Search "genshin free 5 star selector" this week and you will get three different answers, because there are genuinely three different free-character offers running or about to run. One of them ends in nine days and is only open to brand-new accounts. One needs nothing but a login. One is locked behind a story quest that far fewer people need to grind for than the internet thinks.
Picking the wrong one to chase is how people miss a free 5-star.
Quick answer: Version 7.1 ships two selectors, and you can claim both. The "Limited-Time Invitation: Choose 1 of 6" offers Tartaglia, Nilou, Baizhu, Chiori, Clorinde or Varesa, and it requires you to complete the Version 7.1 Archon Quest. The "5-Star Character: Choose 1 of 8" offers Jean, Diluc, Qiqi, Mona, Tighnari, Keqing, Dehya or Yumemizuki Mizuki, and it requires only that you log in after the update. Both run from the Version 7.1 update on 23 September 2026 until 11/03 (Server Time), and both include ascension materials to raise your pick to Lv. 60. A separate, unrelated offer for brand-new accounts only closes first, on 2026/09/23 05:59.
Article status: verified on 14 September 2026. The selector contents, the Archon Quest requirement and the 11/03 end date come from HoYoverse's own Version 7.1 Benefits Overview infographic, published to HoYoLAB on 12 September 2026 at 13:30 UTC (post 46661629) alongside the Version 7.1 Special Program. The deadlines for the new-Traveler offer, the Archon Quest bonus window and the Rewards of Dedication cycle come from the live in-game announcement feed (announcements 21707, 21809, 21761 and 21812), read in full on 14 September 2026. Version 7.0 "Everwinter Without Mercy" is the live version at the time of writing; 7.1 is titled "A Rekviem for the Underworld."
Why are there three different free 5-star offers right now?
Because HoYoverse launched them for three different audiences, in three different places, with three different end dates.
| Offer | Who can claim it | What it costs you | Ends |
|---|---|---|---|
| Uncover Lunar Realms, Hone the Eventide Radiance | New Travelers only — accounts registered after the Luna II update | Nothing beyond meeting the registration window | 2026/09/23 05:59 |
| 5-Star Character: Choose 1 of 8 | Everyone | Log in after the Version 7.1 update | 11/03, Server Time |
| Limited-Time Invitation: Choose 1 of 6 | Everyone | Complete the Version 7.1 Archon Quest | 11/03, Server Time |
The first one is not a Version 7.1 reward at all. It is a 42-day onboarding campaign that has been running since the Luna II update, it draws from the Standard Wish "Wanderlust Invocation" pool rather than a curated list, and it allows one pick only. Its clock runs out at 2026/09/23 05:59 — within hours of the 7.1 update going live, which is exactly why it keeps getting mistaken for a 7.1 reward.
The other two are the anniversary selectors, and they are additive. A brand-new account can collect from all three.
Which characters are in the Genshin "Choose 1 of 6" limited selector?
This is the headline giveaway, and the unusual part is that every name in it is a limited-banner character rather than a standard-wish one. HoYoverse's wording on the Benefits Overview is direct: "Complete the Version 7.1 Archon Quest to invite any one of the following characters to join your party!"
| Character | Element | Weapon |
|---|---|---|
| Tartaglia | Hydro | Bow |
| Nilou | Hydro | Sword |
| Baizhu | Dendro | Catalyst |
| Chiori | Geo | Sword |
| Clorinde | Electro | Sword |
| Varesa | Electro | Catalyst |
All six are 5-star characters, and the reward package includes ascension materials sufficient to raise your chosen character to Lv. 60 — enough to field them the day you claim them.
Which characters are in the "Choose 1 of 8" login selector?
The second selector has no quest requirement whatsoever. HoYoverse's line: "Log in after the version update to invite any one of the characters above!"
| Character | Element | Weapon |
|---|---|---|
| Jean | Anemo | Sword |
| Diluc | Pyro | Claymore |
| Qiqi | Cryo | Sword |
| Mona | Hydro | Catalyst |
| Tighnari | Dendro | Bow |
| Keqing | Electro | Sword |
| Dehya | Pyro | Claymore |
| Yumemizuki Mizuki | Anemo | Catalyst |
Same deal on materials: your pick comes with ascension materials to Lv. 60. Seven of these eight are long-standing Wanderlust Invocation characters. Yumemizuki Mizuki is the outlier — she debuted on a limited banner, not in the standard pool, and she is the one name on this list that a lot of mid-age accounts genuinely do not have. HoYoverse has not said this pool is identical to the standard wish, so treat it as its own curated list.
