imessages no longer playing continuously after 26.1 update, fix?

As stated in title, imessages no longer playing continuously after 26.1 update, does anyone have a fix for this? It’s incredibly tedious to have to click play after every single voice message from the same person.

already tried: toggling iMessages on and off in settings, restarting phone, resetting network connections

I’m using a 16 ProMax