Wriothesley, the lord of the murky depths and Duke of Fontaine’s prison is coming to Genshin Impact soon. But while he’s one of the darkest characters we’ve seen in a long time, his character teaser broke the hearts of fans on Oct. 11, bringing light to his featured quote: “As a general rule, the less a person sees of me, the happier their life is.”
The trailer shows the daily life of Wriothesley as Duke of the Fortress of Meropide, which is Fontaine’s prison players will explore in the Archon quests introduced with Patch 4.1.
In the trailer, he enters the home of a man but is instead greeted by their young daughter. We quickly understand that her daughter doesn’t know her father is going to be locked away in the Fortress.
“Come back soon Daddy, I’ll miss you!” her daughter says joyfully, seemingly not aware of the grim fate awaiting her father. He keeps a face for his daughter but cries as soon as she disappears. He’s then taken away in handcuffs by a merciless Wriothesley.
“We all knew where this was going, and it still hit hard in the feels,” one player said. The community’s reaction was overwhelmingly positive, with players praising the character’s narrative design for being complex.
Genshin players have already met him in the Archon quest, where he showed his strong and dark character but also some traits of humor. They learned he was a former convict who served time in the Fortress before working in it.
Some sharp-eyed Genshin fans also recognized the daughter from the trailer as an NPC in the game: Veta. She features an uncanny resemblance with the character shown in the trailer.
She wears the same clothes and has the same appearance. Veta is a girl who runs around Fontaine’s Adventurer’s Guild, asking people to play a strange game with her (where she’ll guess their savings).
She explains her father is “a Snezhnayan envoy who’s been posted to the Northland Bank.” Snezhnaya is the Cryo region controlled by the Fatui.
It’s unclear what crime her father committed, and we had plenty of questions in mind after watching the trailer. There’s no doubt we’ll know more when Wriothesley releases on on Oct. 17. Since he’s a five-star character, he’ll likely have his own Story Quest to discover.
In addition to his character trailer, HoYoverse shared Wriothesley’s abilities on Oct. 11. The Cryo Catalyst user can deal tremendous damage with his fist, featuring interruption resistance and abilities that revolve around HP management.
He can sacrifice part of his HP to use his Elemental Skill, and regain some with his Passive. His Elemental Burst allows him to deal a massive icy blow in a frontal area.
Genshin players are torn between investing all their Primogems on him or Furina, Fontaine’s Archon, who is rumored to join the game in the next banner. That will be a tough choice to make.
