The 2023 Genshin Impact Summer Festival event commenced on July 20 across several locations in Seoul Olympic Park. Even though the show’s previous iteration only featured one venue, the organizers decided to expand this year’s venue into two locations. This decision was taken simply to avoid a couple of problems, overcrowding being the main one, that took place at last year’s event.
The entire purpose of the event was to celebrate the Genshin Impact 3.8 summer event. Initially, it was planned that the event would continue for four days, till July 23 in South Korea. Unfortunately, the event was canceled on the third day before it could properly come to an end. This is because the local authorities were alerted to a bomb threat that was made on Twitter and wanted to take every precaution possible.
The tweet was posted on July 22 by a user called PingPingMon69, whose account has now been suspended. The user claimed that a pipe bomb was planted at the indoor venue of Genshin Impact at the Olympic Gymnastics Area, also called the KSPO Dome. Not only this, but the post also included pictures of the alleged explosive device, with the user stating that they were “looking forward” to the explosion.
According to the Korean media outlet, Globale, the user cited anti-Chinese sentiments being the reason behind the terrorist attack threat. Citing government officials, Yonhap reported that briefly, after the tweet was posted, the Genshin Impact event was canceled, with firefighters and police working hard to evacuate around 200 attendees.
However, as it turns out, the bomb threat wasn’t real since the local authorities failed to find traces of any explosives at the Seoul venue. Currently, the police of South Korea are trying to track down the person behind the tweet. The organizers mentioned that they were planning to continue the event despite the turmoil, but no such decision has been officially announced as of right now.
The RPG was already having a rough month, and the bomb threat, along with the sudden end to the Genshin Impact event, only added to that. A few weeks back, the game’s voice actors complained that HoYoverse hadn’t paid them in months. However, later it was revealed that it was actually the fault of Studio Formosa, which is one of the companies that handle voiceovers for the game. After they were aware of the situation, HoYoverse promised to make things right for the actors. Hopefully, the event ends up continuing after all!
Genshin Impact is playable on Mobile, PC, PS4, PS5, and a Switch port is also currently in development.
