How to turn on proximity chat in Fortnite

✓ At a glance

• Proximity Chat is currently only available in UEFN and Fortnite Creative Islands
• You can turn it on by entering the Island Settings in Creative, selecting ‘Mode’, ‘Voice Chat’ and then turning ‘Proximity Chat’ to ‘On’
• It is likely that Proximity Chat will be added to other game modes later, but this is speculation

It’s been in other games for a long time now, but proximity chat has finally hit Fortnite with the release of the v30.40 update. Like in other games, it means you can talk with other nearby players in your games, even if they aren’t on your team, so you can have a friendly (or not so friendly, perhaps) chat with your frenemies.

So if you’re looking to give it a try and hear the wonderful voices of Fortnite players everywhere, you’re in the right place. We’ve put together a handy little guide to tell you exactly what you need to do to get proximity chat set up in your Fortnite matches.

Turning on proximity chat explained

By default, proximity chat is turned off in Fortnite, so you will have to turn it on yourself manually. We should also make it clear that, for the moment, proximity chat is only available in UEFN and Creative Maps, so there’s no way to use it in Battle Royale, Zero Build, or any other game modes.

To turn on proximity chat on Fortnite, follow these steps:

1. Load an island that has the proximity chat feature enabled (or create your own)
2. Go to your Island Settings
3. Select the ‘Mode’ tab
4. Select the ‘Voice Chat’ section to open a drop-down menu
5. Set ‘Proximity Chat’ to ‘On’
6. Apply your changes

Once that’s all done, you’ll be able to talk to and hear other players that have proximity chat enabled while you’re on the islands. You’ll be shown which players are speaking on your HUD too, so you’ll be able to see exactly who’s talking to you.

Will Battle Royale get proximity chat?

As previously mentioned, proximity chat is not currently available outside of UEFN and Creative maps, meaning it’s not available for Battle Royale. That being said, Epic Games have been keen to make it clear that proximity chat is in Early Access, and that they’re working on putting “something new and exciting in your hands as soon as the core functionality can be used effectively”.

So, while there’s no confirmation that proximity chat will be rolled out to Battle Royale and other modes eventually, we think it’s pretty likely that ones the rough edges have been smoothed out, we’ll be seeing exactly that.