The public Xbox One experience is about to get a little bit cooler. (No Holiday pun intended. Maybe.) The Holiday Update is going to be rolling out throughout the day for the Xbox One and the Xbox app on Windows 10, iOS, and Android devices. This update will include Clubs, Looking for Group, Achievement Rarity, Group Messaging and more! Preview members will notice that Arena is missing from this update. Unfortunately, it will remain in Preview until after the Holidays for additional polish. Now, what do these updates bring with them?
Clubs on Xbox Live will allow players to create groups for games or friends to allow easier communication about playing together. This will add a more social aspect to the Xbox experience. With Clubs, you can also use your smartphone or computer to communicate with your individual groups on the go. While you can make your own Club, you can also find and join Clubs from the Community tab on Xbox One, or even in a title’s Game Hub for specific Clubs. While you can socialize with other gamers, if only there was a certain aspect that would allow you to find a group to play with right then and there…
Looking for Group on Xbox Live will remedy this. Need help completing a raid in Destiny? How about an achievement in Forza? Maybe you’re looking for a guitarist in Rock Band 4 once multiplayer comes out next month? Xbox LFG has you covered. Put what game, game made, language, how many you need, general rules, (casual, hardcore, no trash talking, etc.) and anything specific for that game. There is also an ability to set up sessions up to seven days in advance to maximize efficiency. Clubs and LFG go together just like a beautiful technological peanut butter and jelly friendship sandwich.
These are the major updates, but there are a few more cool little additions that will be updated.
Achievements will now have rarities. When looking at achievements, you can now see what percentage of players have unlocked each achievement. If an achievement has less than a 10% completion rate, it will have a special unlock and an icon indicating you unlocked a rare achievement. If more than 10% unlock it over time, it will lose its “rare achievement” status, making sure rare achievements are actually rare.
Now you can send a group message to gamers. Conversation topics can be changed to let the group know what game you are talking about, what event you’re planning, etc. Group messaging will work for Xbox One and the Xbox app on Windows 10, iOS, and Android devices. There is also a new predictive dictionary feature so you can type messages even faster.
The gamerscore leaderboard is getting updated to have a new cycle of scoring. Instead of a rolling 30 day leaderboard, there is now a leaderboard that will reset at the start of each month. You can also check previous months’ leaderboards.
Let’s end the update with the most exciting news of all! Emojis will now be on the virtual keyboard. Stop the presses! Sound the alarms! Ground all of the planes!! Seriously though, this is a neat addition for people to communicate in a more social manner. We all knew the Xbox was missing something, the pointing emoji next to the Okay emoji. (You know this is going to be seen a lot.)
That’s the update! Are you excited to try out the new additions? Let us know down below which addition you are most excited about!
