Search "genshin 7.2 characters" today and you get beta-client kit sheets, leaked constellation trees and a lot of confident numbers. HoYoverse has published none of that. What it has published, in the last eight days, is three official HoYoLAB art posts — two of them carrying the exact character data block HoYoverse uses to announce a new playable unit, and one carrying no data block at all. That distinction is the entire story, and it is the thing the leak roundups skip.
Quick answer. Two characters have official introduction cards for the next version: Mitya, titled "Rules Set at Naught", a Specialist of the Royal Energy Commission of Snezhnaya, marked Stellar Linchpin: Electro, Constellation Nodus Gordianus; and Valeriy, titled "Fort Fulguration", Commander of the Special Assignments Battalion, marked Vision: Electro, Constellation Ursus Magnus. Both cards went up on 29 September 2026. Ronova is not among them — her 4 October art post has no name, title, element or constellation line, and she is already in the game as Version 7.1's Weekly Boss. HoYoverse has published no rarity, weapon type, kit, banner phase or release date for Mitya or Valeriy, and has not yet named the version.
Who are the Genshin 7.2 characters?
Two, so far, and both are Electro.
HoYoverse introduces a new character with a short post on HoYoLAB that pairs key art with an in-universe quote and a bulleted data block. The community calls it drip marketing. The block is formulaic: name, title, role, element designation, constellation. When that block appears, a playable character follows.
Both of the current cards landed on 29 September 2026, less than six hours apart — Mitya's "Genius At Play" at 04:01 UTC and Valeriy's "Discipline Down to the Second" at 10:00 UTC. Here is everything the two posts actually state:
| Field | Mitya | Valeriy |
|---|---|---|
| Title | Rules Set at Naught | Fort Fulguration |
| Role | Specialist, Royal Energy Commission of Snezhnaya | Commander of the Special Assignments Battalion |
| Element line | Stellar Linchpin: Electro | Vision: Electro |
| Constellation | Nodus Gordianus | Ursus Magnus |
| Card published | 2026-09-29 04:01 UTC | 2026-09-29 10:00 UTC |
| Rarity | Not published | Not published |
| Weapon type | Not published | Not published |
The two are written as a double act. Valeriy's card is quoted from Mitya, and Mitya's card is quoted from Valeriy — plus a second quote from Pierro. In Mitya's post, "The Jester" defends him against the charge of receiving special treatment:
"Research differs from production — efficiency is not the gold standard. I have worked alongside many gifted individuals, and I know well that talent and eccentricity tend to go hand in hand. But the one thing that never disappoints is the 'answers' they provide."
Valeriy, on the same card, is rather less charmed, noting drily that he has "applied for his scarf to be granted greater authority to help prevent leaks of classified information."
What does Mitya's official card actually say?
Mitya is an energy researcher who treats his own timetable as optional. The post describes a specialist who ought to be buried in important work but "can often be found wandering the streets of Snezhnograd" — catching the Korolevskiy Troupe's latest production, sharing a table with a stranger at Podvorye Restaurant, or washing that scarf and hanging it out to dry.
His method of complaint is the detail worth keeping. He writes up everything he finds unreasonable in "letters, proposals, and leave requests", appends them to the last page of his research reports, and submits the lot hoping a superior reads that far. The post's punchline is that it worked, just not as intended: his habit of rewriting absence reports into further arguments in his own defence "earned him the assistance of a major who took time management very seriously indeed."
That major is Valeriy. HoYoverse published the two cards the same day because they are a leash-and-collar pair.
Why does Valeriy's card say "Vision" and Mitya's say "Stellar Linchpin"?
Because they are different objects, and HoYoverse marks the difference deliberately on that one line.
A Stellar Linchpin is the Snezhnayan counterpart to a Vision, and HoYoverse separates the two on that one line every single time. The live Version 7.1 Update Details notice prints both tags side by side in the same new-character list: Vesna's entry reads "Snowy Banquet's Sharp Blade" Vesna (Anemo) (5-Star), Stellar Linchpin: Anemo, Weapon: Sword — while Vodyanitsa's, two lines below it, reads "Lingering Siren-Song" Vodyanitsa (Hydro) (5-Star), Vision: Hydro, Weapon: Catalyst. It is not a typo or a flavour variant. It is a character-defining tag.
It also matters mechanically, and the same 7.1 notice is where you can see why. Vesna's card does not stop at the Linchpin tag — it goes on to describe her as "an Anemo DMG dealer who enables her party to trigger Stellar Swirl reactions and, under certain conditions, can also deal Stellar Swirl DMG." So on the one bearer HoYoverse has fully shipped and documented, the Linchpin tag and the ability to turn on a Stellar Glimmer reaction arrive together. That family has exactly two members: Stellar-Conduct (Cryo plus Electro) and Stellar Swirl (Anemo plus Cryo). We break the pair down in full in our Stellar-Conduct vs Stellar Swirl guide.
