Riot is pulling voice chat from League of Legends 26.20

League of Legends players might have been rejoicing after Riot Games said that team voice chat was finally coming to the popular MOBA. Turns out the party was short-lived. A mere two weeks after the announcement that the feature was coming to select regions in October's 26.20 patch, Riot's dev team posted on social media that the addition of voice chat has been delayed. And, sadly for the LoL players who have already waited 17 years for the option, there's no revised timeline for when it will be arriving in-game. The studio didn't give a reason for the delay, only stating that it is "to meet the quality bar" its community deserves.

Hey everyone, wanted to get this out separate from today's Patch Notes. We announced Team Voice as coming to NA/OCE in Patch 26.20, but made the call to push it to meet the quality bar you deserve. No new target patch to share yet, but we're making this a priority to get right.

It's possible the reversal was the due to issues around moderation. LoL is a game famed for toxic in-game behavior, although Riot has been working to address that reputation in recent years. It's possible that the company's initial approach to making voice chat not a complete trash fire, like requiring a minimum Honor level to prove a history of good in-game behavior, weren't working as intended. It could also be that the "voice skin" concept, allowing players to change how they sound to their teammates, was causing issues. It may be disappointing to have the long-requested feature promised and then snatched away, but at least Riot is still working on an implementation.