Driving Launch Success With Discord: Lessons From Recently Released, Early Access, and Upcoming Games

With over 200 million monthly active users, it’s no wonder so many game studios are turning to Discord as their go-to community-building and communications platform. Setting up a Discord server and filling it with players puts you in control of how you engage with your audience, who also benefit by being in a space where they can socialise and engage in meaningful conversations with other people who share their interests, whether that’s sharing creator-made content or sharing feedback on your latest update.

Studios that focus on building their communities and fostering player loyalty in Discord can see a direct impact on session lengths and retention for their titles. PC players spend a median of six times longer playing when at least one friend is present on Discord, and eight times longer when at least three friends are present. As the social networks of new Discord members grow, so do their session times in your game. 

But managing and growing a Discord server isn’t easy. As your community grows, so does the volume of player messages. Monitoring player feedback becomes more challenging, and for studios with limited resources, analysing that feedback and using it to shape future updates can seem like an impossible task. Dedicated channels for player feedback and bug reporting can help, but sometimes the most valuable feedback is hidden in everyday conversations. 

Knowing how important all of this is to driving game growth, we’ve taken a deeper look at four games in different stages of their development journey to see how they’re communicating with players, how those methods of communication impact their players’ perception of the studio, and whether all of this can shape the success of a game or a new update. Analysis of all games took place 26 Feb–26 March. 

Far Far West 

• 2-4 player co-op cowboy shooter developed by Evil Raptor

• Pre-release at the time of analysis 

• 47k Discord members | 40k+ messages last 30 days (26 Feb–26 Mar) 

When we finished our analysis of Far Far West at the end of March, there were 37k members in its Discord server. That’s now jumped to 47k in just over a month as the game has hit early Access, highlighting the popularity of Discord as part of a game’s journey from pre-release to Early Access. 

When you join the Discord server, the onboarding process is fairly straightforward. new members customise which notifications they’ll receive (events, upcoming playtests, polls, dev updates) and after agreeing to the server rules, players have to read through a get-started guide that encourages them to check out the FAQs, introduce themselves, and check out the latest announcements. This onboarding process helps reduce churn by making sure players know how to communicate in the server. 

Players want to chat about bugs as well as report them

The developers share weekly updates in a dedicated dev-updates channel, and there are dedicated channels for sharing screenshots, clips and fan art alongside channels for bug fixes and feedback. Channels for feedback and ideas are structured as forum chats, but this format doesn’t lend itself well to chatty discussions, resulting in players posting feedback and ideas in the general channel. Similarly, the bugs channel only links to an external reporting template, which could be a potential barrier that limits the number of bugs being reported. 

To find out if this was a case, we analysed over 20k player messages posted during the last demo window (22 February–2 March). Nearly 25% of these messages were categorised as a ‘complaint’ or ‘issue’, with players frequently discussing bugs and technical issues in the general chat rather than using formal reporting channels. These discussions often take the form of troubleshooting requests or casual observations of "glitches." Many users seem to use the general chat as a first-line diagnostic tool to determine if an issue is a known bug or a personal technical failure. 

Using Accord, we ran a feature request report on 6000 player messages posted in the general chat in March. 9% of these messages were specific requests for features. This showcases how channels intended for general social chat are being used by players to request specific features for the game, highlighting the importance of regularly monitoring all channels rather than those dedicated to feedback. You can find some examples of suggested features below: 

• Better synergies between spellcasting elements, specifically for Cactus and Voodoo types.

• Faster XP gain for secondary weapons 

• “Wackier” projectile-based primary weapons 

• More punishing enemies for high-mobility builds

• Steam achievements and exclusive cosmetics, such as prestige horse skins 

• Standard UI colours and better accessibility options for visually impaired players

General analysis of Far Far West’s community management in Discord

The Discord server has fostered a loyal community that extends beyond the game itself. Players praise the transparency and accessibility of the development team and mods, while noting the direct interaction from the staff is far beyond what is typical for indie projects. Interestingly, there’s a strong crossover in the community with players from the Deep Rock Galactic and Ultrakill servers, presumably due to the comedic elements of the game.

