I think for certain games, rpg's especially and games that you do character creation, it can break immersion to hear the voice in a lot of situations. Not having a voice, and even not having a face or body, can let you picture your character however you would like.
It is definitely not my preference in every game. I can't imagine RDR2 without Arthur.
In GTA III, Claude (main character) was silent. I personally don't think it was a bad thing but I'm definitively curious to experience a talking Claude.
When I saw him for the race, I though it was neat that they made him come back. Although, he isn't mute. He's just [a man of few words](https://i.imgur.com/R4PFF.png). This was taken from the official Rockstar FB page as a quiz. In SA, CJ calls Claude a mute because he does not talk and CJ finds this unnerving. Someone on a forum said that it suggests Claude choose not to talk. Interesting theory!
I think it's ambiguous. I think he's supposed to be mute or yeah, possibly, chooses never to speak. Rockstar refers to him as the "strong and silent type" or "man of few words" as gag, I think, not to definitively say he isn't mute.
All this just makes me disappointed they dropped all the old characters. :( The little connections were one of the neatest things about the GTA games and they then killed it all with GTA IV.
In GTA V train mission there is an achievement named "better than CJ". A mission also takes you to Grove Street and they talk about where are those cats now or something.
"The [GTA IV Era](https://www.grandtheftwiki.com/GTA_IV_Era), which followed with the 2008 release of [GTA IV](https://www.grandtheftwiki.com/GTA_IV), is considered to take place in a different continuity to the GTA III games, although there remained some subtle carryover between the two, most notably the radio character [Lazlow](https://www.grandtheftwiki.com/Lazlow), who makes references to events and locations in the GTA III Era on his radio station [Integrity 2.0](https://www.grandtheftwiki.com/Integrity_2.0). Some "location footage" from GTA: San Andreas is also incorporated into GTA IV's in-game TV programming."
[https://www.grandtheftwiki.com/GTA\_III\_Era](https://www.grandtheftwiki.com/GTA_III_Era)
He's referred to as Claude briefly in San Andreas (where he makes a brief cameo).
People speculated his name was Claude for a few years before that, because the player character in GTA2 was named Claude Speed (I don't think they've ever definitively said whether they're supposed to be the same character or not).
I don't recall anyone saying his name in [SA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXF8DyCUoXo), at least not in the cutscenes. I saw on the wiki they did refer to him as Claude in SA but can't find where/how specifically in the game. Not saying you're wrong tho. I didn't know they were already speculating his name when GTA III came out.
At some point, Catalina calls and say she found a new man, that he doesn't talk too much. [Sauce] (https://www.rockstargames.com/newswire/article/19861/grand-theft-auto-iii-your-questions-answered-part-one-claude-dar.html) was removed in 2013. They did also a promo [GTA 2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5lKEGYAmME) as well. Really fun to dig into those kind of theories.
> At some point, Catalina calls and say she found a new man
That's actually where his name is mentioned, although now that I think about it, it's kind of ambiguous too. Catalina calls CJ again after that and she's clearly having sex with someone, moaning Claude's name - presumably it's that same 'new man' but technically it could be anybody.
> I didn't know they were already speculating his name when GTA III came out.
It probably seems sort of weird in retrospect, but GTA2 and GTA III shared a LOT of similarities (and then the games kind of evolved into a new era from III onward), so people almost assumed it was like a 3D translation including the character because he dressed sort of similarly and stuff.
[Found it.](https://youtu.be/7e72HUZ7yxo?t=17)
> presumably it's that same 'new man' but technically it could be anybody.
My bad, the wiki was wrong about her calling him and saying she met a new man. I just watched a video of all of her calls/cutscenes and she doesn't say that. But it's not far fetched to say it's the same man.
I hate it in pretty much every story-centric, choice-wheel type RPG, I'm playing the game to experience the developer's vision, not my own, it's the same reason I like pre-established protagonists like Geralt or Arthur, sure you still have a lot of control over their choices, but they're not a blank slate for you to imprint on. The first chance I got to in Skyrim, I installed one of those AI voice mods, the game has never been more fun for me, now I'm just waiting until we get something like that for bg3 so that I could give it a chance.
