Key Takeaways
- Proximity chat enhances gameplay in multiplayer titles by creating tension and enhancing communication.
- Content Warning, Lethal Company, & Hunt: Showdown 1896 utilizes proximity chat to create immersive experiences.
- Proximity chat is essential in survival games like Rust and DayZ to strategize and communicate effectively.
Proximity chat in video games has been around for many years, but it really started to become a trend in the 2010s and 2020s. This feature only allows you to chat with those closest to you—the closest physically, not emotionally.
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It can be a very useful feature to have in games, as sometimes allowing players to talk with everyone wherever they are can hurt the overall experience. For example, a horror game where everyone can always speak to each other isn’t as scary as one where you can suddenly be surrounded by silence when you separate from your friends. So, it’s a perfect feature for certain titles. It certainly works well in the following games.
8
Content Warning
- Released
-
April 1, 2024
- Developer
-
Skog, Zorro, Wilnyl, Philip, thePetHen
- Publisher(s)
-
Landfall Publishing
- Multiplayer
-
Online Co-Op
- Engine
-
Unity
- ESRB
-
t
Making videos on the internet can be lucrative as long as you get a lot of views. Therefore, some people do weird things to get those views, which is basically the premise of Content Warning. You play as a crew of wannabe influencers who live in a bright world. However, you must grab your camera and all the rest of your equipment before heading down to the dark Old World.
This place is filled with creepy creatures. You must film as much scary stuff as possible, then take your footage back up to the colorful world to upload it to the internet and rake in some views and money. Obviously, you have to be alive to accomplish that, so surviving down in the Old World is key. The inclusion of proximity chat means it’s important to stick together.
7
Rust
Some of the best open-world games allow you to build your own house to live in. In Rust, it’s more of a base you build than a house because the open world you’re living in is dangerous, so you need to keep yourself protected.
This is a multiplayer game, meaning there are plenty of other people in the world, too. Once you’re near them, you can speak with them, which can lead to making new alliances or new enemies. Even if you’re friendly with everyone, wildbeats or hunger can still take you out. So, you must keep scavaging for food, drink, and weapons.
6
Phasmophobia
In Phasmophobia, you and your team have to deal with ghosts. Do not expect it to be light-hearted and comical like Ghostbusters. This is much scarier, as you have to go into a creepy place that a ghost is haunting and attempt to figure out which type of ghost it is. The ghost can impact your character’s sanity and kill you.
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Communication between the team is key to survival. This is why there are two types of chat modes: local and global. With local chat, you can talk to those near you, while with global chat, you can speak to everyone. Yet, you must be careful with your yapping, as the ghost can sometimes hear you.
5
Sea Of Thieves
Sea of Thieves is an action-adventure multiplayer game where everyone gets to control a pirate and sail the seas, which functions as an open world. Exploration is the main point of the game, but there is some fighting, too, both on land and at sea. While on the ship, you need to keep the vessel in tip-top shape as well as drive the thing and scout what’s ahead.
Thankfully, you don’t have to rely on proximity chat for your crew, as that could be troublesome since communication is important when manning a ship. Proximity chat gets involved when you meet another pirate or crew of pirates. This allows you to talk to them without also talking to everyone else on the server who may be nowhere near you.
4
Hell Let Loose
Hell Let Loose is a tactical first-person shooter that attempts to be more realistic than the average shooter. So, don’t expect rocket jumps and super speed in this game. Instead, expect fairly accurate re-creations of famous World War 2 battles.
Of course, the re-creation only stretches to the equipment you use and what places look like. The actual result of these virtual battles depends on the players playing. And there are a lot of them playing since some modes pit two teams of 50 troops against each other. This is why proximity chat exists, as it allows you to communicate and strategize with teammates nearby without informing the rest of your giant team that may be on the other side of the battlefield.
3
Lethal Company
- Released
-
October 23, 2023
- Developer(s)
-
Zeekerss
- Publisher(s)
-
Zeekerss
- Multiplayer
-
Online Multiplayer
- Engine
-
Unity
- ESRB
-
t
You’ve got a job in Lethal Company, as you must go to abandoned moons to find and pick up scrap for your employers. In this game, the term ‘pick up’ is very literal, as the pieces of scrap don’t just go into an endless inventory. You actually have to pick things up and carry them back to your ship. You’ve got a specific quota to hit in a designated time. Therefore, you have to work fairly quickly. This is made trickier by the fact there are deadly creatures and other hazards in your way.
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Communication and teamwork are important to succeeding, and proximity chat helps with those things. The chat is particularly cool in this game because players’ voices are impacted by their surroundings. For example, if your buddy is drowning, their words will sound very muffled. It doesn’t completely change the game, but it’s a nice feature.
2
DayZ
DayZ is a multiplayer survival game where you’re placed in a world that has been devastated by a mysterious plague. Therefore, you can’t go to the local shop to pick up some snacks. You have to scavenge for supplies, including things like food and weapons.
There are infected creatures around that you must avoid getting killed by. Those aren’t the only dangers in this world, though. Other players can also be dangerous, but they may be helpful, too. To help suss this out, you can talk to them using the game’s proximity chat system.
1
Hunt: Showdown 1896
You play as a bounty hunter in the extraction FPS known as Hunt: Showdown 1896. You hunt all sorts of dangerous targets, and you have a range of weapons to use to take them down.
Yet, the actual targets aren’t the only thing you have to worry about. After all, you and your crew of bounty hunters are never the only ones on a hunt. There are other players after the same bounty as you. Therefore, you must fight them as well as the target. Proximity chat allows you to speak to either your allies or other bounty hunter teams. In theory, you could use this to create an uneasy alliance with other crews to help against the target, or you could attempt to trick them.
