Well, it’s finally here for all the shout-outs for PlayStation 5 owners: Discord voice chat, making multiplayer sessions super smooth. Gone are those days when you had to pick up a phone while talking to your friends through the headset, pulling your ears because your buddy wanted to talk in-game. Finally, Sony and Discord work out the integration, and that integration is as stupid easy to set up.
Ok, so what’s the fuss about? Well, if you have ever had trouble with cross-platform coordination while playing with friends (cross-play lobby, we’re glaring at you), then you should know the suffering that it entails. PlayStation’s built-in party chat works great… when everyone is on PS5. Otherwise, add a PC or Xbox player, and it quickly goes back to Dark Age alternatives like speakerphone or heaven forbid, writing. And this is exactly where Discord swoops in as the hero.
Here is a little breakdown of what the procedure includes:
Go to Discord on either the phone or computer and link your PSN with account. Then go to User Settings on the left side bar > Connections > PlayStation Network and log in to your PSN deets to do the linking. That’s it, connectivity established.
Then start up that PS5. Go to Settings > Users and Accounts > Linked Services, and there should be Discord listed. Confirm the link, and then you should be good to go. Now while you are in a Discord voice channel on your phone or PC, simply hit the Join on PlayStation button in Discord and pass the call over to your PS5. Bye-bye wires, and bye-bye weirdness.
Oh, but then again, there is the one thing that doesn’t work with it. Currently, you cannot initiate a Discord call off the PS5; you need to start it from another device first, then move over to the PS5. It’ll be a tad bit clunky, but it’s a start, I guess. They’re probably working on their native app for PlayStation, but until then, this is all we’ve got.
That is why? Because it is Discord, and anything related to gaming goes: the sound was clear, the time delay minimal, and the servers do not just suddenly, like PSN parties do at times, go down. Basically, quietness suppression, custom key-shortcuts, and enough said about all those who are most serious squads.
Finally, it has been quite a long wait for the integration. The couple announced their partnership in 2021, but it seems that it took way too long for a feature to show up finally. Better late than never. Now it just would be good if Xbox got its act in gear and made it so we didn’t have to use that crappy Xbox app to run Discord.
Either way, one thing is sure to brighten the day for PS5 players. Raids in Destiny 2, sweating it in Fortnite, or just hanging out in a private call, Discord’s calls destroy in-PlayStation chat at any given time. And now that cross-play is becoming the order of the day, so free-flowing communication needs prominence.
Connect those, and never again shout into a phone speaker. Your teammates will thank you.