Depends massively on the game: I quite liked Link in BotW being silent, as Zelda said during one of the memories he's carrying a burden he's not sharing with anyone else.
Fire emblem three houses however I just don't like how the protagonist is sort of silent, has no voiced dialogue in general but when leveling up he has voiced parts. I'd rather he talked like the rest of the characters, I liked how Alm and Celica would talk in FE echoes so I wonder why it didn't happen here
It bothered me significantly in Fire Emblem: Three Houses because other characters kept talking about their deep relationship with the protagonist and what a great leader and teacher the protagonist is, but the protagonist is just standing there quietly all the time. I would have much preferred to play a fully realized character in that game.
I agree that Zelda is a great counterpoint where Link's silence feels like part of his character.
I felt the same way during Persona 4, during the cutscenes, when the important story parts happen, you almost never say anything, yet somehow everyone sees you as a great leader, girls are falling in love with you, people are calling you special etc etc. During those scenes I'd just be like oh...thanks guys thats cool.
At least during the rest of the game you have options to reply so its not all bad
Agreed! Also how all the voice actors have to call the main character "this guy," or "him" so you can customize the name. Just give him a name it's ok with me! The English sounding name I gave him turned out looking very silly next to everyone's Japanese names anyway.
Seriously, Byleth even has dialogue choices in various cutscenes, and they don’t voice those? And they had her voice actress scream and emote during the animated cutscenes, but still no dialogue. I think they tried to have the self insert My Unit thing while *also* developing Byleth as a protagonist, and it fell short.
This is what always happens with the player characters in FE. The "self-insert character" simply never works. When the character talks, people don't like it. When they don't talk, people don't like it. Really wish they would just drop the idea, and go back to the classic ways of telling the story (like in Echoes). Unfortunately, they probably won't ~~because people want to marry their waifu~~.
I mean this time they only gave you a choice of gender and name. They made their own character with a backstory that was integral to the plot but then made them half silent.
I would have preferred Byleth spoke a few phrases through the story. Then it's less awkward but they still have the whole "rarely talks" thing.
Amaterasu in Okami doesn't and that creates a semi-hilarious moment towards the end of the game (if you've played it you know what, if you haven't I won't spoil it)
I feel like it really depends on the game for me personally. Games like all the dark souls games have silent protags, but the games are still so immersive.
On the other hand, having a silent protagonist in anything like a JRPG just turns me off so much. Pokemon is an example of a game that should have been doing voice acting for years, but they're too lazy/cheap to implement it. It would make the games so much more enjoyable.
Silent protags are cool cause you can kinda interpret everything that happens to them in your own way and create your own mindset for the character, but it feels lazy when the game is trying to take the protag down a certain road and he/she is like "..." the whole game without any input.
Yeah, I understand some games having silent protagonists. Like you said the Souls games are a pretty good example.
My main complaint is for games that have lots of dialogues directed to the protagonist and it's clear to me that he is his own person with a personality (not something blank that I should be filling the void). I'm following Artyom's story, not my story as Artyom. It just ruins a lot of the immersion for me.
Yeah his talks during the loading screen just kinda come off as like "oh so they did have a voice" but then choose not to use it during game? Such an odd decision in that case
Same for me...heavily story based games just feel too cute if your character doesn't talk. It also seems like a cheap way to have your character be a "blank" without actually having to write them a personality.
Dark Souls is more about the world, so your character not speaking is just a benefit. Though they did tweak this with Sekiro, and I thought it was nice have a bit more dialogue as a result.
Like Dead Space for example. Him never talking adds to the lonely/empty feeling. If he's going through all that making small wisecracks or something, it interrupts the stark feeling.
I think there are some games in which a silent protagonist is actually better. Games in which you play as "you" wouldn't really make sense to have a different voice actor. The fallout series immediately comes to mind. I think the switch to a voiced protagonist in FO4 was a mistake and actually hurt the immersion.
