It took 4 years but Genshin Impact is finally adding a new world level in update 5.0 that makes character materials easier to farm – plus 1 million free Mora for all

Genshin Impact Natlan.

Since launch, the base difficulty of Genshin Impact has been capped at World Level 8, bottlenecking the strength and loot of open-world enemies and putting them well below the average power of a well-built player. With update 5.0 and the release of the Natlan region later this month, developer HoYoverse is finally releasing World Level 9, upping the difficulty considerably and making character materials much easier to farm. 

This change was announced in the latest Genshin Impact developer discussion alongside a few other quality-of-life wins. World Level 9 will be unlocked at Adventure Rank 58, three levels into the soft cap zone where AR levels slow down considerably. Enemies, elites, and bosses will go up "by about 10" levels, and will drop more materials as a result.