Those big, snowy Star Wars battles this winter might be quieter than you’d expected.
Star Wars: Battlefront, one of this year’s biggest game releases, won’t have a voice chat system built in. That means that players on its range of multiplayer modes won’t be able to communicate without using a third-party chat solution on PC or the party systems on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
Publisher Electronic Arts confirmed via Twitter that Battlefront has no dedicated voice chat system. But while alternative solutions exist — including the chat system on Origin, Electronic Arts’ own PC gaming platform — they will only really work for parties of players that are already together, and it’s going to prove hard to coordinate with strangers in the game, making for a potentially frustrating experience. What’s more, Battlefront has no traditional single-player mode, making a cohesive multiplayer experience all the more important.
@RaiderGaming15 You can choose your favorite third party software to communicate with friends on PC
— EA Star Wars (@EAStarWars) October 13, 2015
@The_RJ006 Star Wars Battlefront will utilize the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One built-in party system for in-game chat.
— EA Star Wars (@EAStarWars) October 14, 2015
Battlefront developer Dice has previously struggled to get everything working on release with its first-person shooters. Voice chat for the PlayStation 3 version of Battlefield 3, for example, took nearly four months before it was fully operational. And Battlefield 4 still had significant problems six months after its October 2013 release.
Nine million players joined the recent open beta test for Battlefront, and expectations are high for the big-name release. So it’s possible that voice chat is missing from Battlefront just so that Dice can concentrate on getting everything else right for its November 17 launch.