Secret Defeat Screen in Genshin Impact? - "Fell into the abyss"
Today I was looking for a viewpoint I missed in Stormterror's Lair, when I found myself at the edge of the map. I discovered a very cool landscape while I was there and wanted to get a little bit closer, when I went too far and went past the map border. Except, Paimon didn't say her classic line and escort me to the safe area as usual, but rather, I instantly teleported back to the last safe point I was found in. Stranger still, all of my party members lost some HP as if I drowned. So I continued doing this until I ran out of health and discovered a message I hadn't seen before that is displayed when all party members die. I then recreated this scene while recording.
I'm not sure if this is the only case where this is displayed in the game - after all, the map is huge and there are also cases when you can fall into the void, like in domains. But I think there's something more going on than just me going too far past the map border.
Perhaps this point past the map border no longer had map geometry? I've seen fields of grass that can be walked under and I've even fell through the map down to the first layer when teleporting. So since there's nothing past that point, a prevention measure from soft-locking the game activates and you see this message. But I'm no developer and I could easily be wrong.
But maybe you have had different experiences. If so, please let me know because I'm curious as to what's really going on here, or if there could even be more unused defeat screens in the game that no one has discovered yet.
As usual, this is likely to get patched in a future update. Additionally, if you do attempt this on your own, I am not aware of MiHoYo's policies on glitching/cheating in Genshin Impact. Proceed at your own risk.
Thanks for watching!