Whenever I launch Sea of Thieves, my Bluetooth headphones automatically switch to hands-free mode (HFP/HSP). As a result, audio quality drops dramatically — it sounds muffled, low bitrate, like it’s coming from a bucket. This mode is typically used for voice calls and limits the quality of audio playback significantly.
Tested with two different Bluetooth headphones — same behavior, so it’s not device-specific.
This doesn’t happen in any other game or app — only in Sea of Thieves.
Here’s what I’ve already tried:
- Disabled the hands-free device in Windows sound settings.
- Disabled the “Telephony” service via services.msc.
- Changed the default audio device before launching the game.
Still, as soon as I open Sea of Thieves, it forces my headset back into hands-free profile — even when it’s been disabled at the system level. And if I completely remove the hands-free device or service, the game outputs no audio at all, even though sound works fine in the rest of the system.
This issue has been around for over 3 years, and still hasn’t been fixed. It appears the game is requesting audio access in a way that triggers the Bluetooth hands-free profile, possibly due to outdated APIs or unnecessary voice chat hooks.
