How Tos

How to add friends and play cross-platform in Genshin Impact

Play with friends on every platform in Genshin Impact with these tips

How to add friends and play cross-platform in Genshin Impact
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Genshin Impact, a free to play solution for everyone that wished to play The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on mobile, is finally available for everyone to play across a variety of devices - and yes, there is cross-platform multiplayer including, thank goodness.

In Genshin Impact you'll be travelling across a vast world, climbing cliffs, defeating enemies, and you can do all of that and more with your friends.

Since it's free to play and oh so sweet it's a simple task to get it running and working in multiplayer, but there are a few tiny caveats you'll need to keep in mind before you get it running.

Regardless, get Genshin Impact downloaded, make your friends do the same, and get ready to jump into this gorgeous anime adventure…

A UID isn't something to go to the doctor about

A UID isn't something to worry about, and certainly not something you should search on Web MD. Instead, a UID is literally a User ID, and you'll need it to connect with friends around the world.

No matter what platform you are playing on you'll be able to see your UID in the bottom right of your screen at all times - literally all times - and you will be able to give it to friends so they can add you.

Just head into your main menu and select Friends, from there you can enter their UID to send a friend request, or you can accept friends that have sent you one. Also, you can add players to a blocklist if you feel like it.

Experienced adventurer

So you're enjoying the game and it's time to play with your friends, huh? Well, that's not necessarily true. You will need to keep playing the game before you're able to actually jump online with your friends.

You can start adding your friends immediately, but once you want to play with them, it's not so easy. You will first need to reach Adventurer Rank 16, which might take you a couple of hours of play first.

It's not the most difficult target in the world to reach, but you will need to put a bit more effort in than with most games. Just follow the main story quest as quickly as you can, and you'll reach the mark in no time.

Solo levelling

Although, even once you reach Adventurer Rank 16, that doesn't mean your trials are over. You can't play all missions with friends.

In fact, those main quest missions are to be played solo only. No jumping in or asking for help from friends, it's just you against the world, so it's not quite as easy as you would like.

In other words, you will want to try and complete as much of the main quest as possible while playing by yourself, and you can save the side quest for when you have friends to join you.

Crossplay, cross-save?

Thank goodness, there is crossplay in Genshin Impact, meaning you can start playing it right away, and play with your friends regardless of whether they're on Android, iOS, PC, or PS4. Nice nice nice.

What's not nice? A lack of cross-save functionality. PS4 users will not be able to connect their Android, PC, or iOS accounts to the PS4 version. Why? No idea. Something about PSN's account security settings.

So if you wish to play Genshin Impact on the big screen at home and continue playing on the move, we recommend you go with the PC version at home, and play it on mobile while out and about - tell your friends, too!

Android users, get Genshin Impact for your Android device right here!
Dave Aubrey
Dave Aubrey
Dave is the Guides Editor at Pocket Gamer. Specialises in Nintendo, complains about them for a living.