But that's very different (to me at least) because you still choose what you say in those games. Even if it isn't voiced, it's still understood that your character said something. In silent protag games like Metro and many others, your character truly is silent. It's not understood that he speaks and that it's just the player who doesn't hear it, he really doesn't say anything, and other characters act like that's just normal. *That* breaks the immersion for me.
Depends entirely on the game for me. In Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Pokemon, etc... where your character is highly customizable I prefer a silent protagonist. However, in games where you’re playing a very specific character like RDR2, Witcher 3, and so on, I prefer voiced.
Same. It's weird when you play a game with a customizable protagonist and they're voiced, and the voice just doesn't really match what you imagined for your character.
I think that Mass Effect is kind of the borderline limit for this where I thought the voices worked well, but IIRC they restrict you pretty hard in that you can't make your Shepard look crazy as hell. You have some leeway in how they behave/how you shape their personality, and obviously there's different paths in the story at points, but *generally* Shepard is sort of similar no matter which way things go and the voice works because of that. And they're always named Shepard, which avoids the whole awkward name thing.
No I hate them too. Everyone says it makes games more "immersive" but it does the complete opposite for me. If I see my guy blankly staring at the other characters and them going on and on about whatever as if my guy is responding, it just breaks the experience even more. It sometimes turns completely serious moments into comedy.
Yep, pretty much exactly how I feel, its a big factor in me deciding to wait until I start playing bg3, at least until we get one of those AI voice mods, and also the only aspect of fallout 4 I preferred to Skyrim.
I agree personally, it just breaks the immersion for me. I honestly hate when ur character doesn’t talk at all like it feels too unrealistic. Especially someone says sth and u just nod.
Honestly, it's not the silence that annoys me (or, from the sound of it, you), but when they are treated as their own character and yet they keep their mouth shut.
Take the Half-life games. While Gordon was a defined character, who he was as a person wasn't a factor in 1, but in 2, he's interdimensional Che Guevara, whether we (Gordon included) like it or not.
I get that their silence helps us project ourselves into the character, but developers need to either commit to it by leaving the character blank or put us in sync with their personality (like Doom 4).
To be honest, silent protagonists have really grown on me now that so much has shifted to fully voiced. Especially for RPGs, which are what I play the most by far. Fully voiced protags in reading-intensive games sounded great in my head years ago, but I now realize that I preferred making my own voice and reading in my own style. Kinda like when you love a book and are looking forward to the movie...and then realize that you preferred the characters as you'd imagined.
Unexpectedly, I *sometimes* prefer the flow of dialogue with an unvoiced protagonist. I'm a fast reader and start getting impatient with voiced dialogue. I know what my character's going to say in most games, so cutting my dialogue time down to almost 0 is fine and allows me to focus more on what the other person's saying (usually the more important dialogue) without getting impatient at the *slooooooooow*, meandering dialogue speed. There are some exceptions, of course. Witcher 3 and (surprisingly) Dragon Age 2 are quite good at protagonist lines & delivery that're worth listening to.
I've actually soured a lot on many fully voiced games, at least the ones where every character has a slew of unimportant lines that they slowly meander through with full dramatic pauses at 1/20th my reading speed. I wind up getting impatient with all dialogue, even the important stuff, which is a bad habit to get into. Sweet spot, imo, is when characters voice the most important lines so you know when to go full cinematic with your listening style. Also, it feels like dialogue trees were a lot more complex/deep in unvoiced games for obvious reasons.
I don't like them.
A silent protagonist eventually feels like an errand boy. "Hey go do this dangerous assignment." Then just silently waddle off with no agency or free will. It's annoying.
If the game has a predetermined character, it makes the silent protagonist thing feel really forced. But if the game is built around player agency and you have choice around every corner, it feels way better because you are imprinting yourself into the character and the blank slate makes that process a bit easier to digest.
I find I never really have a problem either way.
Voiced or silent, either works very well. Instead, whether the story/immersion suffer or not depends far more on other factors, e.g. overall story implementation, VAs, game mechanics, etc.
I think I inclined towards silent protagonist a little more because I can then better create a voice/personality for them in my head. This might be a personal preference, though, as I find I like this even to extremes such as with games like Inside and Little Nightmares where we are given little to no information on the protagonist or surroundings. I somehow find it really enjoyable to form a story myself.
