Genshin Impact – what does Friendship level do?
Genshin Impact has a huge roster of interesting characters, and given how hard it can be to snag your characters of choice, it’s definitely worth enjoying every ounce of content that involves them.
Friendship levels offer a nice way of gaining some further insight into each character, filling in their backstory whilst giving some further interactions and cosmetic benefits. Given how popular some of the characters have become, it’s no surprise to find many players desperate to max their Friendship levels as soon as possible.
It’s not made entirely clear what Genshin Impact Friendship levels actually do, so we’ve got a full guide that’s got you covered. Here’s everything you need to know about what Friendship levels do in Genshin Impact, and how to raise Friendship levels.
How to raise Friendship level in Genshin Impact
Friendship level is raised by earning Companionship EXP. Whenever you earn any Companionship EXP, this will be given to the party members who are in your current team. Party members will earn it even if they have been KO’d from battle at the time the Companionship EXP is awarded.
Companionship EXP is earned in the following ways:
- Daily Commissions (with extra Companionship EXP awarded for completing them all)
- Defeating Bosses – more Companionship EXP is given for weekly bosses
- Completing Random Events (max of 10 per day)
- Clearing Domains
- Forging Mystic Enhancement Ores
- Completing Ley Line Outcrop challenges
- Hosting characters in the Serenitea Pot (requires Realm Dispatch item)
Simply keeping a character in your party does not gain them any Companionship EXP, but obviously if you keep them in your party they are more likely to be around when you complete the above. However, everything above will reward double Companionship EXP if you complete it whilst in Co-Op mode.
The Traveler does not earn any Friendship EXP. This is because the Friendship level is based on how friendly the character is with the Traveler themselves. Arguably, this makes it better to leave the Traveler out of your party as much as possible if you are trying to increase Friendship levels.
To completely maximise a character’s Friendship level, they will require a whopping 29,100 Companionship EXP!
What does Friendship level do in Genshin Impact?
As you increase each character’s Friendship level, you will earn several new perks for the character in question. Friendship level can be increased to a maximum of 10 for each character, often with a new reward for each new level reached.
The rewards are as follows:
- Extra Character Stories – these are generally unlocked one at a time and offer some extra backstory for the character, found in their Profile
- More facial expressions for Photo Mode
- More voice over interactions for the character
- Additional dialogue options in Serenitea Pot
- At level 10, a bespoke namecard for the character that can be used to customise your Profile and menus
These rewards aren’t unlocked at the exact same rate for every character, but generally follow the same sort of pattern. Most earlier Friendship levels will start with some extra character Stories, sometimes accompanied by a dialogue perk or Photo mode facial expression. The namecard is always unlocked at Friendship level 10.
Do you need to increase Friendship level for Hangout events?
No. Hangout events and Friendship levels have nothing to do with each other. You do not have to reach certain Friendship levels to unlock the character Hangout events. Instead, Hangout Events are Story Quests that will require 2 Story Keys to progress each Act – a Story Key is gained for every 8 daily commission completed.
Unfortunately, you don’t even get any boost towards a new Friendship level by completing a character’s Hangout Event.
Are there any gameplay benefits to raising Friendship level?
There are no tangible gameplay benefits to raising a character’s friendship levels. As much as it would be nice to unlock great skills and weapons for characters, Friendship levels don’t offer any such perks.
Instead, Friendship levels mainly serve as a way to get to know each character better, providing backstory along with the extra dialogue that gives them a bit more interaction with the other characters.
The only thing that could potentially be classed as a gameplay perk is that maxing enough characters at Friendship level 10 will earn the Hitherto Unknown Achievement which rewards Primogems.
Maxing 4 characters will gain 5 Primogems, 8 characters will earn another 10 Primogems and finally maxing 16 characters will gain a further 20 Primogems. Therefore, you can get a maximum of 35 Primogems for fully completing this Achievement, which isn’t exactly anything to write home about but it’s better than nothing.
What is the best way to raise Friendship level in Genshin Impact?
The best way to raise your Friendship levels as quickly as possible is to play Co-op mode.
In Co-op mode, you will earn double the Companionship EXP regardless of how many people are playing together. Whether you are playing with one companion or several, you will always earn Companionship EXP at double the rate. Simply contact a friend and smash through as many Companionship EXP methods as you can, edging you closer and closer to those namecards.
Otherwise, there isn’t really a short cut to increasing Genshin Impact Friendship levels. The weekly bosses and daily commissions should be your first focus, whilst making sure you do not pass up any Random Events.
Some players have found certain Random Events will continuously trigger in the same place, allowing them to close and reopen the game to quickly clear these multiple times for easy Companionship EXP. However, nothing is entirely reliable here and these are still capped at 10 per day.
As mentioned above, one tip is to leave Traveler out of your team. Since they do not gain any Companionship EXP, they are wasting a slot that could be utilised by another character who will gain the Companionship EXP instead.
That’s our full explanation of Friendship levels in Genshin Impact, explaining what Friendship levels do with a few further tips. For more Genshin Impact content, check out the articles below:
