Bungie makes it easier to talk to strangers in Destiny… if you want to

By Will Fulton November 14, 2014

bungie makes easier talk strangers destiny — Image used with permission by copyright holder

An upcoming patch for Destiny expands the voice chat options, opening up more ways for you to connect with your fellow Guardians through matchmaking. In addition to the Fireteam chat with your small, pre-formed party of friends and manually invited randoms that has been available since launch, soon you will also be able to opt into a Team Chat channel for matchmaking activities like Strikes and Crucible matches.

Public chat is opt-in only. Bungie emphasized the importance of consent in its philosophy on the feature. “We believe that requiring players to opt-in to chat leads to more friendly environments,” explained design lead M.E. Chung. The feature goes live as part of update 1.0.3 on November 18.

Whenever you join an activity in which voice chat is enabled, a message will pop up in the lower left corner of the screen prompting you to opt in to the channel if you want. By default you must manually opt-in to the Team Chat, but in the Settings menu you have the option to set it up such that you automatically join when playing solo, without a Fireteam.

If you decide that public chat is not for you, then it is always possible to revert back to Fireteam Chat through the same Navigation Mode menu that brought you in. The current channel is displayed in the lower-right corner and you can toggle between them with the directional buttons.

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Will Fulton is a New York-based writer and theater-maker. In 2011 he co-founded mythic theater company AntiMatter Collective…

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