Honkai: Star Rail’s text messaging is a delightful slice of space life

destructoid.com:

The world of Honkai: Star Rail is communicated through interfaces. Menus and trackers keep you abreast of what tasks you can accomplish to keep resources moving in, characters levelling up, and passes built up for the next Warp. But it’s not all for making numbers increase. Some, like the actual text message function of Honkai: Star Rail‘s cell phone, become a key part of learning more about the crew you’re assembling.

You pretty much start with a cell phone in your pocket in the latest HoYoverse game. It’s an effective means of giving you a home for a map, mission log, and many other pieces of information. In other words, it’s like a journal in a fantasy game.

But HoYoverse takes an extra step with Honkai: Star Rail and lets the cell phone be a text messaging machine, too. It’s a reactive interface, where you’re usually only responding back to people who have texted you. But it’s wildly effective at giving you insight into characters’ lives and personalities, while also giving the player a chance to role-play a bit as the Trailblazer.

At first, most of the text messaging you do is some character building. The one above, with the carefree March 7th, is just a fun little bit of character dialogue. In fact, I’d say that makes up at least a third of the early text messages I received in-game.

They do, sometimes, play a role in a quest. For example, a text message might initiate a side quest, or create a new development in it. In some cases, it might expand on a point, bringing in a new character.

In one particular memorable section, the protagonist—the Trailblazer—asks the crew what a bunch of items they’ve picked up is. They all chime in “Relics” in a cascading chorus of replies. And, in a frustrated response, your