Genshin Impact developers roll back controversial Neuvillette change, offer Primogem compensation

Just keep spinning.

Neuvillette holding his crane.
Image via HoYoverse

Genshin Impact‘s developers have reverted a highly contested change to Neuvillette’s charged attacks—and players can expect great rewards in compensation.

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Neuvillette is one of Genshin Impacts’ most powerful five-star units, capable of using his Charged Attack to launch massive blasts of water that deal consistent damage. However, many PC players combined this ability with high DPI on their mouse to spin around and deal damage in a 360-degree area, something the developers attempted to rectify.

Neuvillette using his Elemental Burst in Genshin Impact.
He is more than a mere judge. Image via HoYoverse

Alongside the release of Genshin‘s 4.8 update, the developers implemented what they called a “bug-fix” to the camera movement and functionality of Neuvillette’s Charged Attack. Currently, the camera now moves incredibly slow while channeling Neuvillette’s water beam to counteract players using high DPI settings.

Even though the patch has only been live for 24 hours, many players expressed immediate criticism for the update, as they felt like their favorite unit had been significantly nerfed several months after his release. These players shared their complaints on X (formerly Twitter), stating that the spinning feature had been out for months, and was never considered a bug until now.

These opinions garnered serious traction within the worldwide Genshin community, as players felt it was unfair to nerf characters people pay for after they are released. This led many fans to feel like they were taken advantage of, with one even theorizing that the developers “marketed it as a feature first to make profits and then pulled the rug.”

Thankfully, Genshin Impact’s developers were quick to respond to this controversy, offering a lengthy explanation and apology on X. On top of completely reverting the change in the following patch, all players will be receiving 1,600 Primogems, or 10 free pulls, in compensation for the debacle.

This situation comes at a tricky time for Genshin developers, as they find themselves thrown into multiple controversies at once. Many fans, content creators, and even voice actors are publically criticizing the developers for cultural appropriation and whitewashing in the game’s newest region, Natlan.

Players were quick to point out that the Neuvillette situation was dealt with in just a single day, but the community complaints about Natlan have received no official feedback. While it is unclear if the devs will address the Natlan criticisms, Neuvillette will return to his full power in the following update.

Author
Image of John Wildermuth
John Wildermuth
John is a graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles and wields a degree in English. He is constantly staying up to date on the latest and greatest games, and has been writing about gaming for over a year now. When he is not playing games, he can be found reading sci-fi and fantasy books or working on ceramics.