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Chat

The Chat feature allows players to communicate together in-game with text chat.

Deprecated API

As of December 2025, the Beamable Chat API described in this document is deprecated. Alternatives for real-time player communication include third-party solutions or implementing custom, game-specific chat using Beamable C# Microservices and the Beamable Notification service.

The deprecation of the Chat service is due to its reliance on PubNub, a third party service for publish/subscribe workflows including real-time communication. If your game already uses Beamable Chat, it is possible to continue using the service by using your own PubNub account in place of the deprecated Beamable PubNub integration.

PubNub Account Setup

Before proceeding, you will need to have a paid PubNub account of your own. Go to https://admin.pubnub.com/ and sign up for an account. You will need to register an App and a Keyset with PubNub, and ensure that your account is in paid production mode (Testing keys will not work with Beamable Chat).

  1. Sign up for a PubNub account at https://admin.pubnub.com/
  2. Create an App for use with Beamable Chat. You may name this as you like, possibly something like "Beamable Chat Integration".
  3. Add a Keyset to your PubNub App. Note that this keyset MUST be for the Production environment.

When you have created your Keyset, you should have a publish key and a subscribe key. Both of these will be needed by Beamable Chat, but you will not need to use the PubNub secret key.

Publish keys have a format of pub-c-<uuid> and subscribe keys have a format of sub-c-<uuid>.

Beamable Realm Configuration

There are three realm config settings that need to be added in order to use your own PubNub keys with Beamable: notification|publisher, pubnub|publishKey, and pubnub|subscribeKey.

To add realm config values, go to the Beamable Portal at https://portal.beamable.com/ and, after choosing the desired realm, use Operate > Config to navigate to Realm Config. From there, you can add or modify configuration values in the notification and pubnub namespaces. If you do not already have values in those namespaces, use the + Add Config button to add them.

  1. Go to https://portal.beamable.com/
  2. Choose the realm you want to configure
  3. Navigate to Operate > Config
  4. Use + Add Config to add three new realm configs

add config dialog

namespace key value
notification publisher pubnub
pubnub publishKey the pub-c key from your PubNub account setup
pubnub subscribeKey the sub-c key from your PubNub account setup

Legacy Chat Documentation

If you need to view the past documentation for the Beamable "Chat V2" service, you can find it in the v4.0 Beamable Unity SDK docs: Beamable v4.0 Documentation - Chat