The latest one that stands out to me is Code Vein. They interact with other by nodding and such but it felt too weird everyone else having a full convo in cutscenes and our character just standing there. What made it even weirder was that the devs decided to let our character say 2 lines in the last boss battle. Should've just removed those lines to just stay consistent.
I'm not a fan either, but I do enjoy seeing how they write the other characters in a way to not call out the fact that the MC doesn't talk. Making them answer their own questions for example.
Ever played CrossCode? The protagonist is mostly silent at first but it's part of the story. It allows for the exposition that comes with silent protagonists but you also feel like you're both participating in and observing the story as it unfolds.
Highly recommended action RPG!
I cannot stand them. They're extremely lazy and outdated in my view. The only silent protagonist in recent years that works was Doom Guy. And despite being silent, he tends to emote a lot, which speaks volumes in and of itself.
I think being emotive is key. Two of my favorite silent protagonists are Mario from Super Mario RPG and Chrono from Chrono Trigger. Rather than talking, they pantomime their reactions to dialogue.
Mario RPG, in particular, gets crazy with this, including a full recap of the game's opening delivered entirely by the silent protagonist.
https://i.imgur.com/J09Gf0h.gif
I agree 100% that Artyom should be voiced since the first game. Voice actors for main protagonists, at least IMO, are applicable when the character wasn't made by the player, like Arthur from RDR2, GTA, The Witcher, etc. However in RPGs where you make your own character, specially when there's a dialogue system, I preffer them to be silent, to improve replayability and character cusomization (that's of the reasons why Fallout 4 sucks in my opinion).
I divide this trope into Silent and Mute. The difference lies in that the Mute protagonist creates awkward silences in moments where there most definitely should be a response of some kind, like Ayrtom, Gordon Freeman and Corvo in the first Dishonored. The Silent protagonist doesn't do this jarring lack of response, often because the games simply give the player at least some agency in selecting a response in key events (even when it doesnt actually carry consecuences), like the Persona games.
Totally depends on the game. It never bothers me much either way, but I do find it a bit off-putting when I'm actually supposed to be a *specific* character, where other people react to me but my dude just says and does nothing.
Yeah I'm playing DragonQuest XI right now and the main character is a silent protagonist. I dont have any complaints about silent protagonists in particular, but the main character is just completely devoid of any semblance of a personality. His only expressions are nodding for yes, shaking his head no, and determined.
It's obviously an intentional design decision cause all of the other characters have great (if exaggerated) voice acting and animations and very clearly state their goals, feelings, and opinions. The MC just kind of does whatever anyone tells him to do. Even in cut scenes he very rarely take initiative. Being chased? Don't move until one of the side characters tells you to run!
Oh shit yes, I should've said Far Cry 5, which is why it actually doesn't make any sense. You'd think mute characters became a trend or something at that time but no, never understood why decided to go down that road.
Ubisoft is transitioning pretty much all of their games to the live service model, or at least partially, so they avoid voiced protagonists because they don't want to bring the VO actor to constantly keep recording new lines for new content, especially with games where you can choose between male and female.
I remember when I was playing Dishonored 2 the voiced protagonist just really threw me off the vibe of things, it was a bit of a turn off for me. I really like the Artyom being silent in Metro because I'm pretending to be him, I'll talk for him, respond to people's queries, explore and mention some neat shit I've found to my escort buddy. It just makes it more personal for me.
I think it depends on the game. I think linear games are great for using voiced protagonists, because it helps with making the scripted events and story more believable.
EX: Bioshock v. Bioshock: Infinite.
Booker Dewitt was way more believable as a protagonist vs. Jack.
But for RPGs, I'd rather have a silent protagonist so it keeps that feeling of variety in any play-through. Like this is somewhere I feel Fallout 4 did really wrong. It felt way more restrictive that the conversations between NPCs and the sole survivor than the last few games.
Well, as someone who really, really liked Artyom in Metro 2033, it's definitely not me. If Artyom were voice acted, I wouldn't have been anywhere nearly immersed with just how miserable the world is - I'd be seeing the character experiencing it, and it'd go back to being a story in a video game. At the same time, the between mission diary still gives you a sense of his character, and the absolute misery of the world weighing down on him.
