Fortunately it is easy to mute a PS5 controller mic, even if not everyone does and if you want some peace and quiet, here’s how to mute PS5 voice chat and stop everyone talking. 

Whenever this happens in an online multiplayer PS5 games, you’re going to be scrambling to mute the full lobby so you can game in peace. The question is, how do you do that? This guide has all the details on how to mute players on PS5, along with turning off voice chat completely so you can play Destruction AllStars – and other online games – without interruptions.

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1. Press the PS button on your controller
2. Press up on the d-pad to go to the first activity card
3. Press square to mute everyone

It genuinely is that simple. Unfortunately, you need to do it every time you enter a new lobby. It’s only a few button presses though and thanks to the PS5’s much faster UI compared to the PS4, it doesn’t take long to do at all.

How to turn off the PS5 controller speaker

Alternatively, if you want to fix the solution and never have to worry about it again, you can follow this method. The downside is that this disables the speaker on your controller entirely, so you won’t be able to enter party chat with friends, which means it’s only viable if you use another platform like Discord to communicate, or you only ever play solo. It also means other games that utilise the DualSense speaker for things other than voice chat won’t provide that effect.

1. Press the PS button on your controller
2. Scroll to the right until you find the Sound option
3. Press cross and bring the slider for the controller speaker all the way to the left

As long as you mute your own mic then you won’t be broadcasting either, eliminating all voice chat. Just make sure you turn the volume back up if you enter a party with friends.

The post How to disable voice chat on PS5 appeared first on Game News.

The news comes by way of the tweet just below, which yesterday on December 16 noticed that a Lucid Games employee’s LinkedIn profile had been updated with new info. The profile of the employee, who is a Technical Designer at the studio, has been updated to show that they’ve been working on an “unannounced first-party flagship AAA IP for the PlayStation 5.”

Lucid Games is working on an unannounced First-Party Flagship AAA IP for the PlayStation 5. pic.twitter.com/XgNzfFOxeoDecember 16, 2021

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If you’re unfamiliar with Lucid Games, the U.K.-based studio was founded roughly a decade ago after the collapse of Bizarre Creations. The studio would go on to work on Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions in 2014, Switchblade in 2018, and most recently Destruction AllStars, a PS5 exclusive which blended destructive action with fast-paced racing.

What’s interesting about the new info from the employee is the recent rumor linking Lucid Games to Twisted Metal. Back in September 2021, a report claimed that Sony was reviving the Twisted Metal series for a comeback, and had handed development duties down to Lucid Games, after their work on Destruction AllStars as a PS5 exclusive.

Right now, of course, none of this information has been confirmed or denied by either Sony or Lucid Games. It does appear the Twisted Metal series is gearing up for a big comeback elsewhere within Sony though, as a TV series based on the chaotic racing game was announced earlier this year, and has already snapped up Anthony Mackie in the leading role. Whether this leads to a reboot of the game at the Destruction AllStars developer, we’ll have to wait and see.

Check out our upcoming PS5 games guide for a full look at all the titles confirmed for Sony’s new-gen console.

The post Destruction AllStars dev making a “flagship” new PS5 game appeared first on Game News.

No matter your experience or familiarity with the vehicular combat genre, Destruction AllStars is a good time with enough room around it to gather some momentum. The core experience sees you and 15 other all-star drivers with a particular affinity for destruction jump into an arena and jostle for victory from behind the wheel of vehicles built to be driven fast and furiously. If your car gets wrecked beyond repair, leap out of your seat and go hunting for another – replacements are scattered around the map liberally, although forcing other racers from their cages is always a viable option too. Destruction AllStars is chaotic, and you’ll easily find comfort in its carnage, but that isn’t to say the first PS5 exclusive of 2021 isn’t without its problems. 

The value of atmosphere

Destruction AllStars has a certain energy to its presentation. It arrives with a charismatic cast of 16 diverse drivers, each of which arrive into the Global Destruction Federation Championship with a signature vehicle to help turn the tide of destruction in their favor, a special ‘Breaker’ ability that improves their utility while running around on the ground, and a distinct style that can be altered with both earned in-game and real-world currencies. If you’re feeling generous, you could say that the characters have Big Overwatch Vibes; if you’re feeling less so, you could probably point to Bleeding Edge or Battleborn, two live-service games that arrived and died in the last generation cycle, despite being imbued with a similar air of chaos to their core aesthetic designs. 

