Steam Chat relaunches with Discord-rivalling features

Steam is today offering gamers a “richer chat experience” courtesy of its updated Steam Chat service.

Yes, yes, Discord is already established, and for those who use the service daily shouldn’t really see a need to switch to Steam’s. But it’s notable that Valve sees a need to keep the chat platform’s rise in check.

Steam Chat is the company’s shiny new beta weapon, currently available to test for users of the game distribution platform.

It adds a number of tweaks that Discord has had for ages too, including multimedia support, the ability to add friends to a chat session, and the option to save entire groups.

“Got a good thing going? Save your group chat with a title and avatar so you can chat or play together later. This makes it easy to pick up where you left off, and keep tabs on those friends,” Steam writes in its promo site.

Users can also add channels and invite others via shortlinks. But the big addition is voice support.

“Clear, crisp voice quality before, during, and after your games. Improvements to Steam voice chat makes it easier to organize games with your friends,” the company adds.

“At a glance you can see if your friends are talking in a voice channel and join them.”

Is it enough to challenge the likes of Discord and TeamSpeak? Possibly not.

But it’s always welcome to have another option. And for gamers just adopting Steam as a platform, not having to sign up to and download an app for another service is a bonus.

Feature image: Steam