Better signposting for providing feedback and bug reports could improve the quality and frequency of formal feedback provision and bug reports while alleviating some of the pressure on developers and mods to capture this feedback in general conversations. 

Road to Vostok

• Hardcore single-player survival game developed by Antti Leinonen

• Pre-release / Early Access

• 9.3k Discord members | 6k messages last 30 days (26 Feb–26 Mar)

Our analysis of the game is before Road to Vostok entered its Early Access period on April 7, when the Discord server was sitting at 9.3k members. The success of its Early Access period has led to that number nearly doubling to 17k members a month later. 

Balancing community management responsibilities with game development

As a solo developer, Antii Leinonen needs to carefully manage how much time he spends communicating with players while developing the game and promoting it – a constant balancing act that other solo developers and small studios will be all too familiar with. 

Despite that balancing act, Leinonen manages to post in-depth updates which are shared in dedicated news and teaser channels, while social updates are managed by a bot. Similar to Far Far West, channels for suggestions are structured as a forum. While difficult to proactively monitor, this format may make it easier for Leinonen to manage as he can work backwards through messages in chunks. There’s a dedicated feedback area in the Discord where players can post bug reports and suggestions. 

To make bug monitoring more efficient, the bugs channel has a set of rules that players are encouraged to read before they submit. One of these requests is that players use the ‘search’ feature to see whether their bug has already been posted, so they can add to that rather than create a new post. Responding to duplicate reports isn’t a good use of time, so encouraging players to follow simple rules such as these is a great way for solo devs and small studios to save time. 

The challenges of keeping on top of bug reports 

Even with the help of mod support, keeping up with player messages in Discord is especially challenging for small teams and solo developers. Similar to Far Far West, many players are identifying bugs and glitches in the general chat and may not be reporting them via Leinonen’s preferred methods. The fast-paced nature of the general channel will make retroactively monitoring these bug mentions difficult. 

Accord analysed 6000 messages posted in March and categorised 347 of these messages as an issue (technical errors, bugs, glitches, flaws, problems affecting gameplay or function). 88% of these messages were posted in the general channel. 

General analysis of Road to Vostok’s community management in Discord 

Leinonen’s use of bot automation and limited server channels means he still has time to provide lengthy updates and technical deep dives into game systems, which has led to him being praised by players for his transparent communication style. Bugs are addressed with notable transparency, but some players have noted that certain fixes implemented for the Early Access build, such as AI pathfinding and hardware-related performance issues, had not been migrated to the public demo at the time of analysis. 

With the game’s Discord server growing at an impressive rate, the next big challenge for Leinonen will be keeping on top of bug fixes and player feedback, and finding the time to analyse that feedback so it can be used to shape future game updates. 

Valheim 

• Viking survival and sandbox game developed by Iron Gate Studio 

• Early Access

• 158k Discord members | 33k messages last 30 days 

Valheim has spent more than five years in Early Access with Iron Gate Studio regularly pushing out patches and major content updates in the lead up to its 1.0 release later this year. The Discord server is split into dedicated sections for key information (updates, news, patch notes); media (fan art, memes); help channels (platform-specific bug discussions), and a miscellaneous section where players can share their favourite Viking metal bands for good measure. 

At the time of our analysis, the Discord server was sitting at 158k members, and that number has only grown by 1000 a month later. In comparison to games such as Far Far West and Road to Vostok, this suggests that active users in Discord grow alongside a game’s release schedule. 

Joining the server, players are asked what channels they’re interested in before being shown the server rules. In the rules, players are specifically told not to message individual developers and to report players for rule-breaking, making the moderation process smoother for the studio and Discord mods. 

