Roblox is ending Roblox Connect, the video calling feature it introduced in 2023 to let users talk through animated avatars rather than a plain camera feed.
Roblox spokesperson Angela Allison told The Verge that the company is discontinuing both the Roblox Connect feature and the developer-facing APIs tied to it. That means the shutdown affects users who opened Connect directly and developers who built against the service.
Connect worked by using a person’s real-world movement and expression to drive a Roblox avatar during a call. Users could also share a virtual space while talking, so the call was not limited to a grid of video windows. In practice, Roblox tried to make video chat look more like an in-world hangout, with avatars moving around together while the call was active.
The company’s stated reason is usage. According to Allison, Roblox users aged 13 and older mainly use the platform’s party voice chat feature for calls. Roblox is therefore cutting the separate avatar-based video calling product rather than keeping two calling systems pointed at similar social behavior.
The change narrows Roblox’s communication stack. Connect was the more visually ambitious option, because it combined video input, avatar animation, and a shared virtual environment. Party voice chat is the more conventional route: people talk while using Roblox, without the same avatar-driven video call layer.
Roblox did not frame the move as a technical failure in the statement reported by The Verge. The company pointed to where eligible users are already spending their calling time, which is usually the less glamorous explanation and often the more relevant one.
This story draws on original reporting from The Verge.
