Fallout 76 has been on the market since 2018, but for some reason, Bethesda Game Studios has always neglected to include a text-based chat in the game. There are local voice chat options, but that’s about it – which presents a considerable accessibility issue. That’s being addressed as we speak, with the game’s test server getting access to a new text-based solution.
That’s where the catch sits – it’s tied to accessibility. It’s a text-to-speech or a speech-to-text function designed to aid gamers who can’t use their voice to communicate, or those who have impaired vision.
It’s Progress
In the ‘PTS’, players are discovering the option to turn on text-to-speech and speech-to-text mechanics.
If you’re a Fallout 76 player, you might have run into a need to use text chat to communicate with other users over the years, but you’ll have been met with a brick wall as the function simply never existed. That’s set to change.
It works as you’d imagine. If you type something into the text box (accessible on PC by pressing ‘.’) you’ll hear an AI-powered voice speaking your words to anyone close enough to hear them. Similarly, any users speaking close by using traditional voice chat will have their words transcribed by AI and written into the text box.
In Fargassier’s video below, you can see that the function isn’t perfect. It doesn’t always catch what you’re saying very clearly and the AI voice isn’t the best, plus there are some concerns regarding filtering:
It’s still a step in the right direction for Bethesda Game Studios. Even if it has taken this long to implement something relatively simple, it’s an extra consideration that ticks a huge accessibility box. It’ll need some tweaking before it’s perfect, but that’s the point of the Fallout 76 PTS.
Many PC players have argued that there has been a mod live on Nexus for years that adds text chat to the game, but it’s not an ideal solution and you could run into a ToS infringement for running it.
Are you looking forward to this new feature making its way into Fallout 76? Let us know on the Insider Gaming forum.
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