The world of online gaming is a vast and growing industry. Technology allows us to sit in our capes and communicate with people from all over the world. While this type of technology is not new, the social aspects of gamers are changing.

I have fond and nostalgic memories of playing games like Halo 2 and Call of Duty and having discussions, making friends, and sharing jokes with random strangers via Xbox Live. But what happens when your teammates stop replicating? In recent years, it seems that console gamers have been limited to group chats and the lines of communication between players have been cut drastically.

Team chat has gotten so quiet that I wake up (nothing below my waist) when I hear the vaguely familiar sound of someone else’s voice while playing online. So why has everyone stopped talking? It’s simple, they haven’t.

Most of today’s console gamers are familiar with ways to communicate in a more restrictive way. Options like group chat allow players to only chat with friends, “clannies,” without having to suffer the annoyance of young children, trolls, or the demonic sound of someone blasting music through their microphone. . While features like group chat may seem like a godsend, they can diminish the cooperative ability of games.

Games like Assassin’s Creed Unity, Call of Duty, or Halo Master Chief Collection (sigh …) require an adequate amount of teamwork and cooperation from players to achieve victory. So, if you’re spending Saturday night on the couch ready to spill graphic blood and your groups of friends are out in the real world (highly overrated), you have no choice but to play with “randoms.” This is where party chat bites your ass. Those other players can be in their own group chats with their friends and you are left alone to make snide comments, orders, and even compliments (very rare) to players who are unlikely to respond.

How can this be fixed? Honestly, I’m not sure it can be. This new resignation silence seems to be a trend that has been around for the last four or five years. Despite the annoyance of your team not talking, it may be something that gamers have to grapple with until game developers find a way to regain the need for cooperation in games.