Version 7.1 does not just add one Archon Quest. It adds two acts at once, puts a hard clock on the bonus rewards for finishing them, and — this is the part that catches people every single version — locks the free 5-star character selector behind the second one. Miss the clock and you do not just lose a handful of Primogems. You lose Tartaglia, or Nilou, or Clorinde.
The in-game notices for all of this went live before maintenance, so every number below is readable right now, before the servers even go down.
Quick answer: Version 7.1 "A Rekviem for the Underworld" adds Archon Quest Chapter VII: Act III and Act IV, and both are permanently available once the update lands. To unlock them you need Adventure Rank 18 and a completed Chapter VII: Act II "Wraith's Nocturne". The bonus for finishing runs from the update until 2026/11/03 14:59 server time and pays Primogems, Character Ascension Materials, Character Level-Up Materials and Snezhnaya regional specialties. Finishing Act IV inside that window is what unlocks the time-limited Epilogue, and it is also the eligibility requirement for "Tabletop Troupe: A Gathering on Adventure's Eve", the event that hands you a free event-exclusive 5-star of your choice. The deadline is a mid-afternoon server timestamp, not midnight and not the end of the version.
Article status: written 22 September 2026, a few hours before Version 7.1 maintenance begins. Every duration, unlock condition and reward category below was read today from the live in-game announcement feed — announcements 21880 (the Archon Quest bonus notice), 21924 (Tabletop Troupe), 21812 (The Hunt Begins) and 21927 (the Version 7.1 Update Maintenance Preview) — the same notices HoYoverse mirrors on the official Genshin Impact news hub. The one detail that is not first-party is the title of Act III; HoYoverse's own notice names only Act IV, so the Act III name below is flagged as community-wiki sourced. No leak, beta build or datamine is used anywhere on this page.
What is the Genshin 7.1 Archon Quest?
Version 7.1 continues Chapter VII, the Snezhnaya chapter that opened in Version 7.0 "Everwinter Without Mercy". The version itself takes its name from the final act.
| Act | Title | Added in |
|---|---|---|
| Chapter VII: Act I | Everwinter Without Mercy | Version 7.0 |
| Chapter VII: Act II | Wraith's Nocturne | Version 7.0 |
| Chapter VII: Act III | White Night, Like a Dream Upon Waking (wiki-sourced) | Version 7.1 |
| Chapter VII: Act IV | A Rekviem for the Underworld | Version 7.1 |
HoYoverse's notice is blunt about the permanence: "After the Version update, Archon Quests Chapter VII: Act III and Act IV will be permanently available. Meet the unlock criteria to unlock said Archon Quests." (in-game announcement 21880). The quests themselves never expire. What expires is the bonus attached to finishing them on time, and the Epilogue.
That distinction is the single most misread thing about Genshin's Archon Quest bonuses, and it is why forum threads every version end with somebody discovering the reward panel has gone grey while the quest is still sitting in their journal, completable forever and now worth nothing extra.
How do I unlock the 7.1 Archon Quest?
Two conditions, both printed in announcement 21880:
- Adventure Rank 18 or above
- Complete Archon Quest Chapter VII: Act II "Wraith's Nocturne"
If you played through Version 7.0's story you already meet the second one. If you did not, the chain you need is Act I "Everwinter Without Mercy" followed by Act II "Wraith's Nocturne", and both are still there.
I am ten regions behind. Do I have to grind through all of them?
No — and this is the most valuable line in the entire notice, because almost nobody quotes it. HoYoverse spells out a skip path:
"Once you reach Adventure Rank 18 and complete Archon Quest Prologue: Act III 'Song of the Dragon and Freedom,' you can explore the Snezhnaya region to automatically accept Archon Quest Chapter VII: Act I 'Everwinter Without Mercy' and continue progressing up to the latest Archon Quest introduced in the current version update."
Read that carefully. The only Archon Quest prerequisite is the Mondstadt prologue. You do not need Liyue's chapter, you do not need Inazuma, Sumeru, Fontaine, Natlan or Nod-Krai. Reach AR 18, finish "Song of the Dragon and Freedom", travel to Snezhnaya, and the game hands you Chapter VII Act I automatically and lets you run the chain straight through to Act IV.
For a returning player sitting in late Inazuma, that turns "catch up on four regions of story" into "do the Snezhnaya chapter". It is a realistic weekend, not a realistic month.
