Why does this game need access to my webcam?

[RekoHart]

Antivirus flagged the game on launch but said it was safe. Then flagged again when I was starting my lobbing stating the game is trying to access my webcam and microphone. Microphone I get for VC, but why does it need/want access to my webcam?

[nancy.duan]

It shouldn’t! I’m going to let the engineering team know. It could help with optimization.

[e Zinc]

Hmm, we shouldn't be accessing the webcam. I just tested this on a Mac with heavy permissions settings, and it only warned me about voice.

Does this still happen if you plug in another microphone as your default? I'm wondering if your antivirus assumes permission to your webcam's microphone includes access to video.

[RPGpro]

Originally posted by e Zinc:

Hmm, we shouldn't be accessing the webcam. I just tested this on a Mac with heavy permissions settings, and it only warned me about voice.

Does this still happen if you plug in another microphone as your default? I'm wondering if your antivirus assumes permission to your webcam's microphone includes access to video.

Many webcams include a small mic built into them, which often uses a single driver for both (windows drivers also struggle to separate them but can technically use them as separate devices), many laptops with a built-in mic also lump it together with the webcam in the same way.
It's also very possible that the anti-virus simply lumps the webcam and mic into the same category.


It's always fun seeing how games react to using the PS5 controller (without steam running), when connected with a wire it's an LED light, haptic feedback, microphone, speaker and controller... and all that runs through a single driver so you either get all of them or none of them (if steam is running it splits the mic into a seperate device and "blocks" it from access by most apps, sets the light to steam's colours and splits the speaker out into its own device)

[Falcon]

happened to me as well