Snezhnaya to 100%: What the 7.0 Exploration Percentage Counts, and What Gates It

Genshin Impact 7.0 opened Snezhnaya, and “100% explored” there is a longer job than the map suggests — not because the region is enormous, but because a meaningful part of it does not open until specific Archon Quest steps are done. You can walk to the edge of a system and be unable to touch it.

HoYoverse names them in the 7.0 update post: Volkodlak Tundra, White Birch Snowgrave, Everfrozen Earth, Flamefeather Valley y Fellfrost Peak.

That split is the thing to plan around. Exploration is counted per area, so a region that reads “87%” is really five separate jobs at five separate stages, and the last few percent almost always sit in one of them rather than being spread evenly. Finish areas, not regions.

Reaching Snezhnaya is the easy half. Completing Archon Quest Prologue: Act III “Song of the Dragon and Freedom” automatically unlocks a Teleport Waypoint southwest of Volkodlak Tundra — and if you finished that quest years ago, the waypoint simply unlocked when you updated, Primogem reward included.

HoYoverse also removed the usual chain requirement: you can begin Archon Quest Chapter VII: Act I “Everwinter Without Mercy” from that waypoint even if you have not completed the preceding Archon Quests, such as “Song of the Welkin Moon: Act X”.

This is the part that stalls people, and the unlock conditions are published precisely enough to plan around.

Meeting Points are built with Cryo Sigils collected while adventuring, once their quest condition is met, and then levelled up for supplies. Prime Ice Constructs, created with the Eye of Graeae, help traversal in the open world and can be left for travellers in other worlds — you will find other people’s constructs while exploring, and can Like the ones that helped.

The train is worth naming separately: you can call it, travel between cities, and craft items or claim Daily Commission rewards while aboard. That is dead time turned into progress, and it only exists after the quest.

Three changes in this version are aimed squarely at people finishing maps.

A Cryo Treasure Compass. The region gets its own compass, alongside a display fix that raises the priority of Oculus icons so they stop being hidden behind other markers on the Luna and Segment-Domain compasses.

Multi-layered maps stop spoiling themselves. A multi-layered map and its button now appear only once you are in the relevant area, instead of always being visible — so the layout of somewhere you have not been is no longer revealed early.

The map pin limit went from 300 to 350. Small, and immediately noticed by anyone who marks chests they cannot open yet.

HoYoverse has never published the formula, so anyone quoting one is quoting themselves. What is consistent in practice, region after region, is what moves the bar:

• Unlocking Teleport Waypoints y Statues of the Seven
• Opening chests across the area
• Solving puzzles and mechanisms
• El region’s own collectibles

And what does not move it, however much time it costs you: Oculi — they feed the Statue, not the percentage — along with achievements, character progression and the story itself. Our own scoping reflects that split: a Snezhnaya 100% run is chests, puzzles, Statues, waypoints and the region’s collectibles, while the full bundle is what adds the Archon Quest, every world quest, Oculi and achievements on top.

The map is permanent. The events attached to it are not.

HoYoverse confirmed in its Phase II events preview that the limited-time region exploration events “The Godforsaken Frostlands” y “When We Look Up at the Moon” are still running, and that unclaimed rewards should not be left behind. No end date was given in that post.

So the ordering is simple: do the event-attached exploration first, the permanent completion after. The reverse costs you rewards for work you were going to do anyway. If you want the region cleared while the events are still live, that is what our region exploration services are for — done by hand on your account, reported per area, with the story left where you stopped if you ask.

For first steps in the region rather than completion, our Snezhnaya opening guide covers the Eye of Graeae and the order the early hours actually reward.

Myth: you need to catch up on the story to enter Snezhnaya

You need Prologue Act III, which almost everyone has. HoYoverse explicitly allows starting Chapter VII Act I without the chapters in between.

Myth: Oculi count toward exploration

They are their own collection, feeding the Statue of the Seven. Collecting every Oculus in an area does not complete it.

Myth: Meeting Points unlock by finding them

They are built with Cryo Sigils, and each one has a named Archon Quest step as its condition. You can stand on the spot without being able to build.

Myth: 100% is one number for the region

It is five, one per area. The last stretch is usually concentrated in a single area rather than spread.

Sources and Confidence

The mechanics below are separated by how they are known. HoYoverse does not publish an exploration formula, and this page does not invent one.

Checked 4 September 2026.