How to play games over a Discord call
Option 1 - Discord for voice, the game for play
- Get everyone into the same Discord voice channel.
- Launch a crossplay game (see the picks above) and add each other via the game's in-game friend system or a party code - not the console friends list.
- Party up in-game and play. Discord handles the talking; the game handles the playing. This is the most reliable route for console groups.
Option 2 - Discord Activities and screen share
- In a voice channel, open the Activities menu (the rocket icon) to launch built-in games you can all join without installing anything - great for a quick round.
- For anything not in Activities, one person can Share Screen so the group can watch and back-seat, or take turns. This works for single-player games you want to experience together.
- Screen share is one-directional (only the sharer controls the game), so it's best for turn-taking or spectating, not true multiplayer. For real co-op, use Option 1.
Whichever route you pick, a game with genuine crossplay removes the biggest headache - see the crossplay hub for the full ranked list, and the long-distance hub for more remote-play picks.
One practical note if you play on a PC: the Discord window wants somewhere to live that is not on top of your game. Keeping the party list and the text channel visible without alt-tabbing out of a session is the main honest reason to run a second screen while gaming - it will not span the game across both monitors, but it does keep the people you are playing with in view.
If your group is all on iPhones and would rather stay on a FaceTime call than move to Discord, the equivalent setup - and the one thing FaceTime cannot do - is covered at games to play over FaceTime. And since the microphone is the part of this setup that decides whether an evening works, our headset guide for Discord covers what to check before buying one.
One hardware note, since Discord is the reason most people on this site want it: the single most useful upgrade for playing with friends is a second screen to keep the call on, so it is not covering the game. The cable and port check is at how to connect two monitors to one PC, and the microphone side is at the best headset for Discord.
Discord gets your group talking, but it cannot make a couch-only game into an online one. For that there is a separate trick - Steam’s Remote Play Together streams the host’s game and accepts the guest’s controller input, which turns a local co-op title into something two cities can share. Our guide to playing local co-op games online sets out what each platform allows and what it costs.
