How to Use Discord’s In-Game Overlay to Talk While Playing on PC

Keep your friends in-frame while you focus on your game… by using the Overlay! 

Discord’s In-Game Overlay for Windows lets you see what’s going on without ever having to alt-tab out of your current match. Join a voice channel, see who’s talkin’, participate in video calls, and stream your gameplay without having to close or minimize the game itself and missing precious moments.  

In this blog, we’ll talk about how to bring it up, how it works, and how you can customize it to your liking! 

What Can I Do With The In-Game Overlay?

Using Discord’s in-game Overlay is like putting a bunch of phone screens over your monitor to keep the important stuff in the corner of your eyes at all times — and unlike a bunch of phones taped to your screen, it won’t fall and smack your mouse hand. 

The example above shows all the widgets that are currently in the Overlay:

1. The Chat Bar is where all your main controls live. It looks just like the one you see in the desktop app, and you’ll be able to access voice and video settings, the soundboard, start a screen share and even browse Activities! 
2. The Voice Channel widget displays when you’re currently in a call, showing everyone currently in the VC. When someone talks, their name and icon get brighter! 
3. Video Tiles show someone’s video chat feed if they’ve turned their camera on. (Or their Vtuber slash PNGtuber model if they’re super-fancy.)  
4. Activity gives you a preview of how the current game you’re playing is being displayed as your current Activity status. 
5. The Screenshare is where people’s streaming feeds will pop up when they start showing off what game they’re playing! Just click View to start their stream! ‍
6. Notifications show up in their own dedicated widget, and display the same in-app notifications that you already receive in Discord, including messages, mentions and game invites.

How Do I Open The Discord Overlay to Make Changes?

The best part of the In-Game Overlay is that, unlike phone screens superglued to your monitor, you can freely move the overlay’s widgets how you’d like. 

CTRL + ` is the default Discord overlay shortcut. Press that, and you’ll be able to make changes to the Overlay’s layout to fit the type of game you play — click and drag the dotted lines around a specific widget to adjust where it’s positioned.

RTS? FPS? Hello Kitty: Island Adventure (yes, it’s good)? Make it work for you!

Can I stream my game from the Discord Overlay?

Not only YES, but with literally just ONE CLICK, you can instantly stream to the VC you’re in! In the time you’re reading this, you could’ve done it by now. 

In the Chat Bar, you’ll see a screen share button. Just click it. That’s it. You’ll instantly start streaming in whichever voice channel you’re in, and the app will automatically pick the best quality for your game’s stream. 

You can always adjust the stream’s quality using the drop-down menu next to the screen share button if you’d like to share a higher-quality stream or save some precious bandwidth for your online match.

Can I watch someone else’s stream from the Overlay?

More good news: not only YES, but you can watch MULTIPLE streams directly from the Overlay. It’s basically that funky Cross-Com view from Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter but for any game or app your friends might be streaming. (Sorry for the deep cut.) 

Any streams that start in the voice channel you’re in will be displayed where you’ve placed the “Streams” widget, and you can click to start viewing at any point. If you’d like to move where they’re displayed, just move the “Streams” widget around. 

Try playing the same online game with your friends while streaming it to each other! The Overlay helps make any game feel as if you were playing in split-screen, with your friends sitting alongside you.

The Discord Overlay isn’t showing up for me :(

If you’ve been trying to use the in-game Overlay but haven’t seen it pop up in your game, we’ll lay down some pointers to go over and make sure things work for ya. (ty ty, i’ll be here all week)

First: make sure the Overlay is enabled in User Settings. The Overlay can be toggled on a per-game bass, so double-check if the Overlay may be disabled for a particular game. You’ll find Overlay options in User Settings > Overlay. 

The Overlay only works for windowed games, so make sure you enable windowed or borderless windowed mode in the game’s video settings. (If your game doesn’t support it and you *really really* want to go the extra mile, consider checking out Borderless Gaming on GitHub.) 

While the latest version of the Overlay works on a lot more games, it’s possible that some games may not support the Overlay. If you’re absolutely certain the Overlay is already enabled and your game is set to windowed mode, try another game to see if the Overlay works in that one.

Lastly, the Overlay is only available on Windows PCs, and won’t work on macOS or Linux. In fact, there aren’t even any Overlay settings on macOS or Linux! If you don’t see the settings page, that’s why. 

Discord is at its best when it’s right beside you while playing your favorite games, and the Overlay plays a huuuge part in that! If you’ve never tried the Overlay before or turned it off ages ago, its recent update might make you turn it on for all your games from here on, whether it’s for competition or to help chill with friends better while playing something more relaxing.

You don’t have to use the overlay to stream a game or application! Check out our blog on how to stream your game from PC, and even mobile.

The Overlay is brought up using a keyboard shortcut – head here to learn just how powerful keyboard shortcuts can be.