There’s a buoyancy to Destruction AllStars. It does a good job of drawing anybody that’s willing to commit to the 30GB download through PS Plus into a “global sporting entertainment event where stars and cars collide” – as Sony XDev Europe’s senior producer John McLaughlin pitched it to me. The different vehicle types handle well, signature cars introduce an element of emergent nonsense, and moment-to-moment action moves expeditiously enough that you are rarely left without anything to do, regardless of whether you’re burning rubber or gracefully leaping over speeding chassis.  

It’s surprising then, that Destruction AllStars fails to take that presentational flair that you see in its title screen and character customization menus and transfer it into its arenas. As fun as the game is – wrecking vehicles in a multiplayer setting is undoubtedly a good time, particularly when it’s running at what appears to be dynamic 4K with HDR at mostly-stable 60 frames-per-second – the energy in its four key arenas is undeniably flat. 

I think this is largely down to the lack of music once you’re in-game. The momentum apparent in the play isn’t reflected in your surroundings; the crowd is largely silent, the commentators rarely make a peep in two of the game modes, and the lack of high-tempo audio leaves Destruction AllStars feeling weirdly unenergetic. It creates this strange dichotomy, where the appeal of the action feels like it is locked wheel-to-wheel with your attention span, and the only thing that’s winning out in this race is a creeping, undeserved sense of boredom.

It’s true that competitive games rarely feature music, but Destruction AllStars doesn’t require precision input and full spatial awareness to function as intended – like, say, Rocket League, Fortnite, or Overwatch. It’s an arcade racer where destruction reigns supreme; you win games by settling into its rhythm, looking for opportunities to wreck the opponents in front of you while hoping that you won’t get broadsided in the process. It’s also true that this isn’t a problem unique to Destruction AllStars; as I recall, Bleeding Edge was met with similar criticism in its first beta and Ninja Theory subsequently worked to find a better balance between environmental audio and a slamming OST for the final release. 

The result of this means that I’m reaching to Spotify to soundtrack my time with Destruction AllStars at an alarming frequency. I’ve got a number of raucous playlists that have served me well on long road-trips and late-night deadlines that are getting the job done once again – and a special shoutout goes to L7’s Bricks Are Heavy (opens in new tab) for providing the riffs and Sony for working smart Spotify integration into the PS5’s dashboard. Of course, this solution won’t be viable for everybody. 

Pump up the jams

Spotify premium isn’t cheap, nor should it be expected that every Destruction AllStars player has access to a subscription. There’s another problem with this inelegant solution that many like myself are having to implement, all in an effort to inject a little energy into this spectacular prime-time sport for dangerous drivers. If you find yourself turning to Spotify to bring audio into the mix, that essentially precludes you from streaming the game. Start bringing copyrighted tracks into your play sessions and you may have a situation on your hands where uploading footage to YouTube or archiving on Twitch becomes problematic. 

Destruction AllStars is a game that will live and die by the community that builds up around it. With the game available within the PS Plus subscription until April, and with Lucid planning to expand the roster and introduce new game modes in the future, there’s every chance that the game will find an audience – and to be clear, I think it absolutely deserves to. If it does, a large part of that will be because of PS5 owners becoming aware of its existence through YouTube videos and Twitch streams, that’s just the nature of visibility in the modern era. Unless Lucid is able to inject some more of its OST into rounds, or otherwise find a way to ramp up the dynamic commentary and crowd reactions, I fear that this fun and fearless slice of next-generation carnage could fail to get the traction that it deserves. 

It also doesn’t help that so much of play is dominated by mandatory voice chat, right now at least – Lucid has promised that a fix is on the way, and in the meantime this is how to disable voice chat on PS5. As it stands, the balance between game audio and conversations leaking through your DualSense controller is off-kilter and distracting, and should you find a way to turn voice chat off you’ll be met with an uncomfortable stillness. Destruction AllStars is fun, destructive, and an easy way to blow off a little steam, but without an injection of a little music and energy there’s a good chance that it’ll be left behind in the months to come. 

