House House patches Big Walk's quiet voices, keeps the falloff

House House has released a patch for Big Walk addressing complaints that its proximity voice chat was too quiet, while explicitly declining to change the range over which voices carry. The studio told players the fix targets microphone setups that were coming through below the intended level, PC Gamer reports.

The distinction matters because distance is the puzzle. Big Walk’s central source of friction is the difficulty of communicating across space: voices do not travel far, so players coordinate with radios, written notes, signs and arm signals to explore and solve puzzles together. A patch that simply extended voice range would have removed the problem the game is built around.

According to the studio, the game "now does a much better job of bringing players with quiet microphone setups up to the intended volume". The change makes quiet voices louder across the board, so a player will be louder both up close and at a medium distance, and House House expects the difference to be most noticeable to anyone who was affected by the original issue.

What has not changed

The patch does not increase the distance at which voices drop off, and it does not add separate sliders for voice and background audio. House House was direct about why.

The studio has not ruled out further adjustments if feedback warrants them, but described this patch as the single most important fix regarding voice volume and said it intends to take its time deciding whether anything else is needed. It cited the size of the team as the reason for moving one step at a time.

Big Walk launched to strong early reception, and the voice-volume thread has been among the more visible pieces of player feedback since. The patch is a narrow answer to it: louder where the setup was the problem, unchanged where the design was the point.