Genshin Impact: How to Level up Friendship ✅ with Characters

Friendship is an almost hidden mechanic in Genshin Impact, much like the fact that it’s an always-online game. All of the characters that you’ll meet in the game often have much deeper backstories that you’d expect. They also have their own motivations in the game’s world. However, you won’t learn any of this unless you level up your friendship with them over the course of the game. It might not seem like the biggest priority, with dragons on the loose and other epic catastrophes. Trust me, though; this is something worth investing time in. Our guide on how to level up friendship in Genshin Impact is as follows.

1. Reach Adventurer Rank 12

This is crucial to raising friendship levels in Genshin Impact. While you can team up with other characters much earlier on in the game, it’s only at Adventurer Rank 12 that you’ll unlock Daily Missions. This is important for the next step in leveling up a friendship.

Push through the game’s story until you reach this rank. It’s not very difficult at all, and you should be there before you’ve even scratched the surface of where the story is heading. If you’re struggling to get experience though, try gathering resources and fighting monsters too.

2. Complete Activities Awarding Companionship XP

Now that you’ve hit Adventurer Rank 12, you can start earning some Companionship XP. This is a special type of experience that you’ll earn with characters as you complete missions and explore the world with them in your party.

It’s important to note that each character has their own friendship level. You can’t just grind the game for experience until they’re all automatically leveled up. This means that you must spend time with each character in your party if you want to get their friendship level as high as possible.

Daily quests will award Companionship XP, as will some other missions in the story, as well as dungeons. You can check if an activity will award Companionship XP by reviewing it in the menu first. It should list the XP under the rewards section.

If you’re trying to gain as much Companionship XP as possible, try to only take on activities that will award it. Don’t waste your time with anything else, since this will just prolong the time it takes to upgrade a character’s friendship level.

3. Reap the Rewards

The best reward for increasing your friendship level in Genshin Impact is the lore. Each character has a rich library of lore in the menu for you to access, it’s just locked behind that friendship level. The more you increase the level, the more you’ll learn about them.

This is a fantastic system because it replicates the idea that each character is sharing more about themselves the more time you spend with them. There aren’t that many systems out there that feel as organic as this. Many games simply require you to complete a quest, and you’ll be rewarded with similar kinds of lore. Here though, just like in real life, it’s about putting time and effort into your relationships.

Lore isn’t the only reward though. You’ll also find that you can unlock new voice lines for each character as you increase their friendship level. This may not seem that exciting, but it plays into the game’s lore as well. Within the voice lines are tidbits of information that you won’t have been able to access otherwise. Well worth the time investment.

Finally, you can also unlock new name cards for each character by pushing up their friendship level. These are a purely cosmetic reward, and won’t affect the gameplay at all. They are quite nice, and showing them off to friends will broadcast just how much time and effort you’ve sunk into one particular character.

Should you Upgrade Friendship Levels in Genshin Impact?

This guide may make it seem like quite a lot of effort to actually upgrade each character’s friendship level. To be honest, that’s the truth of it. There is no easy way to upgrade each character’s friendship level, it takes time. However, I’d argue that if you’re playing Genshin Impact, and having fun, you should do it anyway.

Friendship level is just another great reason to put more time into this game. It gives you a goal to chase for each character and will keep you from getting too bored, even once you’ve reached the endgame.

Genshin Impact is an MMO in many ways. It’s certainly been built like one. As such, it’s a game that you should be coming back to every day. Whether that’s to complete a daily mission or advance the friendship level with a new character. As long as you’re having fun, there’s no reason you shouldn’t push each character’s friendship level as high as possible.

If there’s something about upgrading friendship level in Genshin Impact that you think we’ve missed, please let us know what in the comments.