Fortnite adds in-game video chat

Today’s Fortnite update adds in-game video chat, broadcast from you and your team’s cell phones. You’ll need Epic’s free Houseparty app, and for starters, it’s only available for PC, PlayStation 5, and PS4.

So how does it work? Well, after linking your Fortnite account within Houseparty, it’s all about creating a group chat and placing the phone next to you wherever you are.

This group chat, or party room in the house, exists simultaneously in the app and in Fortnite, so you can chat with friends if they are playing and you are not, or vice versa. Houseparty’s technology then finds its face and displays it in the new video chat sidebar on the Fortnite screen. See how it looks:

And while you can already broadcast yourself while playing Fortnite with friends, this option was designed especially for you to keep your friends on screen and control who’s at the video party. You can only chat with your Houseparty friends and their friends and you can block anyone you don’t like with just a few taps.

Fortnite

Fortnite has a large audience of younger players, so it’s important to note that Houseparty is designed for people over the age of 13 and is intended for video calls that specifically focus on their face.

The app’s algorithm also checks if your face is visible (twice per second, as I’ve been told) and turns the camera off to show only the digital background, in case it can’t frame it.

I asked Epic about the absence of any Xbox platforms included in the release, although there doesn’t seem to be any technical reason to leave them until later.

“Right now, it’s only available for PC and PlayStation (PS4 and PS5),” Epic added in a statement today. “We will inform everyone if we are able to support more platforms in the future.”

Today’s update is the last of the season dedicated to Fortnite Marvel, which should end later this month with an explosive live event and the arrival of the big bad Galactus.

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