Alongside the two selectors, the Benefits Overview lists Intertwined Fate ×10 (claimed by checking in during the limited-time period), Primogems ×1,600 (delivered via in-game Mail), an Initial Top-Up Bonus Reset ×2, and a Miliastra Wonderland Headwear cosmetic for logging in. At the standard 160 Primogems per wish, those two items together are 20 wishes. The headline is that fourteen 5-star characters are on the table and you get two of them.
How do you unlock the limited selector if you are behind on the story?
The Archon Quest gate is the only real barrier on this page, and it is the one thing you can start working on today, before the update lands. It is also the thing most pages get wrong, because they assume you have to clear the whole game to reach Snezhnaya. You do not.
HoYoverse states the unlock criteria in announcement 21809, and they are remarkably low: Adventure Rank 18 and a completed Archon Quest Prologue: Act III, "Song of the Dragon and Freedom." Once you meet both, the notice says that exploring the Snezhnaya region automatically accepts Chapter VII: Act I, "Everwinter Without Mercy." Sumeru, Fontaine and Natlan are not prerequisites.
So the honest catch-up estimate depends entirely on which question you are asking. Playing the story properly from a standing start to the current chapter is the figure you see quoted in community catch-up guides at roughly 126 hours — a player estimate, not a HoYoverse number. Merely becoming eligible for the 7.1 Archon Quest is a far smaller job: Prologue Act III plus enough exploration to reach Adventure Rank 18, which a focused new account clears in a day or two.
HoYoverse recommends, but does not require, clearing "Song of the Welkin Moon" Act X and "Sunny Summer Fontinalia" first "to get the best experience from this content."
There is a smaller, separate clock worth knowing about here. In-game announcement 21809 attaches bonus Primogems and ascension materials to completing Chapter VII Acts I and II — the Version 7.0 Archon Quest "Everwinter Without Mercy" — and that window closes at 2026/09/22 14:59, the day before 7.1 drops.
Announcement 21812, "The Hunt Begins!", separately grants the 4-star Electro polearm user Alyosha for progressing through that same 7.0 quest. This one is not urgent: the event page stays open for the duration of Version 7.x, and the announcement states you can still invite him while progressing through the quest even after it closes. So if you are grinding story this week, you are clearing the 7.1 prerequisite, banking the 09/22 bonus and picking up a free 4-star on the same run.
Can you turn a free 5-star into C1 or C2?
Yes — for three specific characters, and only if you were already playing daily.
The event "To Temper Thyself and Journey Far" pays out a Stella Fortuna — a constellation item — for sustained daily play. The current cycle, the fifth, runs 2026/08/10 04:00 to 2026/11/02 03:59. Its structure, per the in-game announcement:
- Eligibility is low: Adventure Rank 14, the Wish system unlocked, and the Adventurer Handbook unlocked.
- A daily goal = 4 Daily Commissions plus 120 Original Resin spent.
- 5 daily goals in a week = 1 weekly goal.
- 8 weekly goals = one Stella Fortuna.
Starting from this cycle, Stella Fortuna for a set of characters were permanently added to the redemption list. Three of those names are also on the Version 7.1 selectors: Clorinde and Chiori from the Choose 1 of 6, and Yumemizuki Mizuki from the Choose 1 of 8. Claim the selector character, redeem the Stella Fortuna, and a character you did not own becomes C1 for free. If you already own one of them, a duplicate 5-star normally converts to a constellation, which would put you at C2 — though HoYoverse has not spelled out the duplicate rule for these selectors.
Three hard constraints, all in HoYoverse's own text, and all easy to trip over:
The no-repeats constraint. The same sentence that blocks unowned characters also blocks anyone "who ha[s] already obtained a Stella Fortuna from past 'To Temper Thyself and Journey Far' events." If you already redeemed a Stella Fortuna for Clorinde or Chiori in an earlier cycle, the free-constellation combo is not available to you for that character.
