At this year’s E3 Microsoft announced a boat load of new features, including Looking for Group, Clubs, and Arena on Xbox Live. The former two already launched to Insiders last month, but the latter has been missing until now. The service should launch at some point today, if not already.
Arena is Xbox Live’s own tournament system. Microsoft believes it will “make eSports more accessible for gamers everywhere, regardless of skill-level.”
The “everywhere” part of that mission statement isn’t quite there yet, as it’s only available for Killer Instinct and in the US. However, more games and regions should be coming shortly.
Other Update Features
As well as the Xbox One Arena, this update adds tons of other features, including improvements to LFG and group messaging. Full list below:
- “Achievement Rarity: You might have already seen some buzz about Achievement Rarity from @XboxQwik and @majornelson. If you missed it, Achievement Rarity, a top fan request on Xbox Feedback, launched to Preview a few weeks ago. Now, you’ll be able to discover just how unique an Achievement is among players of a given game and celebrate the Achievement itself with a special notification and diamond icon highlighting it. Unlock one today and let us know how you like the new animation.
- New Looking for Group (LFG) Features: Starting today, you will be able to create LFG posts for future gaming sessions – up to seven days in advance! Additionally, based on your feedback, you can now create LFG posts directly in a Club and control who sees them: just members of the Club or everyone on Xbox Live. When creating LFG posts, you can also note what language the party will be speaking and filter your LFG searches based on the language.
- Group Messaging on Xbox Live: Last week, we launched Group Messaging on Xbox One and the Xbox app (beta) on Windows 10 PC. Group Messaging helps you coordinate and keep in touch with your friends and fellow gamers by sending a single group message to everyone in the group. You can also add people to the group and dynamically change the conversation topic. Group Messaging will soon work across the Xbox app (beta) on iOS and Android devices.”
The last preview is also worth a look, as it fixes several issues with streaming services, Snap, and notifications. Insiders can get hold it now via settings.
You can view all of the Arena update details on Xbox Wire.