The post Destruction AllStars is fun, destructive, and too quiet for its own good appeared first on Game News.

Check out our guide to the four Destruction AllStars best characters so you know who to pick, and find the latest on Destruction AllStars split screen mode here.

1. Roll when you land from a high jump for a speed boost

Kicking things off is a tip that is useful from the second you take control of your character. If you press circle and roll as you hit the ground from a big jump, you’ll gain a slight speed boost. At the start of the match, this is especially useful because it means you’re more likely to win the dash to the vehicles ahead of the people who spawn near you.

2. Collect some shards on foot because the special vehicles are much better than the default spawns

At the start of the game, if you don’t win the race to a vehicle, don’t fret. Spend some time running around on foot, collecting shards and building up your vehicle meter. While you won’t be building up damage points in Mayhem or Carnado by doing this, you will earn your special vehicle much quicker, which includes your vehicle breaker and is much more powerful than the default cars that spawn around the map.

3. If someone tries to takeover your vehicle, wiggle the left stick as fast as possible to always win the battle

You’ve got a huge advantage if you’re driving the vehicle during a takeover, rather than being the one on top. All you need to do is shake the left stick as fast as you possibly can; there’s no rhythm or technique to it, just go absolutely wild. The attacker has to hit correct button presses, so nine times out of ten, your simple stick shaking should be much quicker.

4. When ramming, you can go for longer if you hold the right stick forward instead of tapping it

You know how one of the core mechanics is to ram other cars by flicking the right stick forward? What the tutorial doesn’t teach you is that you can ram for longer if you hold the right stick forward. This is especially useful if you’re using it to catch up with a car trying to escape your pursuit.

5. Use the right stick to look behind you rather than doing a U-turn

If you’re at one edge of the arena, you don’t have a clear picture of where all the enemy vehicles are and what way you need to go to get back into the action as quickly as possible. Doing a U-turn with the handbrake might be seen as the easiest way to see where you need to go, but you can just pull back on the right stick to look behind you. It’s a common control in racing games, but the tutorial makes no mention of this so it’s handy to know.

6. Dodge over incoming cars while on foot instead of jumping to get a takeover opportunity

If you see the little red icon that tells you you’re about to be roadkill, press circle to dodge instead of jumping with cross. This will perform a sweet little manouevre that allows you to hit triangle and start a takeover, which if you win, will let you either destroy or take control of the enemy car.

7. Eject from your vehicle if the health is getting too low to avoid getting annihilated

It can be tempting to adopt the mantra of being a captain who never leaves their sinking ship – or car in this case – but in Destruction AllStars, you’ll have a much tougher time if you stick to your car until it’s wrecked and you get annihilated. Instead, when you notice the triggers on the DualSense controller start chugging and your car health is low, eject and collect some crystals for your special vehicle, or hop in a new spawn.

8. Eject from basic vehicles to gain height for those hard to reach crystals

When driving along, if you spot some crystals that you wouldn’t be able to reach with a standard jump on foot, eject from your car to gain the necessary height boost. You can come back down to ground and swiftly jump straight back in your car, especially since opponents are much less likely to target an unmanned vehicle. Which brings me on to the next tip…

9. Destroy abandoned vehicles even though there’s nobody in them, because you’ll still earn points

The aim of the game is obviously to score more points than your opponents in the arena, and you can hinder their chances while boosting your own by annihilating vehicles with your foes inside. But did you know that you’ll still earn points for yourself if you target vehicles in the arena that have been abandoned? That’s right, slam into them and you’ll earn some points, despite no enemy being inside.

10. Head to open training to learn which characters have the best abilities to suit you

At the start of a match, you don’t have long to pick a character. There are 16 in total, each with two unique breaker abilities, so you’re not given enough time to pick a character on the fly. If you head to open training, you can scroll through each character and their abilities, along with testing them out in a match against bots. Find a few that work for you so you can lock them in right away in competitive matches.

