Steam users will soon finally be able to have voice chat on the platform, as Valve have introduced the feature in Steam's client beta. It remains to be seen whether it will gain traction, due to Discord's massive popularity as of late.
Steam is a host to many competitive team based games such as CS:GO, PUBG, Dota 2, Paladins and Realm Royale. Each of these games requires communication and since typing is too slow, players had to rely on third party voice communication tools such as Teamspeak and Discord.
Valve apparently got the memo, and they are now introducing Steam Chat which will add voice chat and expand the chat options of the previous system. The feature was a popular request for a while now, and people at Valve have finally obliged, although it may be somewhat late. Still, better late than never, right?
Anyway, the new Steam Chat is available only if you tick the Steam client Beta box in your settings, so it's obviously not finished yet and requires more testing. The regular chat will be improved as users will now be able to add some friends to the "favourites" list, group chats will be available for either hand-picked friends or you can opt to let Steam group them by the game they're playing.
New status messages will now not only show which games your friends are playing, but also what exactly they are doing in it. For example, Steam Chat will note if your friends are in main menu or on a specific map or game mode. While this is great for avoiding sending messages that would distract your friends in potential mid-game clutch moments, it's also the perfect tool for stalking them. But seriously, just use Facebook for the latter.
Steam will also now show which friends are in a party together so Lord Gaben can drink your tears when you realise you were left behind. On the other hand, you can drown your sorrows in memes. In fact, you will be able to send them to your friends in several formats - pictures, gifs and even videos.
Valve
Steam Chat will also be encrypted so your IP address will be hidden when using voice chat which will prevent network attacks according to Valve. It will also apparently have "clear, crisp quality" voice transmission. You can read more info and see the service in action on .
