As long as gaming has taken its competitive culture to the internet, one of the most common and infamous problems has been the toxicity that players can experience when communicating with other players. Many games have taken different approaches to managing the hostility among those in the community and admonishing those who are in the transgressing party. It’s no wonder that such a popular game as Overwatch would be plagued with hurtful speech in its multiplayer matches, especially given the game’s fondness for diversity and inclusion. As such, it appears that Blizzard is taking a big step in combating hostility with the with a new mute system that will block Xbox One Overwatch players with a bad reputation from communicating with the team.

Blizzard has released on their website the patch notes for the latest Overwatch update available for download this week, with one significant implementation for Xbox One players specifically. The patch notes list includes a section for Xbox Live players that mentions those downgraded to the “Avoid Me” reputation status, while still being allowed to remain in the normal matchmaking pools, will now be automatically muted and barred from communicating with other players.

There is no word on whether Blizzard plans to implement this muting metric for troublesome players on PlayStation 4 or PC, or even why this was brought only to Xbox One, but one could reasonably expect this to be a part of Blizzard’s plan to combat toxicity in its community. Still, it is good to see Blizzard trying new solutions for harassment, which will hopefully make the game’s community as fun and welcoming as the characters in the world of Overwatch are with each other. What do you guys think about this new mute system for Xbox One Overwatch players? Let us know in the comments below!

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