Xbox users will no longer be able to use their console’s Social Clubs beginning in April 2026, as Microsoft has announced it will be retiring the feature permanently. Gamers with an Xbox One, Xbox Series X, or Xbox Series S won’t be able to access the Social Clubs via Friends & Community Updates app on their Xbox consoles once this feature is removed. Currently, users are unable to create new Social Clubs in anticipation of the feature’s removal in the coming months.
Social Clubs offered Xbox users a way to connect with others over their favorite games through user-created “clubs” where they could post discussion threads, screenshots, and other media. Clubs could be created for all kinds of communities, allowing players to find like-minded players for multiplayer games or for getting help with different in-game activities. Anyone interested in experiencing Xbox’s Social Clubs one last time will need to do so before they are shut down for good in April.
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Xbox Consoles Will Be Removing the Social Clubs Feature in April 2026
According to the official Xbox FAQ page, Social Clubs will be removed as part of the company’s “focus on the social experiences players use most today.” The Social Clubs feature seems to be one of the lesser used social apps available to Xbox players, warranting Xbox to rethink its commitment to maintaining the feature in the future. No other alternative has been announced at this time, with the Xbox FAQ post going on to suggest that players use other methods of connecting with players, such as Xbox messages, Discord on Xbox, party chat, and Looking for Group.
Drag weapons to fill the grid
Drag weapons to fill the grid
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One caveat with this update is that only user-created Social Clubs seem to be on the chopping block. Official Clubs for individual games are confirmed to be sticking around so that developers can interact with their communities. These Clubs will not be found under the Friends & Community Updates app, and will instead be located under the Game Card for their particular game.
Xbox Removing Social Clubs Comes at a Poor Time
Despite the low user interaction with Xbox’s Social Club feature, its removal comes at a time when other social outlets are under fire from users. Discord recently announced changes to its age verification system coming March 2026 that would require some users to upload ID or complete a face scan in order to access certain age-restricted content, drawing heavy backlash from users. While the Xbox Social Clubs feature wouldn’t necessarily act as a replacement for Discord’s voice chat, it could have been a potential alternative to Discord for users to share artwork and screenshots related to the games they are playing. Discord has since clarified that most users would not be subject to these stricter age-verification guidelines, but some users have already begun looking for an alternative platform that Xbox could have capitalized on with Social Clubs.
Social Clubs are just the latest feature to be shut down on Xbox consoles, which has seen several other notable applications removed in recent years, including:
- Upload Studio — Ended Support in 2020
- Avatar Editor App — Ended Support in January 2025
- Movies and TV Shows for Purchase — Ended Support in July 2025
Not every retired app on Xbox consoles is gone entirely and some of these features still exist in one form or another. Xbox Original Avatars still exist in supported Xbox 360 games, and users can still access movies and TV shows purchased before support was ended for the service, but the way these features have been winding down over the past few years shows a clear new direction for the future of Xbox that aims to streamline usability by trimming some of the console’s lesser used features. Now, Social Clubs will join the list of Xbox apps that have become shells of their former selves.
