How to use text chat in MW3

Communication is important in almost any online game, but especially in Modern Warfare 3, where the gameplay flies just as fast as the trash talk. There’s also text chat available for you to speak your mind in the game if you don’t want to use a mic.

The text chat is relatively easy to use, and is accessible to all players. There are also settings that can be changed to resize the chat box text size, its background opacity, and message duration, in order to set up your chat experience for your personal preference.

Whether you are letting your teammate know that this is your last game or you’re furiously typing to the opposing team about how much better you are, learning how to quickly activate text chat is important in MW3.

How to open text chat in MW3 on PC

To use text chat on PC in MW3, the default key is by simply pressing the Enter key in the middle of a game. You will, however, have to check your hotkeys for these specific instructions, to ensure that they are all set up and ready for you when the game starts.

Players should see a small, semi-transparent box appear on the right-hand side of the screen, and should be able to type out whatever they’d like into the chat. However, there are also a few different channels to look out for, depending on who you are trying to communicate with.

On PC, players can press the default option of Tab to change the communication channel from three options: Team, Party, and Lobby. The first option sends out messages to the player’s current team, party only communicates to the players in their current party, and lobby is broadcast to the entire group.

How to activate text chat in MW3 on console

Using text chat on console is a bit different, since most communication is done through voice comms. But if you want to access text chat, PlayStation users can simply hold down their gamepad, or Xbox users can press the Back button to access the game channels.

Once in the game channels, you can head one tab over to the text chat, where you can enter whichever message you’d like to send to your friends, teammates, or to the match. In order to swap channels for the message, you can hit the prompted button that is featured on the bottom-right of the window.