Big Walk Wiki
What Is Proximity Voice Chat?
Instead of every player sounding the same regardless of position, proximity voice chat simulates real distance and space. The official feature list describes a voice system where volume changes as players move apart, voices sound different when players are separated by walls, and indoor spaces add their own acoustics.
Practically, this means you do not need to hold a separate call with your friends while you play — the game's voice chat is part of the gameplay. Splitting up means losing the ability to hear each other clearly, which is exactly the tension Big Walk wants you to manage.
How Voices Behave
- Distance: voices get quieter the farther apart players are, until they fade out entirely.
- Walls and obstacles: sound becomes muffled or dampened when physical obstacles sit between you and the speaker.
- Indoor acoustics: corridors and indoor spaces add their own echo and reverberation, which can make callouts harder to understand.
- Walkie-talkies: hand-held radios project your voice with a distinct radio crackle, making you intelligible at range — at the cost of sounding like a radio.
The practical rule: if your friend can see you, they can hear you. If they cannot see you, assume they cannot hear you — that is the moment to use a walkie-talkie or a gesture.
The Launch Voice Volume Problem and Patch 1.4.8
If you played Big Walk in its first few days and could barely hear a friend standing right next to you, that was not the proximity system working as intended. It was a genuine bug. House House acknowledged it publicly about a day after launch and shipped a fix in the game's first post-release patch.
This distinction matters because the two causes produce an almost identical symptom, and the fix for each is the opposite. If it is the bug, update the game. If it is the design, walk closer.
What happened, and when
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| August 4, 2026 | Big Walk launches on Steam, PS5 and Switch 2. |
| August 5, 2026 | House House posts a short acknowledgement on Steam, confirming that on some setups voices come through far quieter than intended even at close range, and apologising for it. |
| August 7, 2026 | Version 1.4.8 ships on Steam — the first post-release patch. Console builds follow behind it. |
What was actually broken
Big Walk was already meant to lift quiet microphone setups to a usable level on its own. For a share of players that system was not doing a good enough job, so their voice arrived far quieter than intended no matter how close they stood. Whether you were hit came down to your microphone setup, which is why some groups sailed through launch week without noticing anything while others could barely hold a conversation.
According to the patch note, the problem never surfaced in pre-release testing because none of the testers' setups happened to trigger it. It took a launch-week player base in the hundreds of thousands for the pattern to become visible.
What 1.4.8 changed
- Quiet microphones now get boosted properly. Most players come through louder both up close and at medium range, and the players who were worst affected gain the most.
- The boost takes a few seconds to settle. The adjustment calibrates while someone talks, so a player who just joined can still sound quiet for a moment. Ask them to keep talking for a few seconds before concluding anything is wrong.
- More patches are coming. House House has said 1.4.8 will not be the last one.
Turn your volume back down after updating. If you cranked your system or headset volume during launch week to hear anyone at all, that compensation is now stacked on top of the fix. Lower it before your next session.
What 1.4.8 deliberately did not change
The distance at which voices fade out is untouched, and that was a deliberate call rather than an oversight. House House describes the falloff as core to the design — in their words, you can only hear players who are close to you
. They compare that cutoff distance to a platformer's jump height: a specific tuned number that the rest of the game is built around, not a comfort setting to be loosened.
So the patch made people louder. It did not make them audible from further away. If your group's problem is that you want to coordinate across a valley, that is the walkie-talkie's job, not a settings fix. Whether additional voice options or settings arrive later is explicitly undecided.
If part of your group is still quiet
1.4.8 landed on Steam first and takes time to reach PS5 and Switch 2, so for a window after August 7 a mixed lobby could contain both patched and unpatched players. If your Steam friends sound fine but the Switch 2 player still does not, check that everyone is on the newest build available for their own platform before chasing microphone settings. Version mismatches in crossplay groups are covered in the online fix guide.
If everyone is updated and someone is still too quiet, House House has asked players to report it on the Steam forum thread. Worth knowing before you post: the studio is small and has no dedicated community manager, so they read the thread and take notes rather than replying individually.
Using Walkie-Talkies
Walkie-talkies are one of the communication tools found in the world. They let separated players stay in contact, which makes them essential for the moments when the group splits up to solve a puzzle from two sides. The trade-off is the radio crackle — expect the same charm and limitation of real radios.
Equipment like walkie-talkies is covered alongside the other tools in the communication tools guide.
Voice Chat and Crossplay
In-game voice chat works within your group regardless of platform. Whether your lobby mixes Steam, PS5 and Switch 2 players, everyone shares the same spatial voice system. There is no separate voice app required — but platform voice chat, such as a PlayStation party, sits outside the game and does not behave like the in-game proximity system. If you want the full Big Walk experience, use the in-game voice.
Tips for Clearer Communication
- Say where you are before you walk away. Once you lose sight of each other, proximity voice fades fast.
- Assign the walkie-talkie to the player most likely to split off. The person exploring ahead is the one who needs the radio.
- Use gestures as backup. A point or a wave travels regardless of voice range — combine them with callouts when the signal is bad. Gestures are covered in the tools guide.
- Remember indoor acoustics. Echo in corridors makes words muddier; slow down callouts when the group is inside.
- Stay together when the plan is unclear. If nobody can hear anybody, regrouping is usually faster than shouting.
Common Voice Chat Questions
Is there text chat in Big Walk?
The game is built around voice and gestures. Treat voice as the primary channel — there is no guarantee a text chat exists. If your group cannot use voice, rely on gestures and staying in sight.
Can I turn voice chat off or adjust it?
Check the in-game audio settings for the options available in your build. Be aware that voice options are limited by design — when asked after patch 1.4.8 whether more voice settings or features were coming, House House said it was undecided and that a small team has to take changes one at a time.
Does voice chat work with players on other platforms?
Yes. The in-game proximity voice chat is shared across the whole group regardless of platform. See the crossplay guide for platform details.
Why is everyone so quiet in Big Walk?
If people are quiet even when standing right next to you, that is the launch bug rather than the design, and it was fixed in patch 1.4.8 on August 7, 2026. Update the game on every platform in your group. If people are quiet only at a distance, that is the proximity system working as intended and no patch will change it.
Why does my friend sound muffled or far away?
Muffling through walls and fading with distance is the proximity system working as designed — close the gap or have them use a walkie-talkie. But if they sound faint at close range too, check that they are on version 1.4.8 or later, which fixed a bug affecting quiet microphone setups.
Did patch 1.4.8 increase Big Walk's voice chat range?
No. It made quiet players louder at close and medium range, but the distance at which voices fade out is unchanged and House House has said it is deliberate. For talking across real distance, use a walkie-talkie.
Voice is only half the communication picture. The communication tools guide covers walkie-talkies, megaphones, gestures and the rest of the gear, and the co-op tips put it all together for groups of every size.