Killer Instinct tournaments, party overlay, and more coming to Xbox Insiders this month

Following up on some fan-inspired updates that hit Xbox Insiders in March, Microsoft has detailed a new batch of features headed to Insiders in April. This month, Insiders will be able to put the Arena system to the test with Killer Instinct tournaments, and more Insiders will be able to check out World of Tanks tournaments. Other bits to be tested include party overlays, Club tweaks, and much more.

With Killer Instinct tournaments, players will be able to create their own tournaments in their Clubs across Xbox One and Windows 10. You'll get notifications when a match is ready, and you can share the automatically generated results reports to your Activity Feed when finished. Following up on Killer Instinct, Microsoft is planning to extend tournaments to games like Halo Wars 2 and Smite in the future as well.

Here's a look at some of the other features coming to Insiders this month:

  • Share your Looking for Group post on the Activity Feed or through a message.
  • Unfollow a Club or Game Hub directly from your Activity Feed.
  • Your profile will display your Arena tournament history and upcoming tournaments.
  • For Beam and Twitch broadcasts, you will now have an option in the Guide for your Kinect to locate you automatically.
  • Captive Portal support for wireless internet is coming to Xbox One, which allows for Wi-Fi authentication through a browser. Great for colleges, hotels, or public Wi-Fi locations.
  • Filter posts on your Activity Feed on the Xbox app for iOS and Android.
  • On the Xbox app for Windows 10, we're adding the option to select the audio input and output sources for Party chat.

Lastly, Xbox Insiders will get to start testing a new party overlay. Similar to the achievement tracker, the party overlay sits atop whatever game you're playing against a transparent background. With it, you'll be able to see who in your party is speaking without having to shift to the Guide first. The overlay will only show when someone is speaking, and you can set its position and transparency manually.

Xbox Party Overlay

According to Microsoft, some of these updates will begin to roll out to Xbox Insiders for testing starting today and over the coming weeks.

Dan Thorp-Lancaster

Dan Thorp-Lancaster is the former Editor-in-Chief of Windows Central. He began working with Windows Central, Android Central, and iMore as a news writer in 2014 and is obsessed with tech of all sorts. You can follow Dan on Twitter @DthorpL and Instagram @heyitsdtl