Anyone who’s ever been online could have predicted this. Give people an internet connection and a microphone, and some will quickly reveal how much they suck. After yesterday’s release of the PS5-only Destruction AllStars, players almost immediately reported instances of severe verbal harassment, compounded by the bewildering absence of tools to prevent such behavior.
Role by social media, and you will see many players complaining Destructionintrusive voice chat from, which is turned on by default. Even worse, other players’ voices come through that tinny little speaker on the front of the PS5’s DualSense controller. (Yes, really.) Some players flocked to ResetEra, the popular video game forum, to share stories of racist insults, homophobia, and other instances of inexcusable, derogatory language. When judging the game for Ars TechnicaSam Machkovech reportedly heard “an alt-right podcast about the Dark Web and QAnon” broadcast about the speaker.
“It’s a really fun game and I’m sure it will be fun with younger kids,” said a ResetEra moderator wrote. “But I don’t think she’s ‘THAT YOU FUCKING BITCH!’ Shall want! or some horrible homophobia screaming from the controller speaker in their living room. “
Even worse, Destruction AllStars offers frustratingly little tools to help players avoid the shocks. As far as I know, there is no way to mute or report enemy players in the game. You can press the trackpad to display a list of everyone in each match, but there is no way to actually interact with the usernames displayed. It’s just a list. There is also no setting buried in the options that let you deactivate the voice chat wholesaler.
G / O Media can receive a commission
In other words, to keep everyone silent, you have to rely on system-level tricks. Provided you’re cool during the (toxic) party chat, here are the two easiest options at your fingertips.
Using the activity cards
As you select your character for the match, you should see a notification appear in the top right corner of your screen: “Game voice chat has started.” Once you’ve seen that, you’re ready to mute. Tap the PS button. Navigate to the “Voice Chat | Destruction AllStars”Activity card (this is probably the first one to appear) and press Square. You can also do this after the match has started, but you will likely get splashes. Just as a reminder.
Another heads-up: you have to do this every match. The PS5 will not remember you muting the previous game.
Mute your DualSense controller
Pressing the PS button will take you to your ‘control center’, a series of icons at the bottom of your screen. The control center is customizable; if you have it open, just hit the options button. Before playing, adjust your bar to include the “sound” icon. You can click on that at any time and turn your controller speaker all the way down. That makes everything nice and quiet.
Obviously, it’s not ideal that players should even fall back on system-level workarounds in the first place. It’s a bit strange that voice chat is turned on by default, and even more crazy that it comes through your controller’s speaker. But it’s just baffling that there’s no clear way to mute individual players per match, report offensive bastards in-game, or disable the voice chat altogether, which has quickly proven to be distracting, at best and in worst case derogatory. It’s 2021. Anyone who’s ever been online could have predicted this.
Kotaku contacted Lucid Games, Destructiondeveloper and Sony, the game’s publisher, to see if any of these issues are resolved in future updates to Destruction AllStars.