MiHoYo is releasing a line of new costumes – previously unannounced – as alternate costumes come in future updates. Four new alternate, optional costumes will be released in Genshin Impact, one each for Jean, Amber, Mona, and Rosaria.

The new costumes came seemingly out of nowhere, revealed by miHoYo with almost no fanfare. New costumes and outfits are usually given a lot of attention, and are usually part of in-game events, and have story implications. However, this one doesn't have any of that. Instead, miHoYo unceremoniously made these alternate outfits available for purchase at the in-game outfit store in the near future.

According to the English HoYoLab post, the original versions of the characters' skins will be retained. However, the same will not be applied to the Chinese version of the game. The Chinese version of the game will have these outfits replace the default skins, effectively making the “alternate” costumes the default outfits. Chinese players will also not be able to change back to the old skins. Additionally, the alternative outfits don't differ drastically from the characters' default outfits. All of the other promotional costumes released so far featured at least a thematic change in the outfits, with very noticeable differences. However, as shown on this Reddit post, the changes are minimal – and most of the changes led to less skin exposure and the removal of Rosaria's fishnets.

Side-by-side comparisons of original vs. “Alternate Outfits” for Rosaria, Jean, Amber and Mona
byu/Helenarth inGenshin_Impact

This constraint raised rumors that the new outfits are not made by miHoYo for fun. Rather, these outfits are made to comply with China's tight censorship regulations. Some rumors also suggest that while the Chinese government isn't exactly being hard on Genshin Impact. Instead, a small group of female players in China has allegedly been reporting the game's “oversexualized” character designs to China's regulatory bodies. None of these rumors have been confirmed. We have reached out to miHoYo for comments but have not received any response as of yet.

This makes the Chinese version of the game slowly deviate from the global version of Genshin Impact. The same instance happened once on miHoYo's other Gacha game, Honkai Impact 3rd. In a separate incident, a bunny suit version of some of the game's characters was set to be released on the global version of Honkai Impact, as part of an anniversary celebration event. However, the event was received negatively by Chinese fans because the bunny suit version will be completely omitted in the Chinese version. Player backlash was so bad that a fan even attempted to stab one of miHoYo's founders.

MiHoYo has yet to announce the price of the alternate costumes and their release dates on Genshin Impact.