Voice chat is coming to League, but only for premade parties

The latest /dev blog posted by Riot Soundwave focuses on parties (or what some know as premades). We’ve seen changes to parties come in the last couple of patches, like the ability for everyone to click “play again” to rejoin the premade lobby, but this shows off even more to come in 2018 ... including voice chat!

Yes, you read that right. In-game voice chat will be coming to League next year, but it will only be available to people in your party to avoid any unwanted toxicity.

And no, Riot is not looking at any option to expanding voice chat to people outside your premade (for now). This is an easy way to keep players in control of who they talk to, without having to experience toxicity first hand. It’s a compromise.

To answer a question that’s probably on your mind: We are currently not planning on expanding League Voice to team members outside of your premade party. Playing with friends usually makes for a safer environment than playing with strangers, and until we have better tools to help address abusive scenarios with strangers, we will not be implementing it outside of premades. We trust that between the social implications of being a jerk to your friends, being able to kick people from your party, and the capability of muting individual members, players will be equipped to deal with their ill-behaved party members.

(I mean, hey, if you really want to talk to strangers, you can always try to exchange Discord usernames in the game lobby.)

The ability to add a teammate to your party at the end of the game screen will be coming as well. An “open party” feature will also be added, where it allows you to let anyone on your friends list to jump in if they want! No more spamming invites.

These changes should be coming in 2018, so keep your eyes peeled for more quality-of-life party changes!