.

The eligible lineup can change, but the principle introduces something Genshin had avoided for years: a recurring occasion where at least one older limited 5-star can be obtained directly.

For a six-year-old gacha, the logic is easy to understand.

The limited roster has become enormous.

Waiting for one older character now means competing with an ever-growing number of new releases for banner space.

An anniversary selector relieves some of that pressure without removing reruns.

Baizhu, Nilou, Tartaglia, Chiori, Clorinde or Varesa will not have equal value for every account

The selector gives away one character, not six.

The best choice therefore depends far more on an account than on a universal tier list.

A mature roster can use the selection to complete a particular archetype.

A newer account may want whichever character opens the most useful teams with units it already owns.

A player who has been around since 2020 may simply choose the character they somehow missed across three badly timed reruns.

That is exactly why a selector is more valuable than another random reward.

Meanwhile, Version 7.1 opens with two brand-new 5-stars

HoYoverse is not becoming more generous in a vacuum.

The first Event Wish phase of Version 7.1 features Vesna and Vodyanitsa together.

Both are new 5-star characters, and both are designed around the developing Stellar Swirl ecosystem.

Anyone interested in immediately building around Snezhnaya's new reaction mechanics can therefore burn through those anniversary wishes very quickly.

Vesna converts Cryo Swirl into Stellar Swirl

Vesna is a 5-star Anemo Sword wielder and the youngest Commander in Druzhna history.

Her Stellar Linchpin allows her to convert Cryo Swirl reactions into Stellar Swirl.

Her kit revolves around Spirit Blades and a resource called Sword Essence.

Her abilities build that Essence, while a special Elemental Skill consumes it to command her Spirit Blades to attack.

When those attacks occur near a Stellar Vortex, they count as Stellar Swirl reaction damage.

Her Elemental Burst summons another wave of blades for area Anemo damage while restoring Sword Essence.

She can also fly during exploration

Vesna is a Vila, and HoYoverse uses that identity mechanically rather than leaving it inside her biography.

She can take flight while exploring the open world.

That continues a very clear trend in modern Genshin character design: limited units increasingly sell traversal options alongside combat rotations.

It is an effective way to make a character feel useful during the hundreds of hours players spend outside Spiral Abyss or Domains.

It is also an effective way to make their absence noticeable whenever the player returns to a team that simply has to run.

Vodyanitsa looks like the kind of support Vesna naturally wants beside her

Vodyanitsa is a 5-star Hydro Catalyst user and the Prima Donna of Snezhnograd's Korolevskiy Troupe.

Her Elemental Skill transforms her into Water Imp form and allows her to sustain a song.

The song continuously heals the active character, reduces enemy Hydro and Cryo RES and boosts the active character's ATK.

It also strengthens Stellar Vortices by reducing Anemo RES and increasing Stellar Swirl reaction damage.

She is therefore built as a very natural support for the reaction teams Version 7.1 wants players to explore.

Water Imp form also lets her travel rapidly through water and remain transformed while moving on land during exploration.

Putting Vesna and Vodyanitsa in the same phase is obviously convenient for HoYoverse

The two new 5-stars reinforce the same reaction ecosystem.

That creates a familiar temptation: successfully pulling one provides a compelling reason to look at the other.

Genshin does not require players to own both, and their real performance will have to be judged inside complete teams after release.

The announced synergy is still clear enough that Stellar Swirl players are likely to evaluate the pair rather than treat them as unrelated banners.

The anniversary is therefore giving players more currency at exactly the moment the game presents two extremely visible places to spend it.

Skirk and Escoffier return in the second phase

Players who resist the new characters will face another decision later in the version.

Skirk and Escoffier return during the second half of Version 7.1.

That makes the patch unusually aggressive toward saved Primogems.

Two new 5-stars open the version, two significant reruns follow, and a separate selection of older limited characters becomes available for free.

HoYoverse is using the anniversary both as a reward and as an enormous showcase for its character catalog.

The Archon Quest finally puts the Traveler in front of the Tsaritsa

Version 7.1 also pushes Snezhnaya's central storyline forward.

The Traveler will finally meet the Tsaritsa directly and learn the strategy behind her years-long effort to collect the Gnoses.

Ronova, the Ruler of Death, has interfered with Snezhnaya's progress and becomes one of the major threats driving this chapter.

Rhinedottir, associated with Life, also arrives in the nation.

The conflict with Ronova leads to a new Weekly Boss encounter.

Completing the new Archon Quest will award 620 Primogems as well.

Snezhnaya is also adding assignments tied directly to the Tsaritsa

Beginning in Version 7.1, the Tsaritsa's Confidential Secretary can issue special assignments to the Traveler.

HoYoverse presents them as a way to see more of how the Cryo Archon actually governs Snezhnaya.

That is useful at the exact moment the Tsaritsa stops being a distant figure discussed through Fatui dialogue and starts becoming a present character.

After years of building her importance from Mondstadt onward, Genshin now has to turn that reputation into an actual person players spend time around.

Moonchase returns after five years

The update is not staying entirely in the snow.

Moonchase Festival returns to Liyue after a five-year absence.

Yilong Wharf hosts the celebration, with a mystery involving characters including Zhongli and Zibai.

Three new minigames inspired by Liyue thaumaturges accompany the event.

A new 4-star Sword is among the available rewards.

The comeback is an especially appropriate piece of anniversary nostalgia: Genshin is now old enough to revive events some players remember as belonging to an entirely different era of the game.

The anniversary change is really about how a gacha ages

When a gacha has ten or twenty rare characters, keeping almost all of them behind rotating limited banners is relatively manageable.

Six years later, the problem is different.

Every new 5-star potentially extends the wait before an older character gets another rerun.

New players see dozens of appealing units they have never had an opportunity to obtain, while veterans constantly choose between filling old gaps and saving for the next regional mechanic.

Giving away one older limited character every anniversary does not dismantle that structure.

It creates a pressure valve.

A small portion of the catalog can begin circulating outside conventional banners while new characters continue occupying the most commercially valuable Wish cycles.

It also makes an old account easier to return to

The selector is particularly useful for players coming back after months or years away.

Returning to an old gacha often creates a frustrating situation: there are many new systems to explore, but most of the characters that make those systems appealing are temporarily unavailable.

A direct choice reduces that friction.

It will not completely rebuild an account that missed several regions.

It does immediately give the returning player something concrete to build instead of asking them to wait for the correct rerun.

HoYoverse can be more generous without giving up banner pressure

That may be the most interesting lesson from Genshin's sixth year.

The game can become objectively more generous while preserving a highly effective monetization structure.

A free limited 5-star has substantial value to a player.

It has much less commercial cost to HoYoverse when selected from an older pool and placed beside two brand-new characters designed around the current regional mechanic.

Players receive more.

The newest and most visible targets remain inside limited banners.

Both things can be true at the same time.

For once, the best anniversary gift is not another pull counter

The 1,600 Primogems and 10 Intertwined Fates remain useful.

They will probably disappear immediately for anyone chasing Vesna, Vodyanitsa, Skirk or Escoffier.

The event-exclusive character selector has a different value.

It bypasses randomness, the 50/50 and the wait for a rerun entirely for one selected part of the catalog.

After six years, Genshin Impact is finally beginning to treat its huge roster as something it can redistribute as well as something it can rotate through banners.

That is a relatively small adjustment to the game's economy.

For anyone who has spent six years counting Primogems before every patch, it may feel much larger.