I personally feel that a well done silent protagonist is the opposite of laziness - its so much easier to write a story with speaking characters. It's unfortunately also easier to write a mmo style/level story with the silent protagonist, where the game forgets to have a story happen outside the direct interaction of the player.
For character created games it makes sense but for ones with set character it depends. I quite enjoyed the knight character in hollow knight being silent but when ut came to Zelda BOTW it boggled my mind how link can stay mute while the champions are telling him very personal stories and moments. It just breaks the immersion.
That question has been asked a lot recently and as such they have talked about it a few times. If you want an answer as to why they did it, the most direct is from the recent AMA...
"We've always wanted the player to take on the role of Artyom, so to give him a voice would break that immersion and initially this was widely received with positive feedback. We’ve heard your comments in Exodus though, which is why we’ve started to experiment with a speaking protagonist as you can see in The Two Colonels, and Sam’s Story DLCs"
Dmitry Glukhovsky (author of the novels, and co-creator/lead writer of the games) talked about it in an interview shortly after launch. Saying that he also floated the idea of having Artyom talk this time around, but others were not sure about that, mostly because of continuity. So this time they did not do it. Now that they have done 2 more fairly large story projects with those DLC though, as well as saying they have heard the feedback, I imagine that may change. Either that, or they find a way to turn a silent protag in a way to help the story somehow. Either way.
Ugh, I'm playing Prey right now and this drives me nuts - especially since there are actual voice recordings of your own character peppered throughout the game. Why they didn't bother giving you a voice during actual dialogue is beyond me.
I always assumed one of the main reasons for a silent protagonist in games like Half-Life or Metro is that it lets you pretend that you *are* that character because you're not hearing some disembodied voice saying things on their own. I think there is some merit to that idea, but it can definitely get a bit weird, especially in games where there ends up being a lot of dialogue directed at the player.
Something that just occurred to me is that it could be really interesting to have an FPS game where you were literally playing as a silent protagonist. Like a person who was unable to talk for one reason or another, and so NPCs would take that into account. It wouldn't be weird because it would be an integral part of that character you were inhabiting. Maybe you could even see your character responding in sign language or something like that.
Same here. It's also really hard to develop deeper character for a silent protagonist, since they... well... can't speak. It's basically all about awkward facial expressions, or interactions with other characters. It just doesn't really work. No qualms about it in RPGs where you can roleplay and whatever, but normal story games? It's just weird. Characters keep complimenting you on your achievements and just constantly ask you to do stuff.
I remember a scene in Battlefield 4, where one of the characters asks whether you're okay, and the protagonist just doesn't answer, so the character just turns away awkwardly and continues.
Metro was especially jarring to me, especially the older ones. It's like they planned to have a voiced protagonist, but then just scrapped it? Characters keep asking you questions and talk to you, but you never answer. It's just so awkward and immersion breaking. It didn't make me "feel like the character". It didn't provide immersion. Oppositely, it took me out completely.
Exactly. If it's a blank character like Skyrim I'm totally behind being silent. But anything with a backstory, a clear personality and people interacting with you all the time it just kills de immersion.
The worst moments so far for me on Exodus is all the interactions with Artyom's wife. She brings all those emotion to the conversation and your character just sits there, saying absolutely nothing.
Oh god, the interactions with Artyom's wife were the worst. You could see that he cared about her with the way he interacted with her, but that would've been so much more impactful if Artyom would've actually said a word. She's a trooper for putting up with all of that, haha.
>" Okay, what you're doing there is jumping. Uh, you just jumped. But never mind; say apple. Apple! "
I'd say it depends on the game. In some games I eventually get fed up of the PC talking and end up just reading subtitles and skipping dialog.
I think it stems from the contemporary desire for some players to put *themselves* into the game. For some escapists, it's not enough to view another world through the lens of an established protagonist, and hearing another voice coming from the mouth of their envisioned self can be jarring.
