Discord to Launch Native App for ARM-Based Windows PCs

Discord has started working on a native app for Windows on ARM devices. The company confirmed to The Verge that a new ARM64 client is now available for testers, though it’s still in early stages of development.

It’s been a little more than three years since Discord released a native app for Apple Silicon Macs, so it was probably time for the company to recognize the growing popularity of ARM-based Windows PCs. While Discord does work via emulation on Windows on ARM today, performance isn’t the best it could be.

If Discord is mostly known as a social app for gamers, the company has been trying to reach new audiences in recent years, such as content creators and college students. Still, the lack of a native ARM64 version underlines a bigger problem with ARM-based PCs: These devices are still not great for gaming.

While more and more developers start releasing ARM64 versions of their apps, with some of them adding new AI features on Copilot+ PCs, it’s going to be a while before game developers start to do the same. Minecraft: Bedrock Edition and World of Warcraft are some of the rare high-profile games to run natively on Windows on ARM, but other games that need to be emulated generally offer subpar performance. And even Qualcomm’s high-end Snapdragon X Elite chip can’t do miracles yet.