Genshin Impact Liyue Characters Evolve Into Pokémon Thanks To Artist

An artist on Reddit has redrawn all thirteen Genshin Impact characters from Liyue as Pokémon. Genshin Impact is a fantasy action RPG drawn in an anime style that has been very successful since its release in September 2020. This profitable launch, spurred among other things by popular streamers, led to Genshin Impact having the most successful first year ever for a video game, beating out competitors like Grand Theft Auto 5 and Fortnite.

Streamers were not the only ones whose attentions were snagged by the game, however. Many artists in the community have been inspired to draw the characters of Genshin Impact in a variety of ways. This in turn prompted Mihoyo to sponsor Genshin Impact fan art contests with prizes both in the game and in real life. Artists have been moved to make all kinds of Genshin Impact fanart, including drawing characters as birds in one notable project. The game is clearly no stranger to remarkable and diverse art, and the following pieces add icing to the cake.

One of the most recent additions to Genshin Impact’s fanart roster was contributed by reddit user JhayAlejo, who drew every playable character from the game’s Liyue region as Pokémon, and even added type markers to them in the Pokémon style. This is not the artist’s first time drawing the characters from the game like this; in fact, in the past they’ve also transmogrified the characters from the Mondstadt region of Genshin Impact, as well as groups of characters not necessarily linked by location, like the game’s beloved companion Paimon. The first batch of drawings was posted to the Genshin Impact Subreddit just under a month ago, with the most recent generation arriving earlier this week.

The project was a huge hit with the fanbase, receiving nearly 20,000 upvotes within three days of being posted. The artist didn’t stop at converting each character into a single Pokémon, instead giving most of the characters full on two or three-stage evolutionary cycles. The smaller number of characters with only a single form was likely an intentional design choice on the part of the artist. This fact is particularly evident in their build for the character Qiqi, or Jiangshial in her Pokémon form, who died as a young child and was brought back as a zombie and thus can never grow up or, in Jiangshial’s case, evolve.

The thoughtfulness and thoroughness of the artist is evident in the design of the characters down to the smallest detail. Most of the characters are even given small puns hidden (or not hidden) in their names, such as Yanfei’s “fakemon” Xeigalese. Each individual character concept is faithful both to the Genshin Impact character they are based upon and to the designs of Pokémon, which are themselves getting more outlandish with each generation. Overall, both the artwork and the creative vision of the artist is impressive. Pokémon designs may be getting stranger every generation, but the devs at Game Freak need look no further than Reddit if they are seeking inspiration for new regions.

Genshin Impact is available on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Android, and iOS devices.

Source: JhayAlejo/Reddit