It’s remarkable to consider that over 16 years after its debut, a game where teamwork is as critical as League of Legends still lacks native in-game voice chat. For years, players have had to rely on external applications like Skype and later Discord to communicate during matches. Fortunately, this is about to change. Riot Games confirmed some time ago that team voice chat for LoL is in development and recently shared more insights into its progress.
In an official announcement on the game’s website, the development team clarified that they previously ‘did not incorporate team voice chat because it did not meet their standards for safety and reliability.’ The decision to implement it now is attributed to ‘significant technological advancements in detecting disruptive players.’
They also acknowledged that the League of Legends community is concerned about team voice chat potentially leading to toxic conversations and ‘nefarious interactions.’ Riot Games stated their commitment to preventing such issues, with one key measure being that players wishing to access the voice channel for team communication will need to maintain a good reputation. It’s widely known that, regrettably, some LoL players have contributed to the community’s poor reputation, and there’s hope these measures will help curb such behavior.
The current delay is due to extensive testing and iterative development of its features, according to Riot. Once the voice chat is near completion, they plan to roll out the feature gradually, launching it in one language or region at a time to refine it thoroughly before wider implementation. No definitive release dates have been announced yet.
League of Legends is a free-to-play game with in-game microtransactions, available on PC.
