Discord is getting a new feature that puts your group chat in a living room

Discord is testing a new voice chat feature that shows your avatars sitting around in a cozy living room while you talk to your friends.

Discord is the go-to app for many players who want to chat with their friends while they game, and in the last year or so, it’s started to expand its features. The platform recently added spatial audio, after upgrading Discord Nitro and adding end-to-end encryption.

Now, they’re working on a new feature that brings a little more life to voice chats by making it seem like you’re actually gathered in the same room.

Discord testing Living Room feature that lets you see your voice chat

As shared by Discord Previews on X, the new “Living Room layout” is an optional way of viewing your voice calls. Instead of just seeing a grid of each member, your avatars will be displayed in a room, with each person being assigned a seat.

These seats are pre-decided, but you can freely swap seats if you’d prefer to sit elsewhere. Discord Previews also found references to “statuses” that let everyone else in the chat know what you’re up to, but these haven’t been implemented yet.

Apparently, this Living Room feature doesn’t currently use spatial audio, meaning the direction of your friends’ voices won’t change based on where you’re sitting.

However, over on Reddit, Discord Product Manager Sharon Coone teased that spatial audio could come to the Living Room feature, writing, “Maybe they will combine maybe they will not.”

She also reassured fans that this kind of change to voice chats won’t come at the cost of quality, adding: “Not hurting performance is absolutely top of mind for us.”

Little else is known about the feature just yet, so it’s unclear how much customization there will be when it comes to the backgrounds. It’s also still being tested, so there’s no word yet on if or when it will roll out to all users.