Now look at Mitya's line again. Stellar-Conduct is the Cryo-plus-Electro reaction, and Mitya's is the first Electro Stellar Linchpin on HoYoverse's published record. Count the element lines HoYoverse has actually printed on a Linchpin bearer and there are only two before him: Odette's "Stellar Linchpin: Cryo" and Vesna's "Stellar Linchpin: Anemo". Cryo and Anemo are precisely the two halves of the reactions already in the game — Stellar-Conduct needs Cryo, Stellar Swirl needs Anemo and Cryo — and the free entry point is the Cryo Traveler. To run Stellar-Conduct to date you have paired a Cryo Linchpin holder with an ordinary-Vision Electro applier. Mitya's line is the first time the Electro half of that reaction and a Linchpin have appeared on the same card.
Two caveats on that count, because they are the kind of thing other sites will get wrong. Sandrone and Danica are also documented Linchpin bearers, but HoYoverse has never printed an element line for either, so neither confirms nor contradicts the "first Electro" reading. And Vodyanitsa, who shipped alongside Vesna in 7.1, is the control case: her card reads "Vision: Hydro", and the 7.1 notice calls her a support "well-suited to both Freeze and Stellar Swirl teams" rather than an enabler.
Treat that last step as an inference, not an announcement. The element designation is first-party and so is Vesna's enabler wording, but the jump from "Mitya holds an Electro Linchpin" to "therefore he enables Stellar-Conduct" is a reasonable read of a printed precedent, not a published fact about Mitya. His talents have not been released in any form. Anyone quoting you his multipliers is working from a beta client.
There is one more piece of first-party evidence that almost nobody covering 7.2 has picked up, because it is buried in a bug-fix list rather than an announcement. The 7.1 notice's fixed-issues section includes this line: HoYoverse "fixes an issue in the cutscene of the Archon Quest 'Wraith's Nocturne' where Mitya's Elemental Type icon was displayed incorrectly (it should be the Electro Stellar Linchpin)." That is HoYoverse confirming Mitya's Electro Stellar Linchpin a second time, in a shipped patch note, independently of the drip-marketing card — and doing it while treating his elemental type as a thing the game already renders.
Valeriy's "Vision: Electro" says the opposite thing just as clearly: an ordinary Vision, no Linchpin, no implied gate.
His card is the one with the hard numbers, and they are all lore. The Armory Palace in Glupov is named as Snezhnaya's foremost research institution, and elite troops from the 1st Grenadier Regiment were reorganised into the Special Assignments Battalion to guard it under his command. His service record, as published: six concentrations of monsters linked to Ley Line disturbances wiped out, three Volkodlak gangs crushed, more than 80% of the rampaging chimeric monsters west of Snezhnograd eliminated, and more than 90 threats of every description neutralised since the battalion took up its post — bandits after the Palace's secrets and outlaws trying to abduct its researchers included. He schedules the whole battalion "day after day, year after year... all without an adjutant's assistance."
Mitya's assessment of him, quoted on Valeriy's own card, is the best line in either post:
"If anyone threatens the Armory Palace's projects or researchers, you'll get to witness a terrifying sight: 'a fortress going on the offensive and rolling right over people.'"
Is Ronova a playable character in Genshin 7.2?
Nothing HoYoverse has published says so, and three separate things point the other way.
Her post has no data block. "Ruler of Death — Ronova" went up on 4 October 2026 with three pieces of key art and a single quote attributed to "The Visionary" Vedrfolnir:
"Death renders all things equal. A remedy bestowed upon one long wearied by illness, or the clear sky unveiled when the clouds at last disperse — such are the metaphors for death."
That is the whole text. No name field, no title field, no element line, no constellation. Set it beside the Mitya and Valeriy posts from five days earlier, which both carry the full five-line block, and the omission is not an oversight.
It arrived at the wrong point in the cycle. Drip marketing lands before a version. Mitya and Valeriy's cards went up on 29 September, with 7.1 already live since 23 September. Ronova's post went up on 4 October in the same HoYoLAB feed slot as "Cutscene Animation: The Mora Game" (5 October), "Wallpaper - Anniversary Memories Album" (5 October) and "Cutscene Animation: Seal of Life" (6 October). It sits in a run of anniversary art and story content for the version that is already running.
She is already in the game as a boss. HoYoverse's 12 September 2026 press release — the only first-party written statement on the subject — said that "The Ruler of Death will also appear as a new Weekly Boss" in Version 7.1. She is also already wired into the game's story furniture: the live 7.1 notice fixes "an issue on the 'Quest Overview > Guiding Notes' screen whereby the portraits for 'The Jester' and Ronova are displayed incorrectly", which puts her in the same quest-tracking UI as a Harbinger. Our Ronova Weekly Boss guide covers the unlock path and what the fight actually drops.
This is exactly the question players were arguing over under the art the day it dropped. The sharpest community read pointed out that weekly bosses "already have official splash arts that are used in the livestreams" — so a boss receiving key art implies nothing about playability either way. A competing read held that a character getting art without a data block is the tell for a non-playable one. The second read matches the published evidence better, but note what neither can do: HoYoverse has not said Ronova is unplayable. The accurate position is that she has no character announcement, not that she has been ruled out.