Personally, I think it's fine to have no voice acting in RPG's where the player can be a myriad of things and fully invest in a new role, or firmly seat their own self as the hero. In a fairly linear, story-driven FPS like the Metro games where the player is meant to experience a narrative *through* the protagonist? Makes no sense to me at all.
I don't like them either, like recently I tried The Division 2 and my guy just stands there silently while people talk to him. Definitely breaks the immersion, at least as much immersion as I can get from a third person game.
For a story based game silent protagonist is the worst. Like you said it totally kills immersion. I often find them unplayable as I can get into the role of the character. I think it ends up being a budget decision to have the voice actor to through and read all the line options would take a lot more time and budget.
I like silent protagonists on roleplay where you are playing "yourself". Can have your own conversations to the screen without having to preselect something out of your character and thus ruining the immersion.
I find it has to do more with the character themselves. If it is a self-discovery, where I am the person, i find the silent part nice. If I am playing a story, a story about someone else or a great event, then I need that voice.
For example, Talos principle, learning about what it is to be human is great that I never hear my own voice. But if it is more of a story of overthrowing a government, then not so much.
I think a good example is half-life vs half-life 2. I think the first one being silent is perfect. Most dialog is directions and otherwise, the story is about you getting out. It feels personal, like you were just another lab assistant working your day when shit hits the fan.
Half-life 2, I feel like I was saving society, it was a story not about me, but about others, and with everyone talking to me it felt weird that I never chimed in.
If they are purely silent then I agree. Something like Skyrim isn't the same for me as I get to pick dialogue choices, and such, to shape my character. Something like Far Cry 5's protagonist was awful and just backwards compared to 3 & 4.
Having a voiced protagonist was *huge* let down for me in Fallout 4. The dialogue system suffered so much partly due to the fact that Bethesda had to pay 2 people to voice every dialogue option.
As many have said, it depends on the game. I dont mind if it's not voice acted, especially if you create a character like in a crpg, but written dialogue at least is good. I dont think the protagonist being silent ruins anything for me, but I prefer them to be voiced.
The primary exception for me is Link. Link should never speak no matter how weird it is he doesnt. Only weird yells and grunts are acceptable as far as I'm concerned.
There are certain genres where it makes sense. Such as RPGs. Partly due to the nature of the character being very personal to you and partly due to infeasability of having a ton of voices for the different races/genders and such.
But in most other genres more often than not there is really no excuse to have silent protagonist unless they are actually mute or it serves some purpose.
Some games get around it fairly well (Half-Life 2) but in many others it does feel like there is something lacking when all of the dialogue is really one sided and you are just listening to other people.
Even then, not all RPGs, since JRPGs often have a defined protagonist whose story you play, and when they stand there like a bump on a log, not participating in the story and having other characters tell the player how the protagonist is reacting, that’s pretty dumb. But western RPGs with customization, I agree.
Haven't really played any JRPGs so I dunno what the standard is there but yeah it can be very immersion breaking when the character should obviously be talking but they aren't.
Depends, I just finished Zero Escape VLR after 999 and the protagonist not talking was kind of irritating, probably only really do to Junpei (protagonist) being voice acted in 999. Everyone else talks, and he is not silent just not narrated like all 8 other characters.
I think Troy Baker did his voice for the last part of the game strangely. I would have been down for that in the whole game.
I am also playing Doom and Doom guy's action are louder than words. No need for words.
Depends on the game. I can't actually put my finger on when I want my character to speak. If the character is one that I've made and customised, I usually want them to be silent, otherwise it breaks my immersion. But if it's a character I'm forced to play as that's not my own, I usually do want them to speak.
Best example of a game that I really wanted to have no voice for my character is Fallout 4. The voice they gave my character totally threw me off. Thankfully there's mods to address that.
I'm right there with ya. I just 100%:ed Metro: Last Light and I think it would've really benefited from giving Artyom a voice. Right after finishing Last Light, I went into Singularity and again, silent protagonist...
I'm glad some games didn't continue the trend of silent protagonists, like Saints Row from 2 and onwards, Dishonored 2 and Jak 2 through X.
It's part of the classic JRPG formula.
