What is Squelch Chat in Overwatch?

Overwatch is more fun when you team up with friendly players and looking to cooperate with their teammates. While games like these may fly under the radar, it’ll be hard to forget a match where you were griefed by one of your teammates until the final minute.

Though it’s easy to mute anyone who’s bothering you through the voice chat, they can still try their best to annoy you through the in-game chat. Voice lines of characters are also considered as a part of the in-game chat and you’ll continue to hear them even after muting a player.

This is where Squelch Chat comes into play. Using the Squelch Chat feature will also mute a player’s texts and voice lines. When you combine Squelch Chat and the mute function, you’ll be cutting off all means of communication from a player. They’ll still be able to hear or read your texts unless they also decide to mute and squelch you. 

Once you click on a player’s name, the Squelch Chat button should appear. If you’d like to take it one step forward, you can also block a player through the same panel, which will ignore all types of communication from them in addition to preventing them from adding you as a friend.

Blocking a player won’t prevent them from getting into a matchmade game with you, however, but they’ll still remain blocked. If you’re squelching or muting a player who’s been rather hostile to you or your other teammates, consider taking your time to report them as well. Once a player gets enough reports for communication abuse, they’ll automatically receive penalties. Repeated offenses may result in more severe penalties such as matchmaking bans.

If you happen to receive a communication ban, it can also be a decent time to reconsider how you’ve been talking to your teammates or your excessive usage chat wheel, which can get old relatively quickly.