Genshin Impact's June 9 update gives players a boat and island paradise to explore

Summer is almost here, and Genshin Impact is celebrating by giving players a whole new island to explore. Genshin Impact update 1.6 is called Midsummer Island Adventure and in addition to a new island, players will also find a bunch of new activities waiting for them—some of which are appropriately summery. 

The biggest of these new features looks to be a boat that you can sail around the island with. I also spotted new collectibles to grab and noticed the ship also has a cannon used to bombard enemy structures scattered around the shallows.

The trailer shows off a ton of other stuff coming in Midsummer Island Adventure, including a new boss fight and domain (Genshin Impact's take on dungeons). There's also a new minigame called Kaboomball Kombat that looks a bit like an explosive version of Pong.

In addition to the Midsummer Island Adventure, MiHoYo is also teasing Genshin Impact's next big region: Inazuma. Like each of the major continents, Inazuma is styled after a different element—this time it's electro—and will be the first major zone added to the game since its launch (not counting smaller regions like Dragonspine and this new summer island coming in 1.6). In a press release, MiHoYo shared some concept art, which you can check out below.

It's worth noting, though, that we still don't have a release date for the Inazuma region. It's not even confirmed if it'll be in the next big update or something much further off.

Genshin Impact's Midsummer Island Adventure update launches on June 9.

Steven Messner

With over 7 years of experience with in-depth feature reporting, Steven's mission is to chronicle the fascinating ways that games intersect our lives. Whether it's colossal in-game wars in an MMO, or long-haul truckers who turn to games to protect them from the loneliness of the open road, Steven tries to unearth PC gaming's greatest untold stories. His love of PC gaming started extremely early. Without money to spend, he spent an entire day watching the progress bar on a 25mb download of the Heroes of Might and Magic 2 demo that he then played for at least a hundred hours. It was a good demo.