Clubs, Achievement Rarity, and more hit Xbox Live today

Microsoft just released a big update for Xbox Live today.

Clubs, Achievement rarity, looking for group, group messaging, and more will roll out to Xbox One, and the Xbox app on iOS, Android devices. Xbox Live gets more social features from the preview program. Arena is in preview still and will be launching when it’s ready. Some details of the important features are below:

– Clubs on Xbox Live: Clubs are gamer-created and managed groups that can help you meet people and grow communities of gamers who love the same things you do. Anyone can join or create a Club, and you’ll probably see a Club for just about everything. If you do not, creating a Club is quick and easy. As a Club member, you’ll be able to set up parties, play games, share content, and easily communicate using voice and text chat with the Club across Xbox One and the Xbox app on Windows 10, iOS, and Android devices, which is great if you want to stay in touch with your Clubs on the go, or find and join new Clubs from your phone. You can search for Clubs (or create your own) in the Community tab on Xbox One and the Clubs section on other devices, and Clubs associated with a game will be accessible in the title’s Game Hub. As a Club admin, you’ll have the tools to ensure that everyone is having a great time and help create a lively and inclusive environment. In case you missed it, check out our tutorial video on Clubs here.

– Looking for Group on Xbox Live: Looking for Group (LFG) helps you quickly find other players that you want to game with. It’s like posting a gaming “want-ad” to the Xbox community. You can use LFG to help complete daily quests, Achievement hunt, or even get a group together to annihilate hordes of the Swarm and DeeBees in Gears of War 4. You’ll be able to add certain requirements to make sure that you’re finding the right gamers. You can specify the game, the game mode, the language the party will be speaking, how many people you need, rules like no trash talking or casual friendly, and any other in-game requirements like level, gear or character type.

– Achievement Rarity: Achievement Rarity, a top fan request on Xbox Feedback, helps you discover just how unique an Achievement is among players of a given game. When you earn a rare Achievement, you’ll get a special notification and diamond icon highlighting it. Unlock one today and let us know how you like the new animation!

– Group Messaging on Xbox Live: Group Messaging helps you coordinate and keep in touch with your friends and fellow gamers by sending a single group message to everyone in a single conversation. You can also add people to the group and dynamically change the conversation topic. Group Messaging works across Xbox One and the Xbox app on Windows 10, iOS, and Android devices. To help you write your messages even faster on Xbox One, we have added a new predictive dictionary which you can quick access with the right thumb stick on your controller.

– Gamerscore Leaderboard: We’ve improved the Gamerscore Leaderboard on Xbox One and the Xbox app on Windows 10 devices. The Leaderboard now resets at the beginning of each month instead of displaying results for a 30-day rolling period, meaning you and your friends will have a clean slate to compete against one another at the start of each month! You can keep an eye on the Gamerscore Leaderboard through the Achievements tab in your profile.

– Emojis for your Xbox One virtual keyboard: Emojis will be joining your virtual keyboard on Xbox One! In addition to the existing alphabet and symbols that you can use, you’ll now be able to express your likes, dislikes and more with a host of different emojis on Xbox Live. Once on your virtual keyboard, you can get to emojis by pulling the left trigger until they show up. From there, select any emoji, or press and hold on one to see more related emoji.

This update will be available on Xbox One and the Xbox app on iOS, Android, and Windows 10 devices starting today.