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Streaming service Twitch has announced plans to preserve a video’s chat as part of its archive.

Which sounds horrific, although to be fair while the chat on more popular streams is often akin to actual hell on earth, smaller streams can often be more productive and interactive. And dare we say occasionally pleasant.

The feature itself is called Chat Replay and is due to arrive in the next few weeks. Absolutely everything is preserved, including the messages themselves as well as notifications. Moderated messages will remain hidden, however. Editing of comments can even take place post broadcast, should some vitriol have slipped between the gaps.

The tech is based on the existing ReChat browser extension, the creator of which – Nils Caspar – joined Twitch last year.

Watching recorded video on Twitch is about to get a whole lot better, and a whole lot more like a live experience,” Twitch said.

Never again will you wonder which moments had the chat going wild or what messages your favourite broadcaster is responding to. Starting today, we will begin capturing chat messages from live streams, and chat messages will be gradually added to recorded videos over the next few weeks.

Chat Replay messages will display alongside videos as long as they are available on Twitch. This includes Sub notifications, Emotes, and Badges exactly as they appeared on the live stream.”