Genshin Impact, the popular ARPG published by HoYoverse (formerly MiHoYo), has revealed some beautiful artwork to celebrate Thailand’s famous Songkran Festival. As with previous festivals and celebrations before,Genshin Impactcommemorates and honors different cultures around the world with artwork that portrays aspects of these cultures in a light, fun, and respectful manner.
As with any massive RPG with anensemble cast of characters, multiple regions to discover and explore, a vast array of weapons and materials to collect and trade, side quests and tasks to complete, and a plethora of other content, new players can find themselves lost and needing direction, which the game understands and offers many guides and helpful hints along the way. Even after mastering these recurring elements, players are still kept on their toes with different events, daily quests and commissions and even certain celebrations and festivals that coincide with their real-world inspirations.
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The Songkran festival marks the Thai New Year, a national holiday that is celebrated for five days in April, coinciding with the rise of the Aries constellation on the Astrological calendar. People in Thailand and also in various other places in Southeast Asia celebrate the festival with water fights through the streets to mark a year of ritual cleansing. So, it is fitting, then, that the artwork portrays a midair water fight between Venti, the player character Aether andthe companion NPC Paimon.The Thai caption with the artwork on the official Facebook page says, “It’s a really nice day. Wish all travelers a very happy Songkran Festival.”
The Songkran festival originates in early Hinduism and Buddhism parables and stories and grounds much of its religious and ideological philosophy in these belief systems by setting up traditions of merit-making, temple visits, water pouring rituals on Buddha statues, etc. The most well-known tradition, however, is that of the massive water-fights that go on through the streets of Thailand during the festival. Similar to India’s celebration of Holi, these water fights are more than just a great party that young people partake in to ease the burdens of everyday life, but they are also a symbolic representation of the ritualistic cleansing that is so important to the people and their culture.
HoYoverse, a company that has readily shown great attention to detail when it comes tocharacter and region official artwork, has masterfully taken the water fighting portion of the festival and used that for the official artwork.Genshin Impacthas always been a game that celebrates diversity of perspective and honors different cultures around the world, and they continue that tradition with the Songkran Festival.
Genshin Impactcelebrates diversity as a way to bring players and people together, rather than keep them apart and surely, fans of the game who also participate in the Songkran festival each year will be happy to see the celebration brought into the light.
Genshin Impactis now available on Mobile, PC, PS4, and PS5. A Switch version is in development.