The free Electro character you pick up on the way
While you are progressing through "Everwinter Without Mercy" for the first time, the event "The Hunt Begins!" (announcement 21812) lets you invite "Swift-Striding Hound" Alyosha (Electro) at no cost. Eligibility is AR 18 plus Prologue Act III — exactly the same gate as the Snezhnaya skip path, so if you can start Act I you can claim him.
Its own small print is worth knowing: "Before you invite the character, the event page will be available for the duration of Version 7.x, and the event page will close once Version 7.x ends. But you can still invite 'Swift-Striding Hound' Alyosha (Electro) while progressing through 'Everwinter Without Mercy.'" In plain terms, the shortcut page is tied to the 7.x cycle, but the character stays claimable through the quest itself. The event is listed as permanently available after the Version 7.0 update.
When does the 7.1 Archon Quest reward window close?
2026/11/03 at 14:59, server time. That is the end of the "Specified Duration" in announcement 21880, and it is the same timestamp that closes the Epilogue and the Tabletop Troupe selector.
| What | Opens | Closes |
|---|---|---|
| Chapter VII Act III and Act IV | After the Version 7.1 update | Never — permanently available |
| Act III / Act IV completion bonus | After the Version 7.1 update | 2026/11/03 14:59 server time |
| Chapter VII Epilogue | After the Version 7.1 update | 2026/11/03 14:59 server time |
| Tabletop Troupe free 5-star | After the Version 7.1 update | 2026/11/03 14:59 server time |
Three things about that timestamp trip people up every version.
First, the 14:59 part. It is not midnight and it is not the moment the next version's maintenance begins. It is mid-afternoon on your server's clock, which for European players lands in the early afternoon of a Tuesday workday and for American players lands in the small hours. Players who "plan to finish on the last day" routinely wake up to a window that shut while they slept.
Second, it is a t_lc (local) timestamp in the announcement feed, meaning it resolves against your server's wall clock — America, Europe and Asia each hit it at a different real-world moment. That is the opposite of the maintenance timestamp, which is one global instant for everybody; we broke that distinction down in the Genshin 7.1 maintenance time guide.
Third, 11/03 is after the 7.1 Phase 1 banners end. "When Warm Winds Cavort" (Vesna) and "Surging Ballad" (Vodyanitsa) both close 2026/10/13 17:59, three weeks before the quest window does. So if you are clearing the Archon Quest specifically to fund pulls on the Phase 1 banners, your real deadline is 13 October, not 3 November. Full lineup details are in our Genshin 7.1 banners breakdown.
What do you actually get for finishing it in time?
Announcement 21880 lists the reward categories in text and prints the amounts only in an embedded image, so here is the honest version: HoYoverse commits in writing to Primogems, Character Ascension Materials, Character Level-Up Materials, Snezhnaya regional specialties, and other rewards. The exact Primogem figure is shown on the in-game reward panel once the quest is live, and any site quoting a precise number before the update is reading it off a beta build, not a notice.
For scale, the Version 7.0 equivalent paid a few hundred Primogems, and the community threads from the hours before the 7.0 window closed were full of players putting a number in the low 500s on what they had just missed. Treat that as an order of magnitude, not a promise.
The larger prize is not the Primogems at all.
The free 5-star is gated behind Act IV
"Tabletop Troupe: A Gathering on Adventure's Eve" (announcement 21924) runs from the Version 7.1 update to 2026/11/03 14:59, and its eligibility block reads:
- Adventure Rank 18 or above
- Complete Archon Quest Chapter VII: Act IV "A Rekviem for the Underworld"
Clear it and you invite one event-exclusive 5-star of your choice from Tartaglia, Nilou, Baizhu, Chiori, Clorinde and Varesa — plus the matching Ascension Level-Up Materials for whoever you pick. One invite per account, no second chances.
This is the reason to treat the Archon Quest as a priority rather than a Sunday-evening nice-to-have. A missed Primogem bonus costs you roughly one and a half wishes. A missed Act IV costs you a 5-star character. Version 7.1 actually ships two free 5-star offers on the same 11/03 14:59 clock, and only one of them is quest-gated. The other, "Across the Frozen Wilds, Honing One's Edge" (announcement 21885), asks for nothing but an unlocked Wish feature and lets you invite a standard 5-star from "Wanderlust Invocation" — so a brand-new account can claim it on day one. The Archon Quest is the price of admission for the event-exclusive list only. We mapped both pools and every name in the Genshin 7.1 free 5-star selector guide.
