How To Automatically Join Team Chat in Overwatch

Team chat is ideal for coordinating your team in Overwatch. Separate from group chat and more focused on the task at hand, you can use it for shooting the breeze and for giving and receiving instructions. You won’t win without it so you may as well make friends with chat in all its forms.

Did you know you can automatically join team chat in Overwatch? You can always join team chat manually but if you play with a regular group of friends, joining automatically is one less thing you need to go before the match starts. Even if you don’t have or use a mic, listening to the channel can be both entertaining and vital for winning the match.

Auto-join team chat in Overwatch

Chat is an integral part of many online games and some teams will kick you if you don’t join the chat channel or don’t join in the conversation. While that’s a little harsh, if you’re playing competitively instead of just for fun, you need to bear that in mind.

Here’s how to automatically join team chat in Overwatch:

1. Open the game and select Options.
2. Select Sound and set Group Voice Chat to on.
3. Select Team Voice Chat and set that to Auto-Join.
4. Save your changes.

You would think this would be in the Social menu but it isn’t. Sound is a logical place for this but not the first one that springs to mind. Nevertheless, that’s how you do it.

When I played Overwatch, chat was a real mixed bag. Some days it was a toxic mess of attitude and ego while other times it was a great place to hang out. I haven’t played in a little while but am guessing it hasn’t changed all that much. What else happened when I was playing was that chat would occasionally drop out or my mic would randomly stop working.

Troubleshooting chat in Overwatch

If you’re having issues with group chat in Overwatch, I feel your pain. I would regularly have problems where the game would crash, occasionally mute at random intervals or turn off altogether. As anyone who plays the game knows, chat is essential for success.

If you’re having trouble with chat in Overwatch, try one of these fixes. I use Windows 10 so these fixes relate to that. If you use console, the same principles will likely apply but the method of achieving them will differ.

Restart/reboot

The fastest way to fix something wrong is to restart the game. If that doesn’t work, reboot your computer between matches to see if voice chat works again. If neither of those work, try one of these.

Check your headset

Most gamers will use a headset with attached mic and that is the first place to check. Make sure all connections are secure and that you didn’t dislodge it when playing. You should see it registered in Windows as the audio device so double check that.

If all looks secure, remove the headset from the device and wait for it to disappear. Then reattach it and wait for it to be registered again. Retest.

If you use a standalone mic, do the same for that and see what happens.

Check the input and output setting

If you switch between headset and speakers, make sure your headset is selected as both the playback device and recording device in Windows.

1. Right click the speaker icon in the Windows notification area.
2. Select Sounds.
3. Select the Playback tab and ensure your headset is the selected device.
4. Select the Recording tab and ensure your mic is the selected device.

If these settings look correct, use the Properties option on each tab to test. With Recording, in Properties, select the Levels tab and make sure the input volume is not set to zero.

Check Overwatch audio settings

If your device looks okay and the headset seems to be working outside of Overwatch, we should check the game settings.

1. Open Overwatch and select Options.
2. Select Sound and check what devices are selected in Voice Chat Devices.
3. Check Push to Talk settings while you’re there too.

If you made changes, test them. If everything looks okay, perhaps changing the audio drive might work. If it is only Overwatch not working, changing the driver might not do anything but it’s worth a try.

Update your audio driver

Updating your audio driver is a task of last resort. If all else has failed and your headset and mic work in other games, you can either reinstall Overwatch or change the driver. As a new driver is much smaller and faster to do than reinstalling the entire game, let’s go with that.

1. Right click the Windows Start button and select Device Manager.
2. Select your headset from Sound, video and game controllers.
3. Right click and select Update Driver.
4. Allow Windows to find a newer driver and install it.

If Windows doesn’t find a newer driver, manually find one from the manufacturer of your sound card, not your headset manufacturer. Even if it’s the same version as you have now, install it and see what happens.

If that doesn’t work, the only thing left to try is to reinstall Overwatch. That’s going to take a while which is why I left it until last!