I think we know what power creep is. But for the benefit of those who don’t, here’s my attempt to explain it: when a game with the potential for updates is introduced, an economy of power is established, and it’s often expressed to the player how characters compare to one another through attributes such as attack power, techniques with area of effect, efficiency of play with the given resources, and in many other ways. As the game is updated, new characters, equips, techniques, or what-have-you are introduced which tend to be more favorable when compared to what’s established. Thus, players tend more towards the new content, as it tends to be more attractive given the in-game resources available to the player.

Pokémon is one example of a game where power creep has happened. In the base games, the legendary bird Articuno was one of the strongest Pokémon, due to the damage output of its Ice-type moves. But in successive generations, more legendary Pokémon have been introduced with preferable abilities and moves, some of which play directly to the Pokémon’s strengths. The Pokémon Trading Card Game is even worse; players might remember a time when 100 was a lot of damage.

While power creep is often spoken of as though it were a bug in game design, from the viewpoint of the developers of mobile games, it’s a kind of feature. It’s a way that developers can introduce new content into their games that catch the attention of established players who may believe that they already have ideal setups, and give them more content to strive for that might be a more practical choice, compared to what’s previously available.

However, game developers must be cautious with power creep. It’s one thing to introduce a character with attributes that challenge the current meta, but if power creep is accomplished through raw stats, then previous premium content can be left in the dust, and there wouldn’t be much reason for players to concern themselves with it. But if a new premium character doesn’t have an advantage over other established characters, then there wouldn’t be much reason to care for the new character. Its a delicate game.

One mobile game that I can think of that’s been hit with power creep pretty hard is Pokémon Masters EX. My first truly OP premium character in that game was the sync pair of Leon and Charizard. I thought it was pretty cool that he had a really strong attack that can be used for free after using a setup move. That was a few years ago, and since then, we’ve been introduced to characters that pack such an absurd punch that even Leon has been overshadowed, despite him being the greatest trainer in the Pokémon lore!

To move closer to the topic of this article, let’s look at Genshin Impact. While power creep has occurred, it’s handled it relatively well. It’s true that some of the premium characters have been overshadowed, but none of the old ones have become an absolutely bad choice. For example, there are still players who main Klee, and get it to work.

Lately, there has been some impressively powerful characters that are relatively new. One would be Nahida, who combos well with other characters due to her Dendro element. Another would be Furina, which grants huge damage output as she decreases the party’s HP, but pairs well with full-party healers which further boost her damage output. Then there’s Neuvillette, a high-damage-dealing catalyst wielder. Arlecchino does a lot of damage, but with the drawback of not being able to be healed by teammates, but is still exceptional in the hands of skilled players. Clorinde is a fast-paced damage dealer.

These are all relatively new characters. Thus, it would be easy to make the case that Genshin Impact is being hit with power creep, even if in a slow, carefully-controlled way.

However, as it so happens, there is a character that one can point to to make the case that, while power creep may be a trend, it’s not a constant. And that character would be the newest one to hit Genshin Impact, Sigewinne.

It seems the train of thought with her is, “Make her cute, and hopefully, no one will notice that this poor girl is not worth their hard-earned primogems.” She’s a Hydro element full-party healer with some decent damage output, but there’s a problem: other characters can do what she does, but better. Among these is Barbera, whose charge attack steadily heals the active character, and whose burst attack significantly heals the entire party. And better yet, once she reaches C6, she automatically fully revives an active party member who faints, once every 15 minutes.

What’s more, Barbera is available to all players once they hit Adventure Rank 18 and complete a certain quest, something that players can do within a month of starting the game. And because Barbera is a 4 star character, getting her to C6 can be reasonably accomplished, even if it would take a while for most players.

Making things worse for Sigewinne is the fact that her debut banner is running alongside the first rerun for Furina, a character that should be preferred by just about anyone who hasn’t already obtained her from her own debut. Because Furina gains a lot of fanfare stacks from partywide healing, one can make the case that Sigewinne pairs well with Furina. But do you know who else can do that? A bunch of other healers, such as Jean. It says a lot about how Furina has impacted the game that a character that hasn’t stood out in a while is now quite viable.

The train of thought may have been to debut a character alongside another one she would hypothetically pair well with, but what ended up happening instead is that the rerun banner greatly overshadowed the debut! And this was a great disservice to the character of Sigewinne, who was obviously designed to be highly endearing. Sigewinne would have been considerable as a 4 star character, to be randomly pulled while pulling for a 5 star banner character. If that was the case, she could have made her debut within Furina’s rerun banner. But instead, here she is as a 5 star featured on her own banner, with a signature weapon on a different banner that’s competing for pulls with a weapon that players would rather pull.

I do like the character of Sigewinne. She has a beautiful and tragic story. Not as much as Aerith from FF7, but it’s comparable to that of Marona from Phantom Brave. It’s because of this that I would have preferred that she had a better kit, which would be viable in more than just a few hypothetical fringe cases. And even if the character was made to appeal to girls and women who play the game, don’t they deserve better?

But one thing that I can say about Sigewinne’s kit is that it does resist power creep. Well done.

But the joke’s going to be on us if it turns out that Sigewinne forms a game-breaking combo with a Natlan character.