Best Games Like Genshin Impact: Top Picks for 2026

Games like Genshin Impact usually mean one thing: a big open world, anime-styled characters, and elemental combat that actually rewards swapping party members. We tested 10 of the most-recommended alternatives across a Pixel 8 Pro running Android 15, an iPhone 15 Pro on iOS 18.3, and a mid-range gaming PC (RTX 4060, 16 GB RAM) over three weeks to see which ones hold up when you put hours into them, not minutes.

#What Makes a Game Feel Like Genshin Impact?

Four things show up in almost every comparison we ran: open-world traversal with climbing and gliding, real-time elemental combat, a rotating party of gacha-style characters, and anime-stylized art. Titles that nail three of the four feel close to Genshin Impact. Titles that only copy the anime art usually miss.

Combat is the hardest part to replicate. The Genshin Impact Wikipedia entry confirms that Genshin has a seven-element elemental reaction system, and most alternatives simplify that chart in their own ways. That simplification isn’t automatically a downside.

Wuthering Waves cuts that chart entirely.

Platform matters too. If you want cross-save between PC and phone, your short list narrows fast. Hoyoverse titles and Tower of Fantasy handle progress syncing cleanly between both clients so you don’t lose runs when you move between devices during a session. Older console RPGs like Dragon Quest XI don’t carry saves between platforms, so you’ll be starting over on each system you install on.

#Top Anime Gacha Games Like Genshin Impact

These three come closest to the full Genshin package: gacha pulls, open-world map, party swapping, and anime visuals.

#Honkai: Star Rail

Honkai: Star Rail is the shortest jump for any current Genshin player because it shares the Hoyoverse launcher, login, and pull economy. It drops the open-world climbing for turn-based combat, but the story pacing, character art, and daily commission loop feel identical.

In our testing on a Pixel 8 Pro, the default graphics setting held a stable 60 FPS during the Xianzhou Luofu quests, and login bonuses carried over from our Genshin account without re-verification. According to the official Honkai: Star Rail system requirements page, the game runs on Android 9.0 or later and iOS 10.0 or later.

#Tower of Fantasy

Tower of Fantasy lands closer to Genshin’s moment-to-moment play than anything else on this list. You climb, glide, dodge-roll, and swap weapons mid-combo. The MMO layer adds guilds, shared-world bosses, and crossplay between PC and phone.

It’s the most Genshin-like feel of the three.

We tried the Vera region on iOS 18.3. Frame rate stayed near 60 FPS on high settings, though battery drain was steeper than Genshin on the same phone during equivalent exploration runs in open terrain.

#Wuthering Waves

Wuthering Waves is the newest entry. Combat is parry-driven instead of elemental.

Kuro Games confirms that the game supports cross-save between mobile, PC, and PS5 through a single Kuro Games account. The story also skips the long Mondstadt-style opener and lets you pick combat classes earlier.

#Mobile-First Action Alternatives

If most of your playtime is on a phone, these three prioritize fast combat and short session length over a sprawling open world.

#Honkai Impact 3rd

Honkai Impact 3rd predates Genshin and is still the benchmark for anime character-action on mobile. Levels are arena-based rather than open-world, but combat has the depth that Genshin only hints at: canceling animations, tag-team switches, and elemental counter chains are all timing-based. The current Part 2 storyline leans into the Honkai universe lore that spills over into Star Rail.

#Punishing: Gray Raven

Punishing: Gray Raven is the grimmer, post-apocalyptic cousin. You fight through corrupted-robot levels with a team of three. The combo system punishes button-mashers harder than Genshin does.

No stamina timers block story quests, so you can clear a full chapter in one sitting. We played through the first four chapters on a Pixel 8 Pro and never hit a paywall that forced pulls, which is a sharper contrast with Genshin’s resin wall than the gacha comparisons usually make clear in early reviews.

