Story Parallels Between Genshin Impact and BOTW

Foreword

As the writing of this post, the latest version of Genshin Impact is 5.3 (conclusion of Natlan's Archon Quest). In this post I consider Lumine to be the abyss twin. I also believe that Phanes is the Heavenly Principles.

Introduction

Lumine from Genshin Impact (left) and Zelda from Breath of the Wild (right)

Genshin Impact was inspired by Zelda: Breath of the Wild (BOTW), that much is obvious to anyone even remotely familiar with both games. To my surprise though, I could not find anything on the internet about the obvious story parallels about both games. So I guess I will be the one to do it then.

Now to be clear, I am not of the opinion that Genshin Impact is a carbon copy of BOTW. The vast majority of the game's story is completely unique and completely detached from any Zelda inspiration. That being said, I believe that Kaenri'ah and Celestia are two areas where BOTW's influence is the most notable and that's what I will be documenting here.

Obvious Parallels

The most obvious parallel is The Cataclysm being Genshin Impact's version of The Great Calamity in Breath of the Wild. From there, we can draw the following parallels:

Breath of the Wild	Genshin Impact
Great Calamity	The Cataclysm
Hyrule	Kaenri’ah
Floating Island	Celestia
Triforce	Triqueta
Calamity Ganon	Phanes (Heavenly Principles)
Four Ganon blights	Four shades of Phanes
Four champions	Five sinners
Link	Dainsleif
Princess Zelda	Lumine (Abyss twin)
King of Hyrule	Vinster King (King Irmin)
Malice	Abyssal energy
Guardians	Ruin guardians

Most of them are pretty self-explanatory. The only one that might leave your head scratching is the "Floating island" entry. This is referring to a piece of the BOTW concept art that was made public in 2017. In addition, I believe that Celestia might also be the equivalent of Hyrule Castle due to the fact that the 3D model of Celestia appears to display ruins - which is extra geometry that the devs could have easily not included:

Floating island concept art from Breath of the Wild (left) and 3D model of Celestia from Gendhin Impact (right)

Kaenri'ah Speculation

I had originally planned to write a section where I summarized the story of Breath of the Wild but I now don't believe that it is necessary. Although both games I have similar subjects, they do seem to tell a very different story.

Before I speculate on what exactly happened in Kaenri'ah, here's a summary of events we know has happened:

Vinster King uses Lumine's ability to absorb abyssal energy
Abyss monsters spew from Kaenri'ah
Kaenri'ah tried to revel against the gods
Rhindottir created an army of shadow monsters
Five sinners failed to resist the call of the abyss
Sages of Kaenri'ah were interested in controlling the abyss
The Abyss sibling was summoned in Kaenri'ah
Abyss twin was the catalyst for the cataclysm
The cataclysm had been overturned, yet Celestia set the earth to burn
Celestia cursed the citizens of Kaenri'ah

Using all the knowledge I gathered, I speculate that the following happened:

Kaenri'ah intents to overthrow Celestia
They believe that the Abyss will grant them power to do so
Lumine is summoned in Kaenri'ah
Dainsleif fails to convince the Five Sinners to stop King Irmin
Pierro also fails to convince them to stop
King Irmin tried to use Lumine's ability to control the abyss
Fives Sinners obtain their "world-shattering" power from King Irmin's ritual
King Irmin's ambition backfires and the abyss leak out of Kaenri'ah
Invasion of abyss monster is stopped by Kaenri'ah and the Seven Archons
Meanwhile, the Five Sinners try to kill Phanes but ultimately fail and retreat
Kaenri'ah citizens are cursed by Celestia
Phanes goes to sleep, being weakened

Other Notes

Inside of the Irminsul tree (top), tail of the All-Devouring Narwhal (middle), False Sky (bottom)

There are lot of "tech symbolism" found in Genshin Impact. The most obvious examples are the interior of the Irminsul Tree, The All-Devouring Narwhal's tail and the False Sky. This led some to believe the game takes place inside a simulation lore-wise. Breath of the Wild had some of this symbolism as well (i.e when a weapon breaks), so I think that those are just artistic choices rather than anything meaningful.

Image of Kevin

Some people believe that Phanes is going to be inspired by a character from other Hoyoverse games called Kevin. As someone who is only familiar with Genshin Impact, I have no idea how likely this is. All I will say is that give everything else, this dude would be the local equivalent for Ganondorf. If so, I hope they will change his name because "Kevin" do not sounds very godly.

Written by manpaint on 30 January 2025.