What has HoYoverse not published about Mitya and Valeriy?
Most of what you would need to plan pulls. As of 6 October 2026, none of the following exists in a first-party source:
- Rarity. Neither card states 4-star or 5-star.
- Weapon type. Not on either card.
- Kits, talents, constellations. Only the constellation names are published. No talent text, no multipliers, no passives.
- Banner phase. No Version 7.2 Event Wish notice exists yet.
- Release date. No maintenance preview, no update details notice.
- Ascension materials. Any material table you find for them is projected from a beta client. This lane has been burned by exactly that: Fandom carried full talent-material line-ups for Vesna and Vodyanitsa before release, uncited and beta-derived.
- The version name. "7.2" is the number; the title has not been announced.
For comparison, the equivalent page for the current version is what was official on Vesna and Vodyanitsa before their livestream — same shape, same gaps, and worth reading as a calibration of how much gets filled in and when.
When will the 7.2 banners and Special Program be confirmed?
Within roughly three weeks, on the cadence HoYoverse has kept all year.
The anchor is the card-to-release gap from last cycle. Vesna's introduction card, "Riding the Winds, Subduing the Snowlands", published 17 August 2026 at 04:01 UTC. She released as a playable 5-star Anemo sword user on the "When Warm Winds Cavort" Event Wish on 23 September — 37 days after her card. Mitya and Valeriy's cards published 29 September. Our 7.2 release date projection, built from six consecutive 42.00-day intervals between first-party version notices, puts the update at 4 November 2026 — 36 days after the cards. The two numbers agreeing to within a day is the strongest timing signal available right now, and it is still a projection, not an announcement.
That projection also places the Version 7.2 Special Program in a 23 to 24 October window. The Special Program is the reveal venue: for 7.1 it was where the phase line-ups, the new weapons and the livestream redemption codes all landed at once. Expect the same, and expect the leak-sourced kit sheets currently ranking for this query to be partly wrong when it happens.
Until then, the live version is still paying out. Version 7.1's Phase I Event Wishes — "When Warm Winds Cavort" for Vesna, "Surging Ballad" for Vodyanitsa, and Epitome Invocation — all end 13 October 2026 at 17:59 server time, which is the next hard deadline on the calendar and the switch into Phase II. The October banner schedule has every dated window. One more thing worth planning around if Mitya does turn out to be a Stellar-Conduct unit: the 7.1 Spiral Abyss rotation that opens on 16 October runs a first-half Ley Line Disorder that increases characters' Stellar Glimmer damage by 75%.
FAQ
Who are the new characters in Genshin Impact 7.2? Mitya and Valeriy, both Electro, both introduced with official HoYoLAB character cards on 29 September 2026. Mitya is titled "Rules Set at Naught" and marked "Stellar Linchpin: Electro"; Valeriy is titled "Fort Fulguration" and marked "Vision: Electro". No other character has an introduction card for the next version yet.
Is Ronova playable in Genshin 7.2? There is no official character announcement for her. Her 4 October 2026 art post carries no name, title, element or constellation block — unlike Mitya's and Valeriy's — and the 12 September 2026 press release already made her Version 7.1's new Weekly Boss. HoYoverse has not stated that she is unplayable either; she simply has not been announced.
What is the difference between a Stellar Linchpin and a Vision? A Stellar Linchpin is the Snezhnayan counterpart to a Vision, and HoYoverse tags characters with one or the other, never both. The live Version 7.1 Update Details notice lists Vesna as "Stellar Linchpin: Anemo" and Vodyanitsa as "Vision: Hydro" in the same new-character section. Vesna's card also says she "enables her party to trigger Stellar Swirl reactions", so on the shipped bearers the Linchpin tag travels with access to a Stellar Glimmer reaction — Stellar-Conduct (Cryo plus Electro) or Stellar Swirl (Anemo plus Cryo). Mitya's card reads "Stellar Linchpin: Electro" and Valeriy's reads "Vision: Electro", so only Mitya's line carries that implication.
Is Mitya a 5-star? Not published. Neither card states a rarity or a weapon type, and HoYoverse normally confirms both at the Special Program rather than on the introduction card.
When is the Genshin 7.2 release date? Not announced. A projection from six consecutive 42-day gaps between first-party version notices points to 4 November 2026, with the Special Program around 23 to 24 October. Treat both as estimates until a maintenance preview notice appears.
What are the Genshin 7.2 banners? No Version 7.2 Event Wish notice exists, so there is no first-party phase line-up. Version 7.1's Phase I wishes run until 13 October 2026 at 17:59 server time.
Are Mitya's ascension materials known? No. Any material list circulating for Mitya or Valeriy is projected from a beta client, which is the same category of source that produced incorrect pre-release material tables for Vesna and Vodyanitsa.
More Genshin Impact guides. Current banner windows, codes and version deadlines, all kept to the live patch.
