Is voice chat finally coming to League of Legends?

Luke Warr Published September 13, 2024

League of Legends is finally getting the long-awaited addition of voice chat for non-premade lobbies.

League of Legends is the biggest video game on the planet, yet despite being 15 years old, at no point has it had voice chat for members of a team that aren’t in a party. For a game as popular and old as League of Legends, this has been a significant point of community contention. The game requires strict coordination, and text chat isn’t always enough to keep up the pace. However, a leaked video on Chinese social media app Bilibili revealed that it was officially being added in the near future.

Here’s what we know about the voice chat leak in League of Legends.

When will voice chat arrive in League of Legends?

Leaks indicate that voice chat will soon come to League of Legends, but it may not arrive in regions other than China.

The video, published September 12 to Bilibili, talks about upcoming features and content for League of Legends. In it, Riot’s Chinese arm announces that voice chat will be coming to the region later this year. It is unclear at this time whether voice chat will be added to non-China regions, but it shouldn’t be assumed that it will make its way to every server. There are plenty of Chinese-exclusive aspects to League of Legends, so NA fans shouldn’t necessarily assume it’s coming to the wider game. At the same time, with preseason upcoming, nothing’s off the board.

The toxicity hurdle of LoL is one that has been acknowledged by the developer multiple times. Champion Designer Riot August, on a Twitch stream, said “Voice chat has a lot of good outputs on the game, and a lot of insanely negative outputs on the game. Please go play Valorant and watch what happens to the women on your team.” It will be an enormous decision whether or not to involve it more widely, but for now League of Legends voice chat doesn’t seem to be coming to any other regions immediately.