Apologies if this has already been posted, couldn't see it however.

In an interview with Edge, Splatoon's co-director Yusuke Amano confirms that one of the key reasons the game is missing voice chat functionality is because of the rampant negativity and general toxicity found in online gaming communities:

"This is coming from personal experience... When I played online games, I didn't like the negativity I got and people telling me, 'You're crap. Go away.' So we wanted to focus on the positive aspects of online gaming."

In the interview Amano accepts that some gamers will find this to be a limitation, but the development team felt that having a friendly in-game environment was more important than being able to plan and coordinate with teammates using voice chat.

Splatoon will release on the Wii U on 29th May in North America and Europe.

Source: [GameSpot], [VGChartz]

Voice Chat isn't the sort of thing that I use, so it's not a big deal to me. But this definitely seems a little unusual (why not just have a mute option?)...what do you guys think of this news?

While I do agree that voice chat can be toxic and there are a lot of immature morons, couldn't they have just added voice chat support with friends?

Was just about to say this.

Why not make it like Mario Kart 8 then where you can at least voice chat with people on your friends list. 

If Nintendo thinks that having a lack of voice chat will end Toxicity in a game about spreading paint, then they are dead wrong! Penis shapes everywhere!!!!

But either ways, I don't normally use voice chat and I don't care about voice chat however, an option to turn it on or off or have it off by default with the option to turn it on would have been a better idea but oh well

Indeed. An option to mute voice chat even (such as in MK8) would suffice. You could even make it compulsary via Parental Controls. 

Just removing the option altogether seems to be a bit of a knee-jerk reaction.

I agree with another poster, why didn't we get a VC for friends instead? That'd be at least a little better... right, Nintendo?

You could also tie voice chat to parental controls . If you are worried about being family friendly, give the parents the option to disable the potentially toxic feature while allowing adults to discern for themselves.

Edit: damn it Cone you beat me to it.

I don't mind not having voice chat in this game,but that's still a pretty stupid reason not to even have an option. It ranks up there with Sakurai saying ''we wont have cutscenes in Smash Bros on Wii U because we dont want them to be uploaded to youtube'' lol

Either way,Splatoon is a day one for me. Got the 3 pack of amiibo's ordered :D

Indeed. I doubt that this move will stop people from buying the game, but it just suggests again that Nintendo aren't yet ready to fully embrace the online world.

Actually you'd be surprised at the amount of people I've seen on facebook that have said they're boycotting this game now and want it to crash and burn,just because it doesn't have voice chat. Hell even on WIi U themed forums as well, its pretty sad that these people would do that over voice chat