League of Legends players will soon have a new way to communicate with their teammates. Riot Games is preparing to introduce full in-game team voice chat, almost 17 years after the massively popular MOBA originally launched.
For years, League of Legends has relied heavily on text chat, pings, and third-party applications when players wanted more direct communication. Riot already offers voice chat for pre-made parties, but the upcoming system will expand that functionality to teammates players meet through matchmaking.
Team Voice Chat Arrives With Patch 26.20
Riot Games plans to begin rolling out team voice chat with League of Legends Patch 26.20.
However, the feature won’t immediately become available worldwide. Riot is taking a gradual approach to the rollout, allowing the developer to monitor how players use the system before expanding it further.
The first regions getting access will be:
- North America
- Oceania
- South Korea
- Brazil
- Latin America
North America and Oceania will receive the feature first, while the remaining regions are expected to follow afterward.
Considering the size of the League of Legends community, a controlled rollout makes plenty of sense. Voice communication brings additional moderation challenges, especially in a competitive game where matches can quickly become heated.
There Is One Important Requirement
Not every League of Legends player will automatically receive access to team voice chat.
According to developers Paul “Pabro” Bellezza and Andre “Meddler” Van Roon, players will need to have at least Honor level 3 before they can use the new feature.
That requirement gives players another reason to maintain good standing within the community.
It could also act as an important barrier against players who repeatedly receive penalties for disruptive behavior. Instead of simply giving everyone unrestricted access to voice communication, Riot can tie the feature to positive player behavior.
Whether that will actually reduce toxicity remains to be seen.
League of Legends Players Have Wanted This for Years
Voice chat has been a surprisingly complicated subject within the League of Legends community.
Competitive games often benefit enormously from fast communication. Calling out an incoming gank, discussing an objective, preparing a team fight, or coordinating Baron Nashor can be considerably easier through voice than through typing.
The ping system already handles some of these situations, but it cannot completely replace actual conversation.
This becomes particularly noticeable when playing with random teammates.
Pre-made groups can simply jump into Discord or another voice application. Solo players don’t have that same convenience unless everyone agrees to join an external server or call.
Native team voice chat removes that extra step.
Discord Won’t Suddenly Become Useless
Of course, Discord isn’t going anywhere.
Players who regularly queue together will probably continue using their own Discord servers. Dedicated voice channels offer significantly more control and allow friends to continue talking before and after matches.
However, League’s built-in voice chat could be especially useful for solo and duo players.
It also means players won’t necessarily need another application running alongside the game. That might provide a small benefit to players using older or lower-end PCs where every bit of available memory and CPU usage can matter.
Most importantly, everyone in the match will have access to the same communication system without needing to exchange usernames or invite links.
Riot Is Making a Huge Change to League of Legends
League of Legends launched in 2009, making the arrival of proper team voice communication remarkably late in the game’s lifespan.
Yet the timing could also make this one of Riot’s most interesting communication experiments in years.
League has millions of players and an extremely competitive environment. Giving random teammates the ability to communicate directly could dramatically improve coordination, particularly in ranked matches.
At the same time, voice chat introduces an entirely different moderation challenge.
The Honor level 3 requirement suggests Riot understands that risk and doesn’t intend to simply open the microphone to everyone without restrictions.
Team Voice Chat Could Completely Change Solo Queue
The biggest impact will likely be felt in solo queue.
League of Legends frequently requires players to make decisions within seconds. Typing out an explanation simply isn’t practical when an enemy team is approaching an objective or preparing an engagement.
Voice communication could make those situations considerably easier.
A jungler could immediately announce an incoming gank. A support could warn teammates about missing enemies. Teams could coordinate objective fights without desperately throwing half a dozen pings onto the map.
After nearly 17 years, League of Legends is finally preparing to give random teammates something competitive players have requested for a very long time: the ability to simply talk to each other.
Whether that results in better teamwork or absolute chaos will become clear once Patch 26.20 arrives.
