Shhh, I’m trying to clutch
There’s nothing better than gaming with a group of friends, but the more people you add to a party, the more chaotic and noisy it can be. Xbox has released a feature to try and mitigate some of the extra sounds in the background, thanks to a feature called party chat noise suppression. It’s supposed to specifically help remove noises like buttons clicking on a controller and breathing, in addition to other unspecified background noise.
Here’s hoping it can block out the music my friends bump out loud while playing Call of Duty, but that feels like wishful thinking. This feature is coming exclusively to Xbox Series X/S consoles. Of course, you can also turn off noise suppression in the options menu by going to the guide, selecting Parties & Chats, then selecting Options, and finally untoggling noise suppression.
Xbox also says that while this feature is coming to Series X/S today, it’ll be rolling out to other devices soon. We’ll have to see what it turns out like in practice, but if it works well, I’m hoping PlayStation can get a similar feature soon, as it’s my console of choice.
In the blog post announcing the noise suppression release, Xbox also highlighted another new feature: a button to jump right into a game from a shared capture on mobile and PC.
Basically what this means is that when you or your friends share screenshots or gameplay clips with each other via link sharing, you will now have the option to launch the game in question at just a click of a button. Thanks to cloud gaming, you’ll be able to start playing the game right there in your browser as well.
The one caveat is that some games require Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for cloud gaming, but other than that this seems like a convenient addition.
