Roblox to shut down avatar video calling service Connect
Roblox ended Connect, its avatar video calling tool, and told creators to move to Party Voice as the feature’s APIs stopped working.
Roblox shut down Connect’s calling APIs on July 15, ending its avatar-based video calling service and forcing creators to move games and social flows to Party Voice. The change affects SocialService:CanSendCallInviteAsync, SocialService:PromptPhoneBook, SocialService.PhoneBookPromptClosed, SocialService:OnCallInviteInvoked and SocialService:CallInviteStateChanged.
Roblox told developers that calling UI and other flows built on Connect would stop working, with error dialogs appearing after the shutdown. In a June 15 developer forum post, the company said Party Voice was better suited to how players use Roblox today and asked creators to update any code that still depends on the old APIs.
Connect was launched on November 14, 2023 as part of Roblox’s push into more immersive communication. The product let users call friends as their avatars, speak in a shared virtual space and, in some cases, run around together inside the call. Roblox briefly disabled the calling APIs on November 16, 2023 because of a bug, then brought them back on November 20, 2023.
The service sat at the edge of Roblox’s broader communication system, which now leans more heavily on age checks, age-based chat rules and newer Trusted Connections features for teens. Roblox Support says avatar animation with movement uses a device camera to mirror a user’s movements and facial expressions in real time, while voice chat is limited to eligible users age 13 and older who verify their age or complete facial age estimation.
That safety framework has become central to Roblox’s communication strategy as the platform scales. Roblox reported 132 million average daily active users in the first quarter of 2026 and 31 billion hours engaged, numbers that show how many players are touched by any change to chat, voice or social features.
The shutdown also drew a blunt reaction from developers. Commenters on the Roblox Developer Forum responded with skepticism, frustration and sarcasm, with some saying the feature had gone unused and others saying they would miss it. The tone suggested the end of Connect was not a surprise to everyone building on the platform, even if it marked the disappearance of one of Roblox’s more ambitious attempts to combine video, voice and avatar motion into a single social product.
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