11. Unless your character breaker is active, don’t bother with barges (melee attacks) on foot

Every character has a breaker that will affect their melee attacks, also known as barges, in different ways, but unless that is active, don’t bother spending time trying to punch other people on foot. For one, the movement and melee combat is so floaty and characters move so quickly, it’s incredibly hard to make them connect in the first place. Even if you do manage to land a hit, the damage it does is somewhat negligible compared to running them over.

12. When climbing over a low wall on foot, press circle to vault then cross to launch yourself higher

You’ll often find a series of three crystals above a wall that seem impossible to reach without the double jump perk from every character breaker, but there is another way to get them without using your breaker. If you press circle when you’re running at the wall, you’ll do a vault animation. Press cross as you go over the wall and instead you’ll jump into the sky, to about the same height a double jump would take you, and more than high enough to collect those hard-to-reach crystals.

13. You can raise pillars in the ground by running over them on foot

Some arenas have circular pillars in the ground, which can be raised by running across them on foot. This is especially useful if you’ve got a car on your tail trying to run you over, because if executed successfully, you can make them slam into the pillars and take serious damage.

The post Destruction AllStars tips: 13 things you need to know about the chaotic destruction derby appeared first on Game News.

GamesRadar spoke with with game director Colin Berry from Lucid Games and Sony XDev Europe’s senior producer John McLaughlin to learn more about the philosophy behind Destruction AllStars’ live-service structure. 

Avoiding pay-to-win

“There’s a ton of stuff that we want to do, and a ton of stuff that we are doing, but what’s really important for us is that we listen to the community,” McLaughlin begins. “Games as a Service games live and die by community interaction – we want to listen to the community and give the community exactly what it wants.” 

Lucid has plans in place for new game modes and characters, as well as refreshes of existing modes, but it’s also paying close attention to the reaction of players in these first few days. The initial goal, McLaughlin tells me, is to design content “that will keep people excited and keep them coming back for more”. An important aspect of this is ensuring that Destruction AllStars’ community isn’t fragmented by any of the new content, and so Lucid is taking an open approach to updates. 

“We’ve got plans for new characters and new modes, but we don’t want to put them behind the paywall. We don’t want any pay-to-win situations, and we’ve always been upfront about that,” says McLaughlin. “And anything that’s cosmetic in the game is for personal expression only, so that it doesn’t offer competitive advantage.” Berry adds: “We’ve got new characters and new modes but, obviously, we don’t want to fragment the player base online by going, ‘Oh, this player has got this character and you haven’t.’ So they are planned to be free characters and modes; we’ve got a lot of cool stuff planned for the coming weeks and months.”

Dive deep into Destruction AllStars

Inside Destruction AllStars: How Lucid Games is bringing the next generation of vehicular combat to PS5.

The reason Lucid is able to so quickly turn around new characters and modes for Destruction AllStars is because some of it is being built from content that had to be shelved during development of the core game due to time restraints. “During development, you come up with loads of weird and wonderful ideas for modes. Some of them stick more than others, and sometimes the ones that don’t stick quite so well have still got something really good in there… Games as a Service allows us to have more time to spend with stuff that we originally put to one side to concentrate on the main game,” McLaughlin tells me. 

“We’re pretty excited about some of the content we’ve got coming, but I think we’re more excited about listening to what people have to say, as well,” he continues. “It’s important that we’re able to react to the community and make them feel like they are on this journey with us. We’re at this point now where the game is ‘finished’ but it isn’t the end, like it might have been in previous generations. It’s just the start and it’s gonna be really cool to see what players think and what their feedback is.” 

As for what these new modes and characters might look like? Berry can’t say just yet… but you can tell that he really, really wants to. “We’ve got some stuff coming that… I think it’s gonna surprise some people. I’d love to talk about it, but I can’t. I can’t so I won’t say anything else… there’s going to be a couple of things that people are going to go, ‘I can not believe that they’ve done that! That’s… wow, that’s amazing!”

The post Destruction AllStars will get free characters and modes on PS5 because Lucid Games “doesnt want to fragment the playerbase” appeared first on Game News.