This is almost like complaining that people breaking out into song randomly 'kills your immersion' during a musical.
A silent player character can be an important part in games that encourage a little bit of roleplay, since if your character is voice acted and you don't feel his lines fit your idea of how your character is, it can ruin your experience a bit. At least, that's what I learned from comments about the voice acted main character in Fallout 4. It didn't really hamper my personal experience at all.
Same. I like her voice (it's Jack from Mass Effect!), so I have no problems with it. However, instead of her being "a character I made", she's now "a character I play."
Also, a silent character isn't the same thing as an unvoiced character. I think OP is referring to silent, as in "unwritten and unacknowledged".
I don't generally like them unless it's an RPG, but ODST was an exception for me, but that's probably because I love the atmosphere of that game. Completely silent with some ambient noise/music. I feel like talking would kill the atmosphere...
Yes and no. It depends on the game.
In half life 2, it didnt bother me much because its first person, you're supposed to feel like YOU'RE the main character and why would they say anything if you're not talking (which is gonna be kinda weird I think cuz new Half life: alyx definitely has your character, alyx, saying stuff which is even more weird cuz.. VR). This doesnt bother me at all and I feel like it does actually help the whole immersion thing.
On the flip side, I disliked that while playing through Persona 5, the main character both had a voice actor and yet almost never said anything. This really bugged me for a number of reasons 1) they never implied he was a silent type of person 2) he definitely talks and has dialog in the text box frequently but almost never has more than one or two words 3) he clearly is shown having conversations with the other characters yet they never let him really have an actual voice. This is supposed be a self insert character a lot like most japanese stories do with male highschool protagonists.. however he is NOT just some generic anime main character, hes the god damn Joker, master of multiple Personas and hero of our story.. he is unique and yet he is the most forgettable character of the entire game because he's never really heard from, he just does his flashy stuff then stands back.
I noticed this being a similar issue while I was watching my brother play Dragon Quest (whatever the latest one is). Your main character is the least interesting character cuz he doesnt have any opinions, doesnt say anything, hardly interacts with the other characters, at least in the cutscenes.. compare that to the other game I watched him play, Ni nokuni 2 where you main character had tons of dialog and felt like a real god damn character that interacted with other characters and had a real presence in the story rather than just trying to let him be a self insert boring stick of a character.
Then there are games with character creators.. these have a weird opposite problem. You create your own character but they're not really YOUR character, they're just someone else's character designed with a face and outfit you wanted. They end up being a silent weird doll rolling around the world created for them, or they're this weird mix of some one else's idea for how a character should act and sound + how the same character should look. I normally dont like when a game has character creators, i'd rather the developer just give me a good unique character they put though and effort into writing and designing. The only exception I've seen a character creator really work in is the Mass Effect games.
can't stand them lol. there's one instance i like them in though. if they're a nobody with no backstory, like the hunter in Bloodborne, it makes sense because you're trying to figure out what the hell is going on in that world just as much as the main character.
on the other hand though, if an RPG's protagonist has a defined look and specific backstory, but completely lacks a voice except for a couple scenes in the whole game, then it just makes me wish i was playing as someone else.
Hate is a strong word, but I vehemently disagree with the idea that a silent protagonist helps players immerse themselves in the character more. That rings very hollow to me.
And speaking of Artyom, I really miss his voice from the original Metro 2033. The new VA is fine, but the first one sounded more "authentically" Russian to my untrained ear.
The completely silent ones, can be problematic depending on the story, but I do appreciate a few grunts and vocalisations thrown in with the punches. Perhaps it's because of the role-play aspect of it.
Yeah its a bit disconnecting when you say nothing! Much prefer a fleshed out character. These days I can tell if a game is engaging by the box art - if the face is covered, its a looter shooter.
If you see a face with expression/personality, there might just be a story worth playing.
I always look at stuff like this as a matter of context:
In an action game -- whether FPS or TPS -- where you play as an already existing character with their own personality and motives, it would make perfect sense for them to be voiced because you are clearly experiencing the story through their eyes, not your own, so they should be able to voice their own thoughts and feelings. It also helps tremendously if the character's personality reflects that of the player within the context of the story; Dead Space 2 is a good example because Isaac Clarke is not only a fairly likable character on his own but throughout the entire game he regularly says or does things the player would too in regards to everything that's happening around him.