The sequencing constraint. The announcement is explicit: "Stella Fortuna cannot be obtained for characters you have not obtained." You must claim the selector character before redeeming. That is a problem, because the Temper cycle ends 2026/11/02 03:59 and the selectors end 11/03 — the redemption window shuts one day before the selector does. Treating 11/03 as your deadline for everything loses you the constellation.
The arithmetic constraint, and this is the number that matters. The cycle spans 84 days, which is exactly 12 weekly windows (weekly progress resets Monday at 04:00, and 2026/08/10, 2026/09/14 and 2026/11/02 are all Mondays). Today, 14 September 2026, is the first day of week 6. That leaves 7 weekly windows in the cycle — and the Stella Fortuna costs 8. By our count, a player who has banked zero weekly goals so far cannot reach the Stella Fortuna in this cycle at all, and the announcement states that the opportunity does not carry over to the next one.
So: if you have been doing your commissions since August, this is live and you should protect the streak. If you have not, the free-constellation play is already mathematically gone for cycle five — and the honest move is to skip the resin grind and just take the selector character.
Who should you actually pick?
Pick by what your account is missing, not by a tier list. Three rules:
If a name on either list is also on the Stella Fortuna roster and you can still clear 8 weekly goals, take that name. Clorinde, Chiori or Yumemizuki Mizuki at C1 beats almost any C0 elsewhere on the two lists.
On the Choose 1 of 6, weight toward characters who do not return. Tartaglia and Nilou rerun on limited banners; Varesa is the newest name in the pool and the least likely to be sitting in a long-time account already. A character you will realistically never pull is worth more than a stronger character you would have got eventually.
On the Choose 1 of 8, take the one you do not own — and if that is Yumemizuki Mizuki, take her. The other seven are Wanderlust Invocation regulars that a long-running account tends to accumulate for free over time. Mizuki is the only name on that list that never came from the standard wish, which makes her the scarcest pick on it by a distance — and she is also on the Stella Fortuna roster.
We are deliberately not publishing a damage ranking for these fourteen: 7.1 has not shipped, so any "best pick" chart written today is guessing at the thing that decides the answer. For what is actually confirmed about the version itself, see our Genshin 7.1 release date breakdown and the official-only rundown on Vesna and Vodyanitsa.
What has HoYoverse not published yet?
There is a live in-game announcement for this — "Version 7.1 Benefits Overview", announcement 21923, posted 12 September 2026 at 08:30 server time. But it carries no text body at all: it is the infographic and nothing else. We read the bodies of all 30 live in-game announcements on 14 September 2026 and found zero occurrences of "selector", "anniversary" or "Rekviem" in any of them.
In other words, the detailed event notices — the ones that normally carry exact server-time start hours, the claim UI location, and any Adventure Rank floor — have not gone up yet. HoYoverse's own footer on the infographic says as much: "Please check in-game notices for event details and schedules."
Which means three things are genuinely still unknown: whether either selector carries an Adventure Rank floor, the exact hour on 11/03 that they close, and what happens if you pick a character you already own.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you claim both Genshin 7.1 selectors? Yes. The Choose 1 of 6 and the Choose 1 of 8 are separate rewards with separate requirements listed side by side on the same official Benefits Overview. Claiming one does not consume the other, and both run to 11/03 Server Time.
Do you need to finish the Version 7.1 Archon Quest for both selectors? No — only for the Choose 1 of 6. The Choose 1 of 8 login selector requires nothing but logging in after the version update.
Does picking a free 5-star affect your pity or guarantee? No. These are direct grants, not wishes. Nothing about your Character Event Wish pity counter, your 50/50 state, or your Fate counts changes when you claim one.
Is the free 5-star for new players only? Two of the three current offers are open to everyone. Only "Uncover Lunar Realms, Hone the Eventide Radiance" is restricted to Travelers who registered after the Luna II update, and that one closes at 2026/09/23 05:59.
When exactly does the Version 7.1 selector expire? HoYoverse has published the date as 11/03 (Server Time) for both selectors but has not yet published the hour. The related Rewards of Dedication cycle ends earlier, at 2026/11/02 03:59, which is the date that matters if you are chasing a Stella Fortuna alongside the character.
More Genshin Impact guides
Keeping track of what is confirmed versus what is community speculation this version:
