Genshin Impact 7.0 Archon Quests explained: Snezhnaya’s biggest twists
Genshin Impact Version 7.0 finally takes the Traveler into Snezhnaya, but the opening two Archon Quests are about considerably more than introducing the Tsaritsa’s homeland.
«Everwinter Without Mercy» begins with a struggling population dealing with shortages, corruption and an increasingly brutal winter. By the end of the first act, the Traveler has uncovered the real purpose behind Snezhnaya’s energy crisis.
«Wraith’s Nocturne» then turns into a supernatural murder mystery involving Odette, Vodyanitsa, Mitya, Tartaglia’s sister Tonia and the mysterious Ruler of Death, Ronova.
The second act deliberately leaves several pieces unclear until its final scenes. Here is what actually happened.
Act I: Snezhnaya’s energy crisis is more than a shortage
The journey north begins badly.
A blizzard separates the Traveler from Paimon after they arrive in Snezhnaya. The Traveler eventually encounters a strange abandoned train and a sentient mechanism called the Eye of Graeae, before finding a way through the frozen landscape and reaching civilisation.
The Traveler’s first stop is Sretomorozsk, where everyday life has been made increasingly difficult by the combination of extreme weather, limited Kresnik Kristall supplies and the wider problems caused by Project Stuzha.
Kresnik Kristall is essential to life in Snezhnaya because it provides the energy needed to keep people warm. Yet supplies are being restricted while the government continues extending Stuzha, a programme requiring households and factories to cut consumption.
The policy is increasingly unpopular, particularly because its official purpose is never properly explained to ordinary citizens.
The Traveler becomes involved with Alyosha, a local hunter who is far more concerned with helping people than with political arguments. They resolve the energy crisis of Sretomorozsk by exposing local liaison Shishkin’s schemes to keep part of supply to himself, which he then sells with the mayor of the town to make extra income.
After this, the Traveler, Paimon and Alyosha take the train to Snezhnograd.
Introduction to Odette
In Snezhnograd, Traveler encounters Sandrone, who receives news of an emergency in Svetloledovka. Upon arrival there, we are introduced to Odette, a Fatui member, student of Rosalyne and her potential successor, and a prima ballerina at the Korolevsky Theater.
Together with Odette, Traveler rescues people trapped in a cave. Some time after they return to Snezhnograd and meet each other again in Zolnyy, where Alyosha and Traveler were looking for Kresnik Kristall. The intent was to buy some batches and deliver them to the people of Svetloledovka. Eventually, Odette pays for it and arranges its shipment by train.
Snezhnograd Veche
Later in the quest the Traveler joins Vodyanitsa to attend a meeting of Snezhnograd Veche. This happens after Alyosha introduced them to each other, revealth that both him and Vodyanitsa are a part of Rokot, and helps the Traveler to become part of the organisation. The Rokot is an anonymous organisation, members of which are on a mission to stop project Stuzha and help ordinary people why they are on it.
At the Veche meeting, traveler learns of Lelek a member of Rokot, who is forcing powerful individuals to vote against the extension of project Stuzha. Nobody was able to find who Lelek is until the Traveler deduces that it is Odette. Which she herself then reveals in the next Archon Quest.
Fist AQ ends with the Traveler receiving a ticket to attend Odette’s ballet performance with Tartaglia’s sister Tonia.
Act II: The theatre mystery is not simply Ronova killing people
The second act moves to the Korolevskiy Theatre, where the Traveler becomes involved in an investigation surrounding Odette and the suspicious activities of the Fatui.
The story eventually traps the characters inside an unnatural version of the theatre. People die one after another, two per day. The cast begins behaving as though they are characters in a murder mystery.
This is where the game’s explanation becomes easy to misunderstand.
The theatre incident has three separate elements: Mitya’s technological breakthrough, Ronova’s Curse of Death and the theatre’s damaged ley lines.
Mitya has been working on the same technological problem that threatens to advance Mistilteinn. During Odette’s performance, he suddenly reaches a new insight.
That moment triggers Ronova’s Curse of Death.
The curse is designed to stop major technological progress. When someone reaches a breakthrough that could allow Snezhnaya to advance beyond the limits imposed on humanity, Ronova briefly kills the people involved and later returns them to life with their memories of death removed. This explains the earlier disappearances and episodes of apparent catatonia among Armory Palace researchers.
But the theatre is different.
What went wrong with the ley lines?
The theatre sits on ley lines that had previously been tampered with by angels. Their modification was designed to change how souls are processed after death, particularly in relation to the fae.
As a result, the theatre’s ley lines cannot properly process every human soul.
