Have friends who are a little over-enthusiastic when on voice comms? Fed up with being teamed with people from other countries who like to talk in a language you don’t understand? Prefer to have music in the background and use ping instead of voice? If so, this tutorial is for you as I’m going to show you how to mute your teammates in Apex Legends.
Teamplay is a core aspect of Apex Legends and the game handles it well. There are shortcomings of course but as the game has only been out a few weeks and updates are on their way, we hold out hope that they will include improvements. One think I do think Respawn got right was the team aspect of the game. I think it is one reason why it is so popular and keeps on growing.
Voice comms are always problematic when you’re dealing with pickup groups. You either get those that just want to talk, tell you their life story or scream down the mic every time they get a kill or those that say nothing but have radio on or leave the mic open in a busy household. When it works, it is awesome. When it doesn’t it’s a pain. That’s why it might be useful to know how to mute people.
Mute teammates in Apex Legends
Muting teammates should be a move of last resort but even though I have only been playing a month, I have done this many times. I love the multicultural aspect of gaming and its global appeal but I also like to be able to understand what is being said and don’t always want to know what’s going on in other parts of your house.
You have two options to mute teammates in Apex Legends. You can turn voice off altogether in the Settings menu or selectively mute teammates while in game. I’ll show you both.
To turn voice off permanently:
- Go to Settings from the main lobby screen.
- Select Audio and turn Voice Chat to 0.
There doesn’t seen to be an on/off toggle so turning the volume down is the next best thing. There is a setting to turn incoming voice chat to speech but I haven’t tried that one yet.
You can also selectively mute players in-game should you need to:
- Open your inventory while in a match.
- Select the Squad tab from the top.
- Select the speaker icon under the player to mute them.
This is an individual setting and does not notify the other player than you have muted them. You can turn this on or off as and when you need to and for each individual team. It only lasts for the match too so voice comms will be normalized in the next one.
Personally I prefer to mute when I need to as you never know when you’re going to meet a cool player or be offered some sage advice or piece of knowledge that can change your day. You can do whatever you like though.
Pros and cons of voice chat in Apex Legends
There is no doubt that voice comms in games can be a force for good but it does have downsides too.
Pros of voice comms:
Instant communication
Apex Legends is fast and frenetic at times and voice communicates faster than ping. That ping system is awesome but not always fast enough to convey enough information to your team. Voice can.
Social
The voiceovers in Apex Legends do an excellent job of making quieter games seem busy and add an atmosphere to each match but doesn’t compete with real players. If you’re teamed with friends or nice people, it’s cool to socialize during quieter periods, have a quick chat, learn something new and expand your horizons.
The cons of voice comms:
Verbal diarrhea
You often get overly social people who want to share life stories, tell you about their home town or just want someone to talk to. That’s fine up to a point but if you’re in a faster paced game and things are happening, you need voice comms for the game and not for sharing memories.
Language
Apex Legends is a global phenomenon and is all the better for it but I can only speak English and French. Team up with players in those languages and I’m fine. Team up with one of the hundreds of other languages and I am completely out of my depth. As well as not being able to understand what is being said, some languages out there really hurt my ears!
There is no doubt that voice chat can add a lot to games, including Apex Legends but there are situations, or teammates where that isn’t the case. The ability to manually mute specific players in game while allowing comms from your other teammate makes me think the guys behind Apex Legends play games as well as design them!
