Please bring directional proximity chat to Xbox!

[slocust 0]

I can't speak for PlayStation, but on Xbox in-game voice chat does not vary in panning or volume according to players' orientation or distance. Speech is heard in mono and at a constant volume. You can whisper, speak or shout like on PC, but these just set the distance your voice travels at full volume, if you move any further away the sound is abruptly cut off completely.

 

This kind of voice chat is frankly jarring and immersion-breaking, and I think it contributes to how many players exclusively use party chat. The benefits to party chat are obvious, basically a free walkie talkie with no range limitation and no risk of someone outside of your group eavesdropping (a risk which is GOOD for gameplay!). In-game voice chat in its current implementation offers no benefit but the chance to meet and interact with unfamiliar players (a great benefit for those who want it!).

 

Proper directional in-game chat with volume varying with proximity can offer a benefit to players that have teamed up comparable to the benefits of party chat. That benefit being knowing where each other are without looking at each other! If you get separated, you can just shout and locate each other based on where the sound is coming from! 🤯 Maybe an eavesdropper starts stalking you after hearing you're going somewhere with good loot? Maybe you and a stranger are talking to each other through a wall and you pick up on him creeping towards the door to ambush you because his voice isn't magically coming from inside of your head? The possibilities are endless, and all of them are GOOD for emergent social gameplay, something that DayZ does better than any other game ever has.

Full disclosure, I have already submitted this issue to the feedback tracker a couple weeks ago and have no intention of spamming it after this. It's just a feature that seems relatively easy to implement, and from what I've read it was already in the Xbox version previously but was reverted within a few days. And I think it has the potential to be really impactful to console players' experience in a positive way. I've played on console and on PC and this is the only thing missing from console that really makes a difference to me.

Please leave a reply if you think change should be made to Xbox in-game VOIP!