Quickly identifying and actioning player feedback and bug reports

Valheim has dedicated bug discussion channels for Steam, Xbox, and Mac, where players can discuss and identify potential bugs before they send a bug report via the website. This approach should help reduce the number of duplicate bug reports coming in via the website, as players can work out if their specific bug has already been reported or not. That said, a lot of bug reporting will still take place in wider channels. 

We recently launched an Insights tool providing game studios with a comprehensive overview of trending conversation topics according to their importance and message frequency. For busy Discord servers with high message frequencies, this makes the process of monitoring and actioning feedback more efficient, especially when topics are being discussed in high-frequency channels such as general chat. 

Gathering feedback from wider conversations 

Utilising player feedback extends way beyond bug reports. Wider conversations about game mechanics and specific features provide you with valuable data on how players feel about your game. These conversations can provide practical advice that can be actioned to build better experiences for other players. You should welcome these conversations rather than discourage them, especially as they can provide less-vocal players with an opportunity to share their thoughts on topics they might not have vocalised otherwise. 

To get a better idea of what these conversations are and how they can be actioned, let’s take a look at what our Insights tool picked up from Valheim’s Discord server between March 23–27. 

• Nearly 50 messages in a conversation about the difficulty of combat encounters in the Ashlands biome, with casual players feeling punished because of frequent deaths, portals breaking, and extended gear recovery times.

• Nearly 40 messages in a conversation about encounters with enemy Golems being “boring”. This is attributed to their high appearance rates, slow counter-weapon DPS, and significant knockback.

• Nearly 20 messages in a conversation about the 5% stat loss upon death being too harsh, especially for higher-level players. 

General analysis of Valheim’s community management in Discord

After analysing 3000 messages in March relating to studio updates and community management, players generally perceive the Discord server as being well-managed. They praise the hands-on approach to technical support and quick bug reporting, but less-experienced players feel their frustrations aren’t being addressed regarding certain difficulty spikes in the game. 

With over 150k players in the Discord, Iron Gate Studio would benefit from monitoring player discussions in general chat channels. While the presence of dedicated discussion channels for bugs and feedback are great places for players to converse, we regularly see conversations about bugs and feedback taking place outside of dedicated channels. 

Crimson Desert 

• Korean MMORPG released March 19, 2026 

• Recently released 

• 40k Discord members | 481k messages sent last 30 days 

Crimson Desert has been one of the most divisive game releases of the year, but despite its rocky launch, this MMORPG has found a large following of dedicated players who can’t stop playing and talking about the game. At the time of our analysis at the end of March, there were 40k players in the Discord server but a phenomenal 481k messages posted (26 Feb–26 Mar), working out at an average of 12 messages per player every day. An extra 6000 members have joined in the last month. 

After surpassing four million sales in just two weeks, the ongoing conversations around the game’s difficulty and lack of handholding continue to entice new players seeking a challenging game. But with so much to see and do in Crimson Desert and so little handholding, there’s no shortage of player questions, which explains the high volume of messages in the game’s Discord. 

The dangers of unmoderated Discord channels 

There’s no hiding from the fact that Crimson Desert suffered a rocky launch, with the game’s technical performance and clunky controller settings being a major point of contention between players. The game’s development studio, Pearl Abyss, has addressed most of these issues with new updates and patches, with players praising the studio for its timely response to addressing their concerns. Four patches were released within the first week of the game’s release. 

Unfortunately, many players feel this focus on game development has been at the expense of moderating the Discord server. Analysis of over 9000 messages posted March 20–27 found feedback regarding Discord management is overwhelmingly negative. A recurring sentiment among players is that the server lacks active moderation, leading to what many describe as a "toxic" environment. Users reported frequent arguments over religion, racism, and a high volume of "beggars" asking for free game codes. While some users were eventually banned, many feel the response time is too slow and that the server needs more dedicated admins.

We explored this further by analysing 3000 messages categorised under the topic of ‘Community’, and two of the top three complaints related to a lack of moderation. 

