Discord has rolled out Social SDK, a toolkit that gives developers a direct way to embed social features into their games—no Discord account required.
The SDK introduces a unified friends list, deep-linked invites, and cross-platform messaging, ensuring players stay connected whether inside or outside the game. For developers, this means higher engagement, better retention, and more organic game discovery.
Stan Vishnevskiy, Discord’s co-founder and CTO, said: “For game creators from indie to AAA, Discord is where you can connect with the world’s largest and most engaged community of players to fuel the growth of your game before, during, and after launch. Game discovery and retention have never been so critical, and we’re excited to help developers grow their games by reaching gamers where they are.”
Players can seamlessly invite friends into matches, sync in-game chats with Discord servers, and keep conversations alive across platforms, from PC to console to mobile.
For studios competing in an industry where a handful of franchises dominate playtime, Discord Social SDK provides a way to stand out. While thousands of games launch annually, many struggle for visibility. But Discord’s 200 million+ monthly active users, who collectively log 1.5 billion gaming hours each month, present a massive discovery pipeline for developers.
Several studios, including Theorycraft Games, Facepunch Studios, 1047 Games, Scopely, Mainframe Industries, Elodie Games, and Tencent Games, are already integrating the SDK.
Currently, Social SDK supports C++, Unreal Engine, and Unity, and works on Windows 11+ and macOS. Console and mobile support is coming soon.
With the competition for player attention growing fiercer, this SDK could be the edge developers need to build stickier, more connected gaming experiences—without forcing players into a new platform.