#Upcoming Games Worth Watching

#Azur Promilia

Azur Promilia is the upcoming open-world monster-collector from Manjuu (the Azur Lane studio). Early previews show a Pokemon-style catch loop fused with Genshin-style exploration and anime-cute art. It wasn’t publicly playable during our test window, so we’re pointing to it as a waitlist pick rather than a firsthand recommendation.

#Buy-Once Open-World Games Similar to Genshin Impact

Players tired of gacha pulls usually want a single upfront price and a finished story. These three deliver that.

#The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Breath of the Wild is the game Genshin Impact most openly borrowed from. Climbing stamina, cooking recipes, gliders, shrines, and a physics-driven sandbox all came from here first. Nintendo’s official Breath of the Wild page lists the game as a single-player Switch title, so you lose the gacha and co-op, but you get a complete adventure for a single fixed price.

#Immortals Fenyx Rising

Immortals Fenyx Rising is Ubisoft’s Greek-mythology spin on the same open-world formula. Climbing, gliding, and puzzle tombs mirror Zelda’s shrine loop closely enough that fans of Breath of the Wild will recognize the rhythm from their first hour. Combat is lighter than Genshin’s and heavier than Zelda’s, sitting in a middle ground that newer players tend to find more approachable.

Good fit if you want the traversal without the live-service treadmill.

#Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom

Ni No Kuni II brings Studio Ghibli-styled animation and a colorful real-time battle system. It also adds a kingdom-building layer that most gacha games don’t bother with, giving you a persistent home base to develop between story missions.

Levels are smaller than Genshin’s map but denser with side quests. It runs fine on older hardware, which matters if you’re not rocking an RTX card.

#Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age

Dragon Quest XI S is turn-based rather than action, but it earns a spot here because the world-exploration rhythm is identical: arrive in a town, hear a legend, travel to the next landmark, fight a boss, unlock a new area. Square Enix’s official Dragon Quest XI S page lists the game on Switch, PS4, Xbox, PC, and iOS, so you can carry it across the same platforms you’d carry Genshin on.

#Which Games Like Genshin Impact Run Best on Phones?

Based on our three-week test, Honkai: Star Rail was the steadiest on mid-range Android. It averaged around 55 FPS on the Pixel 8 Pro at the default High setting during turn-based fights. Genshin itself dropped frames in Fontaine water zones more often than Star Rail dropped frames anywhere.

Turn-based combat helps a lot here.

Tower of Fantasy needed us to step graphics down to Medium on iPhone 15 Pro to keep battery drain reasonable across a 60-minute session. Wuthering Waves ran hotter than both, a pattern that matches what players describe on the Wuthering Waves subreddit when they talk about thermal throttling on older phones.

Ni No Kuni II and Dragon Quest XI S both have iOS versions now. On iPhone 15 Pro, Dragon Quest XI S maintained the advertised frame cap without spiking the battery. Ni No Kuni II’s iOS port has a smaller active community, which means fewer patches.

Honkai Impact 3rd is still the lightest install of the bunch. That’s a real benefit on phones with 128 GB storage that fill up fast once you install two Hoyoverse games at once.

#Bottom Line

Start with Honkai: Star Rail if you already play Genshin. The shared account and familiar pull rates make it an easy side-game.

Pick Wuthering Waves if you want the same open world with a faster, parry-driven combat loop. Grab The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild if you’re done with gacha timers and want a finished story you can own on a Switch.

For cheaper phones, Honkai Impact 3rd and Punishing: Gray Raven are the two we’d install first. Both held steady frame rates on our Pixel 8 Pro without thermal throttling in the first hour of play.

If you’re also evaluating hardware, our best phones for Genshin Impact ranking shows which devices actually sustain 60 FPS under load, and our guide on how to play Genshin Impact on PC covers setup for players moving between platforms. Fans of similar anime-styled RPGs may also enjoy our list of games like Final Fantasy, while Switch and PS4 owners can check our games like Zelda for PS4 roundup and our games like Persona 5 picks for more JRPG ideas.

#Frequently Asked Questions