Xbox Live is an incredible community of highly engaged and social gamers. At Xbox, we’re constantly looking for ways to bring people together and have more fun gaming. Today, we announced three new features coming to Xbox Live that let you play where, how, and with who you want – whether you’re on an Xbox console, Windows 10 PC, iOS or Android device. And so, aligned with our vision to create a unified experience where everyone is welcomed, respected and supported, we’re excited to introduce you to Clubs on Xbox Live, Looking for Group (LFG) on Xbox Live and Arena on Xbox Live.

Clubs on Xbox Live

Multiplayer is all about who you game with. We want to give Xbox fans the best platform to play online and connect them with gamers that share the same interests. To do so, we’ve created Clubs on Xbox Live – gamer-created and managed groups that help you meet people and create communities of gamers who love the same things you do.

Starting this fall, gamers on Xbox Live will be able to create and join Clubs. Club members can chat, set up parties, play games together, and share content with the club across your Xbox One, Windows 10 PC, and mobile phones through the Xbox app. There will be Clubs for everything. For example, there will be Clubs for gamers who love drifting cars in Forza, or Minecraft players who work together to make scale replicas of Star Wars spaceships, or you can create a Club filled with just your closest friends just to make it easier to game and stay connected on Xbox Live. Clubs will give gamers a community that they can return to again and again, and a place where shared interests, cultures, and playstyles come together to make connecting with people you love to play with more fun.

Looking for Group on Xbox Live (LFG)

Looking for Group on Xbox Live allows gamers to browse and send “want-ad” like posts to the Xbox Live community, helping you to quickly connect with other gamers looking to accomplish the same goal. One of the challenges that LFG addresses is the frustration gamers feel when trying to join or set up a group to complete daily quests, raids or hunt Achievements. If you’re getting matched with random people, you may have the same skill set but other factors like amount of time to play, play style, even chat preferences may not be aligned – resulting in an activity taking longer, players dropping from the group, or general frustration between members. While there are other ways online to find people to group up with, we wanted to reduce the time it takes to find the best group of people without having to leave Xbox Live. To make it easier, we’re building LFG for all games across Xbox One and Windows 10. Whether you’re playing an FPS on Xbox One or your favorite PC title – with LFG, you can quickly find other gamers to play with on Xbox Live.

Also this fall, gamers can create a LFG post on a Game Hub or in a Club they belong to using Xbox One or the Xbox app on PC or an iOS/Android device. You can specify the game, the game mode, how many people you need, rules (e.g. mics are required, no trash talking) and any other in-game requirements like level, gear or character type that you want. For example, if you are playing Halo 5: Guardians and are looking for more to join your group, and want to make sure they have a mic or are a certain rank, add it to your post. The LFG post creator has the opportunity to review and approve interested gamers. LFG gives gamers the tools they need to quickly find the people they’re going to have the most fun playing with.

Competitive gaming has always been at the core of Xbox, and with Arena on Xbox Live, we’re making eSports more accessible so that players of all-skill levels have the opportunity to experience and participate in competitive online gaming. Arena is an online tournaments platform across Xbox One and Windows 10 PC, which offers a number of benefits for gamers, including discovering tournaments, easy registration, notifications, launching directly into your match, and automatic reporting of results. Players will also be able compete for prizes, and of course don’t forget bragging rights.

For Arena, we’ve partnered with leading eSports organizers like FACEIT, ESL, MLG and more and are working with developers to bring games such as Killer Instinct, Gears of War 4, Halo Wars 2, World of Tanks, Smite and H1Z1: King of the Kill. We’re also excited to announce that EA will be bringing some of their biggest games like FIFA to Arena in the coming years. The thrill of competitive online gaming is coming to everyone. The community can look forward to start competing in Killer Instinct through the FACEIT app later this summer.

The gaming community on Xbox is amazing and it will get even better with Clubs, LFG, and Arena. Whether you want to compete and experience competitive online gaming or have more choices when it comes to finding the people you want to game with, you’ll find it on Xbox Live. And as always, keep the input coming at Xbox Feedback. Your feedback is invaluable as we continue to evolve the Xbox experience. Thanks and I’ll see you on Xbox Live!

Mike Ybarra

Gamertag: Qwik

@XboxQwik