Ah, 2026. Looking back, it's hilarious to remember the fervor and speculation that surrounded Genshin Impact back in 2021. I was right there in the trenches, refreshing forums and analyzing every scrap of information miHoYo (now HoYoverse, but old habits die hard) dropped. One of the biggest community frenzies revolved around a simple Q&A session that confirmed the Moonchase Festival was coming. That little tidbit set our collective imaginations on fire, weaving elaborate theories about Dendro characters, freebies, and the long-awaited arrival of a certain pharmacist from Liyue. Let me take you on a trip down memory lane to those heady days of prediction and hype.
So, what was the Moonchase Festival? For us lore-hungry players back then, it was the next big Liyue celebration, a sibling to the gorgeous Lantern Rite. HoYoverse had mentioned it in a roadmap way back in late 2020, teasing it as one of Teyvat's many annual festivities. Based on a real-world October holiday, the math was simple: six-week update cycles pointed squarely at version 1.8 in September 2021. We had it all plotted out on our community calendars! The excitement wasn't just about the festival itself, though. Oh no. It was about the characters we believed were destined to debut with it.
The centerpiece of this theory was the adorable, yet elusive, Yaoyao. This little girl wasn't a secret—she was practically a celebrity before she even had a model! Xiangling name-dropped her as a fellow disciple of the same master, and other characters hinted at her existence. The crucial detail? She was a Dendro character. At the time, Dendro was the great mystery of Teyvat. We had seen it used by enemies like the Dendro Samachurls, but not a single playable character wielded its power. The community was ravenous for it.
The logic, which felt absolutely ironclad to my 2021 self, went like this:
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The Festival Artwork Connection: HoYoverse had released official art for the Moonchase Festival featuring Paimon, Qiqi, and Yaoyao. This wasn't a coincidence! It was a teaser!
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The Elemental Completion Theory: Every other element had a free character given through the story or events (Amber, Lisa, Barbara, Xiangling, etc.). Releasing Yaoyao, likely a 4-star, as a free event reward during Moonchase would give every player their first Dendro unit. Perfect symmetry!
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The Narrative Synergy: A Liyue festival was the perfect backdrop to introduce Liyue characters. It just made sense.
And where there's a 4-star Dendro companion, there must be a 5-star Dendro headline act, right? Enter Baizhu. The mysterious owner of Bubu Pharmacy, always seen with his snake Changsheng, who had been giving us cryptic advice since the Liyue Archon Quest. The fanbase had been simmering with anticipation for him. The prevailing theory, which I fully subscribed to, was a magnificent one-two punch: The Moonchase Festival (1.8) would launch with:
| Feature | Prediction (Circa 2021) |
|---|---|
| Event | Moonchase Festival in Liyue |
| Free Character | Yaoyao (4-star Dendro) via event rewards |
| New Banner | Baizhu (5-star Dendro) as the featured rate-up |
| Gameplay | Introduction of Dendro elemental reactions |
We were convinced this was the master plan. The Q&A confirmation of the festival was the final clue we needed. The community boards were flooded with discussions about potential Dendro reactions—would it be a healing element? A poison element? How would it interact with Hydro or Electro? The anticipation was a tangible, buzzing thing. I remember saving my Primogems religiously, skipping banners I was mildly interested in, all for the promised land of 1.8 and the Dendro revolution.
Of course, hindsight is 20/20, and it's utterly amusing to see how it actually played out. 😂 The road to Dendro was... longer and more winding than we predicted. Version 1.8 wasn't even a thing—the game moved to 2.0 with the monumental release of Inazuma in July 2021. The Moonchase Festival did arrive, but not until Version 2.1 in September 2021, and it was a fantastic event centered around... cooking and Liyue's heroes, with Xiangling taking a well-deserved spotlight. But Yaoyao? Baizhu? Not a whisper. They became the "soon" meme of the Genshin community for years.
It took until the grand expansion of Sumeru in Version 3.0 (2022) for the Dendro element to finally, gloriously, be introduced to the playable roster. And it wasn't with a Liyue character, but with the forest ranger Collei (given for free!) and the brilliant scribe Tighnari. The Dendro reactions, particularly the game-changing Bloom, Quicken, and Burgeon, completely revolutionized team building. Our predictions were off by a full year and an entire nation!
As for our long-suffering Liyue duo:
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Yaoyao finally made her debut in Version 3.4 (2023) during the Lantern Rite, as a 4-star Dendro polearm user. And guess what? She was given out for free during the event! A sliver of our old theory was correct, just on a different holiday.
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Baizhu had to wait even longer, arriving in Version 3.6 (2023) as a 5-star Dendro catalyst user and a phenomenal healer/shielder. No snake companion gameplay, though—Changsheng remains a stylish accessory.
Reflecting on this from 2026, the whole episode is a delightful reminder of how fun and wildly inaccurate player speculation can be. We connected dots that weren't meant to be connected, built grand narratives from breadcrumbs, and had a blast doing it. The community's passion for the world and its characters was, and still is, the real driving force. While our 2021 timeline was a comedic miss, the core desires—more Dendro, playable Baizhu, meeting Yaoyao—all eventually came true in ways that were probably better than we imagined. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go tend to my Serenitea Pot. Some things, thankfully, never change.