Genshin Impact US age verification starts May 20. Here’s what it could mean for you
First the $20 million fine and now age verification for US Genshin Impact players. It’s starting to feel like 2025 isn’t exactly Genshin’s year.
starting to lose ground to other titles like Wuthering Waves and Naruto Mobile. The player base has also dipped, and with new age verification checks rolling out in the US, those numbers could drop even further. It’s not a great look for a game that once dominated the charts.
Age verification for Genshin Impact in US could lock you out
Earlier today, on May 7, 2025, MiHoYo announced that all Genshin Impact players in the US will soon have to go through an age verification process. The rollout starts on May 20th, and if you don’t submit your age by July 18, 2025, your might get suspended, along with all your in-game friends and chat history being wiped. And if you still haven’t verified by July 20, 2026, your HoYoverse personal information will be permanently deleted.
Source: genshin.hoyoverse.com
This might not just affect your Genshin Impact , there’s a good chance it could wipe out your access to all HoYoverse games tied to that , like Zenless Zone Zero. But to be fair, they haven’t really clarified that yet. And as for the actual age verification process – no details there either. Will it just be the classic “enter your age and pinky promise it’s real” kind of thing, or will they ask for legit documents? No one knows yet. The announcement was just released, so we’ll probably get more info in the next few days.
But just to be clear, this whole thing only applies to the US. It’s tied to a court order from January 17, 2025, when Cognosphere (the publisher behind Genshin Impact) agreed to pay a $20 million fine for breaking US consumer protection laws. Specifically, they violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and Section 5 of the FTC Act. As part of the deal, they now have to block s under 16 from making in-game purchases without parental consent.
