Honkai Star Rail may not have true multiplayer, but there are many ways to interact with your friends in-game!
Honkai Star Rail is a fun game, and everything's more fun with friends, right? Here are all the details of how multiplayer and co-op gameplay manifests in Honkai Star Rail.
Is Honkai Star Rail Multiplayer?
The short answer is no, Honkai Star Rail is not multiplayer. However, there are ways you can interact with your in-game friends.
One big way is the Support Character feature, where you can borrow somebody else's units in some select stages, like farming nodes. You get to borrow their character, and they get Credits in exchange - it's a win-win situation!
Another is during certain limited-time events where you can see your friends' progress and scores!
Does Honkai Star Rail have PvP?
If by PvP, you mean your four characters and their four characters duking it out, then no, Honkai Star Rail does not support PvP. You can instead compete against other players using other means, like events.
For example, the event Origami Bird Clash temporarily allowed matches between players. Unfortunately, its multiplayer features have been closed as of now. Keep an eye out for future events like this to feed your competitive spirit.
How to use a support character in HSR
While on the Party Setup of an eligible challenge, tap the Support button on the right-hand side of your screen.
- Click the "Support" icon on the right of your fourth party member slot
- Select a character you wish to borrow and click "Add."
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The menu shows you the character, its level, Element, and Eidolon level.
Note that the Support Character menu has two tabs: Friends and Strangers. The Friends tab contains the units from your in-game Friends, while the Strangers tab contains randomly selected players on the same server.
The Friends tab can scroll far down to display more and more support characters; just give it some time to load.
Being able to borrow units can give you that one missing piece of your best team, so choose wisely. This feature is also helpful for beginner players - a level 80 character is guaranteed to single-handedly wipe most lower-level farming nodes.
How to set up a Support character
Now, how do you set which characters your friends can see? This is simple; just follow the guide below.
- Go to the smartphone
- Esc on PC, tap the phone icon on the corner for mobile, or press Start on your controller
- Interact with the [...] on the top-right.
- Choose Trailblazer Profile
- Click Support Character
- Choose the characters you want!
You get 2,000 Credits every time someone uses your Support Character, for a maximum of 6,000 Credits per day per player who borrows from you. Make sure you put your best characters here!
The menu can stock up to 120,000 Credits only, so make a habit of claiming them regularly!
Will Honkai Star Rail ever get multiplayer?
Another HoYoverse title, Genshin Impact, has limited multiplayer and allows players to interact in-game. Since Genshin Impact is a real-time action game, this works perfectly fine - there's just multiple of you on the field.
For Honkai Star Rail, however, the intended experience is a single-player turn-based game. It's highly unlikely that players will get to play multiplayer in HSR in the same way that Genshin allows you to.
Again, this doesn't mean that there's a shortage of ways to interact with other players in HSR. On top of the ways listed above, you can also see what the community's thinking over on HoYoLAB.
Stick around on esports.gg for more Honkai Star Rail news, guides, and updates.
