Fortnight - how can I set it so my child can play using chat, with friends only?

[OhFlipMama]

Just that, really.

Does anyone know what I need to do?

Yes i do! Firstly go into the game itself and go to settings and turn off voice chat, this stops him chatting to random people when he joins a game etc.
And if he wants to chat to friends, tell him to join a party chat session (done completely seperate to the game) and invite his friends from his friends list into this chat session.

This is only based on Playstation but im sure its the same for xbox.

Ah, that's amazing thank you! I'm sure once I follow the instructions while I'm actually doing it, it'll make sense!

My ds plays across different platforms, one friend has a switch another an X box etc and I don't know if they can chat on the game, they just skype each other whilst playing, seems to work for them. Will see if he can do party chat though, will make it even easier.

I think this is cross platform too.

I think discord is generally used as a third party chat app, not sure if it's on consoles though ds plays on pc

My son plays on xbox on that it's called 'game chat' turn that off and have party only. He plays with his cousin on his switch and can chat to each other if in a party.