General analysis of Crimson Desert’s community management in Discord

It’s worth highlighting that the messages we analysed were in English, and these moderation issues, while severe, could be bigger than the studio realises, as there are more than 10 different channels for non-English language support. Creating localised channels is a great way for players who don’t speak English to socialise and build communities around your game, but they need active moderation with someone who speaks that language. The developers of Valheim have said this is why they don’t have non-English Discord channels when asked by their players. 

Pearl Abyss needs to establish a mod presence within the Discord to build a positive community around their game. In the absence of moderation in the Discord, players are doing what they can to foster a positive environment by supporting each other with guides and advice, but conversations can be and are being derailed by the presence of trolls. 

How to Build Stronger Communities That Positively Impact Performance 

Developers who focus on building positive communities in Discord by transparently communicating updates and acknowledging feedback improve the chances of players sticking around. Players are often drawn to new games because of social circles; if those social circles existed within Discord but eventually disbanded, there’s a high likelihood that this will cause in-game churn as players follow their friends. 

We also know from our own research that your loudest Discord members are likely to leave reviews. 200 positive reviews on Steam for Crimson Desert used the same username in Discord and had posted more than 10 messages in the server. Studios that focus on building positive communities in Discord and engage with players will see that effort reciprocated in future reviews. 

Here’s a general overview of other tips that can help you build better communities in Discord: 

Do 

• Provide clear onboarding instructions for new members. Let them choose what channels and notifications they want to see but don’t overwhelm them with information. 

• Ensure they’ve agreed to the rules and familiarised themselves with key information such as FAQs, by providing a completion checklist in onboarding instructions. 

• Provide discussion channels for bug reports and feedback requests to encourage conversations that you can use for data. 

• Make sure you communicate with your members at least once a week by providing updates on development milestones or wider community plans and events. 

• Make sure you’ve got proper moderation in place to enforce rules and support new members looking for advice. A dedicated ‘help’ or ‘questions’ channel will encourage more passionate and vocal members to support others. 

• Don’t create channels for the sake of it. Make sure you’ve got the resources within the studio to actively engage with players. Don’t create a Discord server if you don’t. 

• There’s never a ‘perfect’ time to create a Discord server, but creating one once your game has been revealed gives you a head start on building a community. Just make sure you’re regularly communicating with them. 

Don’t 

• Create a Discord and think you can manage it solely through bot automation. Members want to know you’re listening to and engaging with them. 

• Do use bots for specific channels that can be automated, where you’re sharing updates from other platforms. 

• Create a Discord server without a clear plan or rules in place. 

• Definitely don’t create a Discord without agreeing on whose responsibility it is within the studio to manage it and communicate with members. 

• Forget about Discord if people responsible for managing it leave your studio. Then it becomes your responsibility. There are too many examples of social/community managers being let go from a game studio and Discord servers being abandoned. This will cause player churn. 

• Create a Discord server without having a pipeline to capture and action feedback. The same goes for bug reports. Automation tools can help here, especially for time-strapped studios. 

  
  

Community Wins 

• Epic Games has started offering refunds to players who had previously purchased in-game items based on the US singer D4VD, who has been charged with first-degree murder. 

• Sandfall Interactive celebrated the first year anniversary of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 with a free update adding new hairstyles for characters. 

• Players can’t get enough of Crimson Desert, which shows no signs of slowing down on Steam despite being a single-player game. 

Community Woes 

• A huge balance update just hit ARC Raiders and it goes to show you can’t please everyone, as a large portion of the community is complaining about weapon nerfs. 

• PlayStation fans are calling Sony’s 30-day online DRM check-in for its games “a disgrace”. This new update means players will have to keep their consoles online every 30 days or they won’t be able to play digitally downloaded games. 

• Blizzard has issued a formal apology after the latest update for World of Warcraft contained too many bugs.