Since new locations have seemingly erupted from the sea in the Golden Apple Archipelago, you’ll encounter lots of treasure chests and puzzles. One of these involves the Broken Isle area which requires you to take a look at certain clues. Here’s our Genshin Impact guide to help you with the water pillar puzzle on the Broken Isle.
Note: For more information about the game, check out our Genshin Impact guides and features hub. You may also take a look at our main guide for the Midsummer Island Adventure/Golden Apple Archipelago.
Genshin Impact: Broken Isle water pillar puzzle guide
If you take a look at our guide’s featured image up top, you’ll notice that there are five odd-looking pillars just north of the fast travel point on Broken Isle. Each pillar also has several “scratch marks” from one to five. There are also five stones that you can step on and they’d emit a sound. We won’t need to worry about these for now.
Instead, you’ll want to head to the southwestern section of the central rock formation (below the fast travel point). Here, you’ll find a Painted Ground/Painted Wall minigame. Simply equip the Harpastum gadget, go inside the marked area, and press “E” to throw it. Whenever the ball bounces back to your character, press left-click on your mouse to toss it back at the wall (i.e., it’s like tennis).
Eventually, the wall will get destroyed revealing a small cave. Take out the mobs here and you’ll find a mural (which is also part of another secret sidequest in the Golden Apple Archipelago region).
This mural gives you a clue as to what these water pillars are for. Take note of the image below:
So, we’ve got five pillars on the beach. Now, we see five drawings of “containers” that seem to be filled with water. What do these mean?
Well, go ahead and open your world map. If you look at the Broken Isle area, you’ll notice that there are five ponds surrounding this location.
Yes, those “containers” represent each pond. If you go to each spot, you’ll find a small body of water with some scratch marks denoting the water level. In a few cases, you might need to destroy stones/rocks just to have the water start to trickle in.
Anyway, if you use the two stepping stones near the ponds, you can increase or decrease the water level as well. Just look at the example below for the central pond near the fast travel point. We have to use the stepping stones to bring it down to the lowest water level to follow what’s drawn on the mural.
To summarize, we need to do the following for each pond:
- Central/south – Lowest water level
- Southeast – Mid
- Northeast – Lowest
- Southwest – Highest
- Northwest-Â Mid
If you’ve done all of these, return to the beach where you spotted the water pillars. Take a look at the scratch marks. These denote the order that you’d step on the corresponding stones.
Follow this sequence:
- 1 – central/south
- 2 – southwest
- 3 – northeast
- 4 – northwest
- 5 – southeast
After completing the puzzle, the ground will shake and a short cutscene will follow. To be frank, I didn’t see any new island emerge out of nowhere. Instead, you’ll end up with three treasure chests that you can open.
That’s it, you’re done with this puzzle. Don’t forget that there are still some additional secrets for you to discover such as the ones north of Twinning Isle, west of Minacious Isle, and near the Waverider challenge starting point. While you’re at it, you may also look for the shipwreck locations and hidden murals in the Golden Apple Archipelago.
Genshin Impact is available via its official website. For more information, check out our guides and features hub. We also have a main guide for the Midsummer Island Adventure/Golden Archipelago.
