I know that everyone's compared the two many times before but I wanted to do a full, in depth analysis. Please don't be afraid to share your thoughts, concerns and criticisms.

So since Genshin was revealed it's been compared to BOTW endlessly. Which is fair- after all, they share so many similarities, it's hard not to compare them. The way you traverse the landscape, the way you collect resources and use it to survive, and the way enemies act are all extremely similar. But how similar are they really?

1. Movement

I'll start with the basics, and the most prominent feature in these games: movement.

BOTW revolutionized movement in open-world video games. BOTW introduced a "go anywhere, do anything" style of gameplay- especially since the entire game world was open to you once you got out of the Great Plateau. As such, for such an open-ended exploration based game, Nintendo implemented tons of different movement mechanics to make it easier and more fun to traverse the land. Climbing anything you possibly can (save for a few walls) and being able to glide across whole areas of the game, and swimming across any body of water available as long as you had enough stamina made BOTW one of the most innovative and fun games to play, as no other game had done this before.

Genshin Impact took tons of inspiration from BOTW and we can obviously see it. Climbing, gliding and swimming make a glorified return, and they are utilized just as much in game- just not as emphasized when compared to the rest of the game's mechanics. There isn't much to say because they both use these mechanics in the same way.

Though there are fundamental differences in the way some of these mechanics work. Sprinting, for example, is just a simple sprint in BOTW, which is just fine for its gameplay. However, in Genshin Impact, when you sprint you go do a dash or dodge move, which is a quick and effective method to avoid enemy attacks, and then you transition into a sprint. This is perfect for Genshin as the game is partly about fast, fun combat! Both work in their own right.

Though Genshin and BOTW have similar movement systems both work for their type of gameplay. They aren't the same but they do what works best for them while keeping the rest of the gameplay unique. And speaking of the rest of the gameplay, let's get into combat.

2. Combat

Combat is an important part of both games and is heavily emphasized in both. However their combat mechanics are very different so I'd just like to go over this.

In BOTW, you had defensive maneuvers and offensive attacks. I'll go over the defensive maneuvers first. There are three major defensive actions- shielding, parrying, and dodging. First, shielding. Holding down ZL will ready Link's shield, which can block any enemy attack save for any attack with a weapon that has a stronger attack power than the shield guard amount of the shield you're using. Shields have limited durability, though, and aren't on a cooldown- if your shield breaks, you need another shield to guard against attacks and parry- which is the next defensive action. By pressing A when shielding, you can parry. Do it right when an attack is about to land and you can deflect an enemy attack. Parries can be useful when you can't get a good hit in to stagger an enemy and sneak in a hit or two. Also, if your shield has a higher guard amount than the weapon the enemy is using, you can disarm the enemy, letting you take the weapon for yourself without killing the enemy first. The last one is dodging. By jumping backward or to the side while holding ZL, you can dodge. This is very useful in combat, but there is another use. Like the parry, if you dodge at exactly the right time, you can slow down time and perform a "Flurry Rush", an attack where you move toward the enemy and strike them multiple times, letting you get even more damage in a short amount of time than you could from not doing it. This leads into the offensive attacks.

In BOTW, there are four types of weapons: one handed weapons (shortswords, clubs, elemental rods), two handed weapons (claymores, giant clubs, and axes), polearms, and bows. All of them are only bound to Link and Link himself, but all have limited durability so no piece of equipment is truly forever (except for the Master Sword and One Hit Obliterator). They all do as you'd expect- one handed weapons are efficient, with medium damage, range and speed, polearms are fast and hit farther but have low damage, two handed weapons have high damage but slow speed and medium range, and bows having variable damage (but with some bows shooting multiple arrows with low damage per arrow) and being able to shoot six different kinds of arrows. I won't go into much detail, but Link is one person who is very versatile and can do many, many things by himself.

So what does Genshin Impact do? Well, Genshin is less about maneuvers and more about numbers- instead of depending on your ability to dodge and attack when necessary, you depend on how to use your skills and characters to your biggest advantage and raise the numbers up higher. Unlike BOTW, the main character isn't on their own- they are a part of a huge party of characters each with their own abilities and weapons.

So the four weapon types "return" in Genshin Impact- one handed weapons (now it's just swords), two handed weapons (only claymores and clubs make a return), bows, and polearms. There is another weapon type however, and it's exclusive to mage characters- "catalysts", the mage class's weapons, they act in a different way, instead allowing a character to perform spells as their main attack, which makes for easy infliction of elements. Instead of having one MC that can do it all, it's split into four characters a party that can each use one kind of weapon. You can also combine elements in order to raise numbers, but BOTW had something similar to this in using ice to fell fire enemies, fire to fell ice enemies, and shock to do more damage to wet or swimming enemies.

So, other than offensive attacks, what kind of defensive capabilities do the characters hold? Well, that's the thing- only some characters have defensive skills, and the rest can really only just dodge. Pressing the run button lets you dodge an attack, but nothing is gained from doing so. This is one of my criticisms of Genshin- there's no reward to dodging an attack except for some saved health.

3. Survival

Now let's get into another big mechanic the two games have- survival. Survival in both games is similar but both have extreme differences in use and feel. My biggest criticism of this game when compared to other survival game aspects is that in BOTW (and several other games with resource collecting and character maintenance) it feels like you're taking care of yourself.

You have to collect the resources and use the items you find and cook in order to survive. In combat, if your health gets low, you need to eat to restore health. This is the only way to restore health other than Mipha's Grace, which involves your health going down to zero before she gives you a second chance. This puts much more of an emphasis on BOTW's survival mechanics as you're surviving on your own, taking care of yourself, and doing what needs to be done to keep surviving. However, the effects are limited to only four types of effects; health recovery, stamina recovery, elemental resistance, and attack/defense buffs, meaning that the food system is much less useful and most of the gameplay's value comes from the different ways to defeat different enemies and food being what you use in the middle of a fight to recover health or raise a buff.

However, in Genshin Impact, the cooking and food mechanic is actually more useful during a fight than in BOTW- with several food items being able to increase your i-frames, boost several stats, and other effects that, in the hands of a well-versed player, can create some real carnage. But in Genshin Impact you are in a party with many other characters, not alone like in BOTW, which makes the idea of taking care of yourself very obscure here. That's not to say it's not useful, because it very much is.

4. The Art Style

miHoYo has had this art style for a while. It's not because of Breath of the Wild. Plus BOTW has a much different art style, not to mention the shading and particles being much different from each other.

5. Enemy Types

This one's just too obvious.

Hilichurls set up camps like Bokoblins and chitter when they're hit, just like Bokoblins. There's even a large version that resembles a Moblin. Slimes are Chuchus obviously, with different types of Chuchus for different elements. And y'all should know about the Wizzrobe enemies. Even Dvalin is similar to the three dragons in BOTW. I don't know what else there is to say.

That's about it.

I've covered everything I could think of. There are obviously more similarities (like domains in Genshin and shrines in BOTW). But the point of this post wasn't to say that they're the same, rather to highlight their differences. My criticisms don't make me like or dislike either game more or less, in fact I love the shit out of both games and since Genshin is being made by passionate developers still adding content, I wanted to share my criticisms and thoughts. But what do you think? Any other similarities you can think of? Please tell me your thoughts.

Edit: thanks to u/EVLEWT for pointing out that food is much more important and useful than I originally thought