Genshin Impact shakes up the JRPG formula with its new NPCs

It’s a joke among webs that you can always tell who the main character of an anime is. They’re looking for the teen with the most colorful hair or impractical clothes. The young heiress Dunyarzad, a newly introduced NPC in Genshin Impact, hardly fits the picture, so I didn’t think much of her when I met her. She spoke softly and had no odd personality traits. When we first met, I pretty much forgot about her as soon as she was out of sight. But the humble heiress has quickly become a fan favorite genshin community. “[The quest] was so great and also makes me cry.” tweeted a player. “She’s literally the best NPC in genshin”

Dunyarzad may be the daughter of a wealthy family, but she is not meant to inherit that wealth. Since birth, she has been struggling with an incurable disease that could kill her at any time. Despite this, she defies social conventions to revive the Sabzeruz festival, a tradition her countrymen abandoned long ago. She feared she was about to die, and her only wish was to see a dance in honor of her god’s birthday.

When I met her, I assumed our paths would soon part after she pointed me in the right direction for my quest. Instead, I was sucked into a multi-hour questline in which she featured prominently, eclipsing popular playable characters like Nilou and Dehya. Every aspect of the tightly designed main quest revolved around Dunyarzad, and it featured some of the most emotional scenes in the Sumeru region. Her best line: “There will always be frustrations in life, but I know that the meaning of life is to leave no regrets.” I promise it’s sadder in context.

Her courage left such strong impression on genshin Players who even have their English voice actor accepted that the community wants Dunyarzad to join genshin‘s super powerful roster of playable characters.

I came to worship her, but I hope Dunyarzad never becomes a playable character. Giving her the divine “vision” (an amulet that allows playable characters to use magic) would miss the point. Dunyarzad is named after Queen Scheherazade’s younger sister Thousand and one Night. Although Dunyarzad is not as famous as her sister, she is literally the reason Scheherazade survives her murderous husband. HoYoverse chose her to star in the main quest due to a new theme genshin has tried to convey in its latest updates: Normal people matter. And the studio is willing to invest actual resources (e.g. voice acting). indicates Players that worldly characters have inwardness instead of just over-the-top anime talk about it.

I’ve always been annoyed by how many NPCs work in JRPGs. Sometimes they are faceless to save development time. They often die off very quickly to further the development of the main character. There’s a reason NPCs were co-opted a right meme: because many NPCs lack agency compared to player characters. Whenever a heroic character tells me that I need to protect some villagers, I feel compelled to do so out of a sense of noble obligation. Because it’s the hero target to do, and not because I see these wooden characters as my own.

but genshin has increased NPC involvement in the story since the Inazuma storyline. Some of the best stories in the last region were narrated by an academician, a village boy and a simple soldier. The game’s massive Chasm update showed even more clearly how powerless humans play an important role in the world of Teyvat.

“I don’t really regret the fact that I don’t have vision,” said Yanbo, a soldier in the local military. “Those without vision-based power make up the vast majority of humans, and those who can truly understand and protect them are similarly ordinary people. As an ordinary man, I am proud to be among those who can protect the many.” He had not simply resigned himself to being ignored by the gods. He was a single, insignificant drop of water in an ocean, and he was rightly proud of it.

I thought of that conversation as I watched Dunyarzad bring their community together. She was too weak to fight the evil that rules Teyvat, and history will not remember her name. Yet she was so determined to achieve her small, insignificant goal of throwing a feast that no one (including her god) had asked for. NPCs need more than just important story roles; Their game must treat their lives with dignity and respect.