Discord’s newest tool enables players to jump directly into a friend’s game

I spend more time in Discord than I do in Steam these days, and the social platform has introduced a new tool for game developers to better serve players like me. The company’s “Rich Presence” SDK enables game studios to hook their games into Discord to provide player status information as well as options to join or watch your friends.

Discord has always been able to tell you when your friends were in certain games, but it has then expected you to work with your fellow players to set up a party or separate multiplayer session. Rich presence streamlines that process and gives the game and Discord a way to work together to get you playing with your buddies in a much faster and simpler way. For example, if you have a standing crew hopping into Call of Duty: WWII every night, Discord now supports joining your friends matches in that military shooter.