How to disable Dota 2 heroes talking, or just quiet them down

Dota 2 heroes love to shout voice lines for everything from kills to last hits to moving, but there’s a way to make them a little less annoying.

Every Dota 2 player has a certain hero who they just perfectly vibe with, but even the most iconic voice lines can get dull after thousands of hours. Luckily for irate players, there’s a way to tone them down. Here’s how to make hero voice lines quieter in Dota 2 or even turn them off entirely.

To quiet down your hero, open up the settings menu and navigate to the audio tab. On the left side towards the bottom, there’s a slider called “unit speech.” This option will determine how loud a character’s voices lines are compared to everything else in Dota 2. If you’re more bothered by the frequency of lines than the volume, there’s another option to try.

Just below the unit speech slider volume is another option called Unit Speech. Players can pick between All, Events, and Off. The default option All will trigger voice lines for everything from walking to casting spells to scoring last hits. If you still want some hero personality to shine through, pick the Events option. This setting will still play voice lines for important things like kills, deaths, and picking up the Aegis.

If you want to make like Silencer and make every hero shut up, get rid of them entirely with Off. 

Will Valve add hero voice lines to old Dota 2 heroes?

While they can get pretty annoying after a long time, hero voice lines are an important part of Dota 2. Valve clearly knows this considering that recently added heroes have hundreds or thousands of voice lines. Older heroes, not so much. With that in mind, will Valve ever add hero voice lines for older characters?

Unfortunately, probably not. Recording voice work is one of the most taxing parts of any character, and going back through 123 different heroes just to add interactions would be a tremendous amount of work. Valve also wouldn’t make money from the decision so while possible, expect old heroes to only get new voice lines in arcanas and persona. 

The most pressing matter is that some Dota 2 voice actors have passed away since adding their voices to the game. Rubick, Chaos Knight, and Phantom Lancer voice actor Barry Dennen passed away in 2017. Elder Titan’s Jim French also passed in the same year. Rubick’s Magus Cypher arcana just uses a filter over his existing lines, showing Valve may be resistant to introducing new voice actors.