‘Parties’ is a long awaited feature on the PC version of the Oculus platform that lets players form small groups to be able to talk to one another across VR apps. The feature is now rolling out to the Oculus Public Test Channel on PC, an opt-in test version of the software ahead of the full public rollout.
It was just earlier this week that Oculus’ Nate filled us in on the fate of Rooms and ‘Parties’ on the Rift. At the time Mitchell said that Parties—voice chat between VR apps—would be coming soon, while Rooms may or may not make its way to the Rift.
Today Oculus has announced that the Parties feature is rolling out into the Oculus Public Test channel, which the company uses as a testing ground to work out bugs ahead of a broader public update. If you want to test the feature, you can opt into the Public Test Channel by going to the Settings section of the Oculus app, then Beta, then flipping the switch for the Public Test Channel.
Parties for now supports up to four players at a time. Once you’ve downloaded the update, Oculus describes the following:
In Oculus Home or Universal Menu, you can select a friend and choose “Invite to Party.” Friends in your party can chat with you across Rift apps, or wherever you go in VR. Each party can support a total of four people at a time and each person must have the PublicTest build installed to use Parties on Rift. Access to Parties will be rolling out gradually over the next twenty-four hours, so if you don’t see it right away, be patient.
The update including Parties comes as part of the Oculus 1.17 update, which, among other things, also allows SteamVR games to be launched from within Oculus Home.
