Have You Eaten Yet? Genshin Impact and Chinese Food Culture

This paper will argue that understanding Genshin Impact’s treatment of food and drink is essential to interpreting the game. There is academic precedent for such a food-inspired interpretation (Morrissette, 2020; Stang, 2021; Waszkiewicz, 2022). Methodologically, the argument is supported via a close reading of Genshin Impact informed by food and game studies. It opens with a review of the literature on food, followed by food in games, before leading into the close reading of Genshin itself. From this reading, the paper finds that the game promulgates a particular Chinese perspective on food that homogenizes its various in-game cultures even if the food presented is different, highlighting the challenges of regional food branding (Cwiertka and Miho, 2020) in a globalised world.