Voice Attenuation (Proximity Chat) works in Creative Mode but fails on published islands

General Issues and Bug Reporting
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Summary

Voice Attenuation (formerly Proximity Voice Chat) does not work correctly on published islands. While the feature behaves as expected inside Creative Mode, after publishing the island voice chat becomes global, allowing all players to hear each other clearly regardless of distance. This issue started after the feature was renamed to “Voice Attenuation” and affects multiple creators.

Please select what you are reporting on:

Creative

What Type of Bug are you experiencing?

Audio

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Open an island in Creative Mode.
  2. Go to Island Settings → Voice Options → Voice Attenuation.
  3. Enable Voice Attenuation.
  4. Set Max Distance (e.g. 10 meters) and Start Attenuation Distance (e.g. 5 meters).
  5. Test voice chat in Creative Mode — attenuation works correctly.
  6. Publish the island.
  7. Enter the published version of the same island.
  8. Test voice chat again and notice that all players can hear each other regardless of distance.

Expected Result

When Voice Attenuation is enabled, players should only hear others within the configured distance. Voices should gradually become quieter as distance increases and be completely inaudible beyond the maximum range, both in Creative Mode and in the published island.

Observed Result

After publishing the island, Voice Attenuation stops working. Voice chat behaves like global chat: players can hear each other clearly from anywhere on the map, with no distance-based attenuation. In rare cases (approximately 1 out of 50 matches), the feature works correctly, but without any changes to the island.

Platform(s)

PC (Windows 11).
Issue affects all platforms (PC and console) when playing the published version of the island.

Island Code

9653-9433-1421

Additional Notes

  • The issue does not appear to be related to logs or local configuration.

  • Voice Attenuation works consistently before publishing but fails almost always after publishing.

  • The same published island can behave differently in separate matches without any updates.

  • Example:

    • Match where Voice Attenuation worked correctly: Tuesday, December 9, started around 11:30 PM (Spanish time, CET) and ended around 1:10 AM (Wednesday, December 10, CET). This match reached 40 players.
    • Match where Voice Attenuation did not work: Wednesday, December 10, around 11:30 PM (Spanish time, CET), exactly 24 hours later, on the same published island without any changes.

  • This clearly indicates the issue is not related to island settings or creator-side configuration.

  • This issue started after “Proximity Voice Chat” was renamed to “Voice Attenuation”.

  • Multiple creators have reported the same behavior, suggesting a publishing, caching, or backend-related issue rather than an island setup problem.

  • This bug significantly affects gameplay, immersion, and player retention on islands that rely on proximity chat.

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logs:

logs fortnite attenuation voice.zip (6,3 MB)