The Epilogue is the other thing you lose
HoYoverse flags this one explicitly: "After completing Archon Quest Chapter VII: Act IV 'A Rekviem for the Underworld' within the specified time period, the Epilogue for this series will become available. The Epilogue is a time-limited quest, so Travelers are advised to plan their time accordingly and experience it promptly."
Note the chain of conditions. The Epilogue does not unlock simply because you finished Act IV — it unlocks because you finished Act IV within the specified time period. Finish Act IV on 4 November and the acts are still there, but the Epilogue is not, and unlike the Primogems that is story content you cannot get back.
What else opens up alongside the Archon Quest?
Two World Quest lines have their own official overview notices for Version 7.1, which is HoYoverse's usual signal that they are substantial rather than one-room errands:
- "Swords and Secrets" — announcement 21881
- "Upstream Variations" — announcement 21882
Version 7.1 also opens the "Moonlit Season" season (announcement 21900) and "Silverwing in Pursuit of the Moon" (announcement 21886), which awards the event-exclusive sword Silver Light. Silverwing itself runs its three gameplay phases from 2026/09/24 10:00 to 2026/10/12 03:59 server time and needs Adventure Rank 20 plus the same Mondstadt prologue act, so it is a separate clock from the Archon Quest window. The full dated line-up is in our Genshin 7.1 events calendar.
When can you actually start?
Maintenance begins 2026/09/23 06:00 (UTC+8) and is estimated to run 5 hours, so the Archon Quest becomes playable roughly five hours after that instant. Pre-installation is already live and costs 10 GB on PC and 4 GB on mobile. Maintenance compensation is Primogems ×300, paid at 60 per hour of downtime to every account at Adventure Rank 5 or above when maintenance starts, and it must be claimed before Version 7.1 ends — the mail itself expires after 30 days.
A practical order of operations for update day:
- Finish anything still tied to Version 7.0 before maintenance. Our 7.0 end date and deadlines rundown lists what dies at the update.
- Pre-install now so you are not downloading 10 GB while the rest of your region is doing the same thing.
- After servers return, claim the 300-Primogem compensation mail.
- Run Act III, then Act IV. Do not stop at Act III — the selector and the Epilogue both key off Act IV.
- Open Tabletop Troupe and make your pick.
Want the rest of the Version 7.1 picture before you log in?
- Genshin 7.1 banners: Phase 1 and Phase 2 wish lineup
- Genshin 7.1 free 5-star selector: both lists and every deadline
- Genshin 7.1 events calendar and Primogem totals
- Genshin 7.1 maintenance time, compensation and pre-install size
FAQ
Is the Genshin 7.1 Archon Quest permanent or time-limited? The quests are permanent. Announcement 21880 states that Chapter VII Act III and Act IV "will be permanently available" after the update. What is time-limited is the completion bonus and the Epilogue, both of which end 2026/11/03 14:59 server time.
What Adventure Rank do I need for A Rekviem for the Underworld? Adventure Rank 18, plus a completed Chapter VII: Act II "Wraith's Nocturne". That AR requirement is low by design — the gate that actually stops people is the Act II prerequisite, not the rank.
Do I have to finish every previous Archon Quest first? No. HoYoverse's own notice says that with AR 18 and Prologue Act III "Song of the Dragon and Freedom" completed, exploring Snezhnaya automatically accepts Chapter VII Act I and lets you progress up to the latest Archon Quest in the current version. Liyue through Nod-Krai can be skipped for this purpose.
What happens if I finish the Archon Quest after 3 November? You keep the quest and the story, and you lose three things: the completion bonus rewards, the time-limited Epilogue, and eligibility for the Tabletop Troupe free 5-star. Announcement 21924 makes completing Act IV a hard eligibility condition for that event.
Which free 5-star can I choose in Version 7.1? Tabletop Troupe offers one of Tartaglia, Nilou, Baizhu, Chiori, Clorinde or Varesa, with matching ascension materials included. You can invite a character only once during the event.
When exactly does Version 7.1 go live? Maintenance starts 2026/09/23 06:00 (UTC+8) and is estimated at 5 hours, so expect the update to be playable about five hours after that single global instant. Compensation is 300 Primogems.
