Hello, Friend Requests; we haven't seen you on the Xbox since the Xbox 360, more than a decade since the feature shifted to more of a social media experience.
This week, friend requests will return to Xbox Series X and Series S consoles and PC-based gamers (h/t IGN). The feature will go out to Xbox Insiders first and be available for any who have joined the Windows PC Gaming preview or those on handheld gaming devices like the Asus ROG Ally X.
According to a post on Xbox.com, if you fit those categories, you can "easily send, accept, or delete friend requests." Now, friends are a "two-way, invite-approved relationship." You can still follow someone, which remains a one-way connection, allowing you to stay updated with players, clubs or games. This means that they don't necessarily have to follow you back.
Based on comments we've seen from others on X and Reddit, people are pretty confused about this, with the consensus seeming to be that most people didn't realize the feature had even gone away or how it changed to the current system.
Basically, right now, adding someone to your "friend" list makes you a follower until they add you to your friend list. Unfortunately, for some reason, Xbox doesn't send you a notification when this happens. I speculate this is to stop people with many followers from being inundated with notifications or abuse. However, this means that the rest of us don't always know who is or isn't a friend on the system.
When friend requests disappeared, it removed a dedicated tab in our social feed on Xbox that showed friend requests. Simply put, Xbox brought that tab back under the People tab in the UI.
For those who paid attention, there have been calls for some Xbox to bring the feature back, but those requests were ignored until now.
In the Xbox post, the company says that existing friends and followers will automatically update with the change. If someone isn't currently on your friend list, you can send them a request via the People tab.
According to Xbox, new privacy and notification settings are being implemented to manage friend requests. The post noted, "You can manage who can send you friend requests, or follow your account, directly from your Xbox console by navigating to Settings > Account > Privacy & online safety > Xbox privacy, then select View details & customize > Friends, followers & clubs to customize your settings. You can also update your notification preferences on Xbox consoles from Settings > Preferences > Notifications."
If you aren't an Xbox Insider, why not look at some of the best Xbox Series X games you can play now.
