More than 16 years after the game's release, it appears that voice chat is finally coming to League of Legends. As seen in this YouTube video by Remina, voice chat is already live in the PBE.

For now, no official release date has been announced as Riot Games continues to test out and perfect the new feature before its launch to the live version of the game.

League of Legends Voice Chat: A Game-Changing Feature?

As seen in the League of Legends client in the PBE version of the game, settings options under "Voice" will dictate how players choose to interact with the new voice chat addition. Indeed, you can even choose not to partake in team voice chat at all. 

Likewise, you can also pick between having an open mic (reacting to voice activity) or a "push to talk" option (bound to a key of your choosing).

Better Teamplay, More Toxicity?

Traditionally, voice chat has only existed in League of Legends for premade groups. For a game in which success relies so much on efficient communication and teamplay, it was high-time this feature was added to League of Legends. Or was it?

While the addition of voice chat will allow for better communication, it will undoutedly also serve as a magnifier for one of the most negative aspects of the game: toxicity.

Yes, players can opt out of using voice chat, thus sparing themselves a potential barrage of insults, or worse. That said, wouldn't choosing not to join voice chat effectively lower your team's chances of winnning by hindering communication and teamplay? In some cases, at least, this would definitely be true.

The addition of voice chat to League of Legends was bound to happen sooner or later. Now that it seems imminent, though, both Riot and the game's community will need to proceed with care.

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Featured image credit: Riot Games

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