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Official Big Walk artwork showing characters in a wide outdoor landscape
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Voice guide · version 1.4.8

When nearby friends still sound far away.

Quiet-voice fix shipped in 1.4.8

The patch corrects the fault that made close friends sound much quieter than intended on some systems. It does not remove proximity chat: voices should still fade naturally across the island.

Before the menus

First decide whether you are hearing the design or a fault.

Test side by side.

Put two players shoulder to shoulder. Distance is supposed to soften voices; close range is the useful baseline.

Match the version.

The first two numbers of every player's version should match. Storefront rollouts can briefly leave a group on different builds.

Watch for one quiet person.

If everyone hears one friend badly, begin with that player’s microphone and platform settings. If everybody sounds wrong, begin with the listener.

What changed

The patch fixed an exaggerated drop, not the island’s acoustics.

Big Walk deliberately makes distant people quieter. Version 1.4.8 addresses the separate problem where some setups applied that effect far too strongly even at close range. A voice over the ridge may still disappear into the wind; a voice beside you should now be comfortably audible. That distinction is the centre of a useful test.

A clean test

Five checks, in the order that saves the most time.

Change one thing at a time and retest at close range. That keeps a microphone problem from turning into an evening of unrelated adjustments.

  1. How far apart are you, really?

    Big Walk uses proximity voice: distance is supposed to lower volume. Test with two players standing side by side before judging the whole system.

  2. Is the mic input reaching the game?

    Open Settings > Audio and watch for microphone activity while you speak. Rule out a muted headset, a hardware mute switch or a hold-to-talk setting.

  3. Check the platform voice settings too.

    On PS5, party and device audio routing can send voice to the TV speakers instead of your headset. On PC, confirm the right input and output devices are selected.

  4. Was someone silenced?

    Big Walk lets you silence individual players, and a silenced player stays quiet. On PS5, check Moderation Settings if a specific friend is always inaudible.

  5. Text chat still works.

    The in-game text chat has the same designed range limits as voice. If talking fails, typing can still carry the group through the communication puzzles.