This is part of Riot's efforts to combat disruptive behavior. Riot Games, the developer behind free-to-play first-person shooter (FPS) Valorant, will start monitoring players' voice communications on July 13 (via PCGamer). The gaming company says this is to help train language mo

This is part of Riot's efforts to combat destructive behavior.

Riot Games, the developer behind the free first-person shooter (FPS) game Valorant, will start monitoring players' voice communications on July 13th (via PCGamer). The gaming company says this is to help train language models that will eventually be used when evaluating player reports across all games.

Riot originally announced the change in April 2021 after updating its privacy policy. The new terms allow Riot to "record and potentially evaluate voice data when using Riot-owned voice communication channels" with the goal of combating hate speech and harassment via voice chat. Riot said it will analyze the recordings when players report someone for abusive or offensive comments. This, in turn, should help the company determine whether reported players violated its policies and take appropriate action.

Riot has not yet begun evaluating player reports based on these recordings - it is using the information gathered to help build a beta version of the system expected to launch later this year. Currently, Riot will only evaluate dialogue from North American English-speaking Valorant players. The only way to opt out of this system is to disable voice chat entirely or use another communication tool like Discord.

"We know that before we can consider expanding this tool, we have to be confident that it works and that if errors occur, we have systems in place to ensure we can correct any false positives (or negative ones)," Riot said in its announcement pointed out.

When the system actually launches, Riot says it won't "actively monitor your live game communications" and will only "potentially listen to and review voice logs" if you are reported for disruptive behavior. It also added that it will delete this information after resolving the issue, as it does when reporting via a text-based chat system. Even so, it will certainly raise privacy concerns for some players, as will the always-on Vanguard anti-cheat system, which monitors your activity both inside and outside of Valorant.

's planned reporting system isn't the only way Valorant is trying to crack down on toxic players. Earlier this year, Riot began allowing Valorant players to add specific words or phrases to a "mute word list" to help block abusive content in chat.