Two older souls had already become trapped there rather than passing on. They accumulated resentment over time, creating a dangerous situation that Ronova had to deal with when Mitya’s breakthrough triggered the Curse of Death.
This is why the theatre becomes the setting for the bizarre «murder mystery».
Ronova is not simply trying to murder everyone in the building.
She has to make sure the souls that should have passed into the ley lines actually do so. Rather than handling the problem conventionally, she turns the situation into a theatrical game, forcing the newly dead characters and the lingering souls into a scenario where they can resolve the problem themselves.
The deaths we see therefore have two overlapping causes: Ronova’s Curse of Death creates the temporary deaths while the damaged ley lines are responsible for the abnormal behaviour of the souls already trapped in the theatre.
And what happened to Tonia?
Tartaglia’s younger sister Tonia becomes another deliberate piece of misdirection.
The characters expect Tonia to attend the theatre, so when Ptashka appears, she is initially mistaken for Childe’s sister.
Ptashka is not Tonia.
She is connected to the theatre’s supernatural events and eventually reveals her true identity, while the real Tonia’s whereabouts become an important clue.
The apparent discrepancy in the theatre’s ticket count is also intentional. Tonia really did enter the theatre earlier and had her ticket registered. However, she left after failing to find Childe.
The theatre records people entering but does not necessarily track those who leave during the performance. That means Tonia’s ticket remained part of the count even though she was no longer inside when the main events unfolded.
The real Tonia therefore survives because she left before the supernatural incident fully developed.
Odette’s complicated history with Signora
During the quest in the theater, we learn more about Odette as a character.
Her father was a Fatui soldier who died while serving, during the first stages of Project Stuzha. Her mother, a ballerina, was subsequently left unable to work after an injury. The family’s financial situation deteriorated and Odette eventually joined the Fatui under the arrangements available to families of fallen soldiers.
Signora then became a major figure in Odette’s life.
Odette’s memories of her are deeply conflicted. Signora was an exacting and often abusive mentor who pushed Odette through exhausting training, but she also gave her opportunities and financial security when Odette’s family needed them.
Odette does not simply forgive her former mentor or portray her as secretly benevolent. She remembers the cruelty as well as the support.
After Signora’s death, Odette is left with a Cor Ignis, a symbol of Signora’s favour that also represented the control she continued to exert over those beneath her.
Odette eventually confronts those unresolved feelings rather than pretending their relationship was uncomplicated. At the end of the AQ, she approaches Arlecchino for a talk. Arlecchino explains Signora’s motives and relationship to Odette from a new and offer the ballerina her flame to erase her memory of being a Fatui.
Odette shatters the crystal with the flame inside, only to burn away the letter left by Signora to her, thus choosing to stay as a double agent.
From Project Stuzha to Mistilteinn
The political mystery surrounding Stuzha is eventually solved.
The energy restrictions are not primarily about helping Snezhnaya survive the winter. The government is diverting resources towards a much larger Fatui project called Mistilteinn.
The weapon is intended for the Fatui’s ultimate confrontation with the Heavenly Principles. Its construction was completed in Nod-Krai, but the project still requires an energy source powerful enough to operate it.
Research into kuuvahki and other technologies was therefore part of the same effort.
The crucial breakthrough came from studying Stellar Linchpins and extracting their energy to create what the Fatui call anti-Celestia energy. Ordinary elemental energy is not considered sufficient because it ultimately belongs to the Human Realm under the existing order.
This also explains why the Armory Palace has become so important and why its researchers have been experiencing strange memory problems.
The biggest revelation: what is Paimon?
Version 7.0 also changes what players know about Paimon.
The anti-Celestia energy being developed in Snezhnaya affects her in a way it does not affect ordinary people. The reason is eventually revealed: Paimon originated in Celestia and is one of its creations.
More than 500 years ago, Pierro used Fatui technology to reach into the heavens. The response was Paimon, who descended from Celestia into Khaenri’ah.
Paimon’s consciousness at that point was apparently comparable to that of a newborn. She had no meaningful memory of her previous existence and eventually became associated with Pierro and Khaenri’ah before the Cataclysm.
This also explains one of the strangest details in the story: Paimon cannot remember most of the period between the Cataclysm and the beginning of the game.
Her memories are not simply incomplete. There is an enormous gap in her existence.
The revelation does not mean Paimon is secretly an agent of Celestia or that her current personality is an act. The story instead presents her as a being created by Celestia who has lived as Paimon for years and appears to have developed an identity independent of her original purpose.
Ronova nevertheless wants to reclaim her.
Pierro, unexpectedly, decides that Paimon must be protected. That puts him and the Traveler on the same side against Ronova, despite the Fatui’s long history of conflict with the Traveler.
