Despite the fact that the consoles all have voice chat and that a multitude of systems can be used on PC (such as Discord), Epic Games has given this system a twist with its latest upgrade from Fortnite. And it is that the company has included in the game a new real-time video chat to create groups of friends who play together and see each other.
The solution is very interesting, and the truth is that if you play on the console you don’t even need to have a camera: all you have to do is download the chat app that Epic bought last year and is well known, Houseparty, create a chat with friends and start playing, automatically the faces of the group participants will appear in the game in a sidebar. The interesting thing is also that it only shows the face, since the app replaces everything else with a colorful background to improve the image being presented.
In addition, the Epic app makes use of the facial tracking technique to always show the face, crop the video, and adjust the image to the new vertical chat within the game, a very interesting solution that can mean a before and after in communication in video games, especially by allowing the inclusion of pure elements of livestreaming with a simple mobile and integrate it into the game.
However, the new Fortnite video chat system is not available on all platforms, since at the moment it is only compatible with PC and Sony, PS4 and PS5 consoles. In addition, although the application allows you to create a chat with up to 10 people, only 4 can be shown directly in the game, a logical step for the operation of the Fortnite playgroups.
At the moment there is no news of its arrival on other platforms such as Xbox, but it seems that they are working on it and it would come soon for users who do not play on PC or on any of the Sony consoles. The functionality is compatible with both the iOS and Android versions of Houseparty.
