Genshin Impact crowned game of the year by both Google and Apple

Genshin Impact
(Image credit: miHoYo)

Genshin Impact has won the best game award for both the 2020 Google Play awards and Apple's App Store Best of 2020 lineup. 

"Any title crowned Best Game has to exceed expectations and deliver compelling, accessible, genre-defining experiences," the Google Play listings read. "Thankfully, this year’s winner does all this without missing a beat."

To celebrate these awards, developer MiHoYo will give all players 800 total Primogems (or five rolls worth) via Genshin Impact's in-game mail. Expect to receive 200 per day from December 3 through December 6. That ought to help the unlucky land new character Zhongli.

These awards were announced alongside word from SensorTower confirming that Genshin Impact has generated nearly $400 million for developer MiHoYo since its September 28 launch, averaging more than $6 million a day. The $5 daily pass and $10 battle pass undoubtedly provided a chunk of the overall profits too, but there's no denying the success of the gacha model. 

Per our chat with MiHoYo last month, Genshin Impact really is just getting started. It's now one major update deep, and update 1.2 is slated to arrive later this month. However, the developers believe that the game's full story will "likely take several years" to complete, and there are certainly no signs of the game going anywhere. We've only seen two of seven planned regions, and the current regions Mondstadt and Liyue are also expected to be expanded in future updates, and we're missing an entire character element on top of that. 2020 was certainly a strong year for Genshin Impact, and I suspect we'll see its scope explode to match its popularity in 2021. 

Here are some essential Genshin Impact tips to help you make the most of Teyvat.

Austin Wood
Senior writer

Austin has been a game journalist for 12 years, having freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree. He's been with 12DOVE since 2019. They've yet to realize his position is a cover for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a lot of news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.

Latest in RPG
Dragon Age 2
Veteran Dragon Age dev says one big delay is better than several small ones: "You are laying band-aid on top of band-aid on top of band-aid"
Baldur's Gate 3 screenshot showing Astarion, a pale male elf with short curly white hair and red eyes, looking over his shoulder with a smirk on his face
Baldur's Gate 3 Astarion actor comes face to face with what might just be the best merch to come of the RPG yet – a 5-foot Funko Pop figure of his character
The Witcher 3 screenshot of Geralt
Avowed and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 tap into the same thing that makes The Witcher 3 so compelling – and it's something I'm always looking for in RPGs
Atomfall
Atomfall boss "very familiar" with Baldur's Gate 3 director's frustrations with publishers, as he recalls horror advice that games are "faster to make" if you "make fewer bugs"
Official art for Hopetown, featuring a group of miners looking towards the camera.
The battle to steal the Disco Elysium successor's spotlight continues as former and current ZA/UM devs reveal teasers for their new RPGs simultaneously
Horizon Forbidden West
Horizon Zero Dawn's Aloy is the star of Sony's leaked AI-powered character prototype, which allows users to ask questions to an unsettling, emotionless version of the protagonist
Latest in News
inZOI Character Studio screenshot showing a young woman with short black/pink hair, black cat-like ears, and a black blouse with a bowtie
The creator of upcoming life sim Inzoi says he was "recklessly brave to even think about creating a game of this scale"
Rise of the Ronin
A year after its PS5 launch, Rise of the Ronin debuts on PC to "Mixed" reviews and performance complaints: "Stuttering on a 4090 is just... no"
Rise of the Ronin's photo mode offers some wonderful shots
On the heels of Rise of the Ronin's PC launch, its director says there's a "significant" amount of Japanese Switch gamers: "I am closely watching how this will change with the release of Switch 2"
Stardew Valley Castle Village mod
Stardew Valley Expanded creator is building an "even more ambitious" mod with a whole new city and "dungeons inspired by The Legend of Zelda"
Dino Crisis 2 art showing a young woman and man back-to-back amid tall green grass, both with their weapons drawn
Dino Crisis gets a fresh trademark filing by Capcom, but it might not mean the 26-year-old survival horror franchise will get a new installment like fans expect
Cujo
Netflix is making a brand new adaptation of Cujo, the infamous Stephen King book about a killer dog