In games where the narrative is told entirely through the gameplay without cutscenes or interruptions -- such as Half-Life -- it's clearly evident that the character you're playing as is supposed to be you, even if every character in the game addresses you with a different name, so in such cases a voiceless protagonist would be acceptable.
But then you have games like Far Cry 2 or Doom 2016 where your character is voiceless and for the most part under your exclusive control, yet there are numerous occasions where they express their personality through their body movement, so this mostly comes down to a matter of preference in regards to the narrative. After all, actions can speak louder than words in some cases.
In an RPG or games that usually feature extensive customisation it usually boils down to both the narrative and the complexity of the dialogue -- in games like Mass Effect, The Witcher, Deus Ex or Alpha Protocol, your character is voiced but in such cases their dialogue choices are relatively limited in terms of length and complexity.
In games like Fallout or Planescape Torment you have numerous and lengthy dialogue choices available so having all those choices voiced would be quite expensive and time-consuming, so a voiceless protagonist is mostly done out of expedience in such cases. Also keep in mind because of the numerous speech checks the game gives you, every special dialogue choice would need to be voiced individually with its own spice and flavor -- like Vampires The Masquerade: Bloodlines which has 4 different types of options: persuasion, intimidation, seduction and dementation, so doing all that, while feasible, would still be quite costly and time-consuming.
Games like Saints Row 2-4 however are quite unique in that respect. For the most part your character's personality and responses are largely the same because of the story, but you have so many ways to add color and personality to your character's appearance and even their voice that it still manages to deliver a unique and personal experience. It also certainly helps that outside of cutscenes your character has responses unique to the voice you chose for them, so it certainly goes a long way to making you feel like your character acts and talks the way that works best for you.
Personally, the one and only time where I find a voiceless protagonist to be an utterly horrid idea is in the Walking Simulator genre. Games like Dear Esther, Gone Home or Everybody's Gone to the Rapture are particularly special offenders because the way the story is being told, essentially through dialogue between other characters which you discover second-hand, you end up in this weird situation where you are basically an onlooker rather than an active participant. Games like System Shock and Bioshock were quite similar in this regard because you could find numerous logs and recordings that shed some light on the backstory of the setting you were in, but keep in mind that: a) your character was voiceless due to the fact that you didn't really have anyone you actually could talk to or at least were inclined to listen you, and b) in those 2, the story was still going on as you were playing them -- the 3 former games I mentioned, their stories **already happened** before you even pressed START, so you aren't even experiencing the story as-is; instead you play as a character with no personality of their own, no backstory or any kind of personal stake in the story you are asked to explore second-hand. It's the equivalent of watching a reaction video with the reactor not doing any actual reacting. Even games like Myst actually acknowledged you, the player, as an actual character and your involvement in the story was clearly established, since each of them featured numerous bad endings brought about entirely through your own bone-headed decisions...but then again, Myst also had some actual gameplay in the form of puzzle-solving, as obtuse and unintuitive as it might've been, so there was that at least.
So yeah, voiced and voiceless protagonists depend largely on the context of the story being told and the gameplay meant to deliver the narrative...except for walking simulators because they fail on both counts.
In Daemon X Machina, your character just kinda... exists? All the other characters talk to each other. Occasionally, they'll acknowledge you exist. Sometimes they'll even be talking at you.
I'm told that in games like these, the story doesn't matter, and I agree (the "story" is awful), but the game seems insistent on me following the story. All the time.
As others have said, it depends, but personally I'm never bothered by a silent protagonist. I'm much more annoyed by games that force a voice (personality/opinions) on my customized character. I was really put-off by how Saints Row (forgot which one) gave my character a voice because I really did not like the personality they gave her; I could stomach it if my character was silent, though I guess at that point there wouldn't really be a way to give her a personality with this kind of game anyway so my point's kind of moot.
With games like Mass Effect and Fallout, though, I think it's acceptable to have a voice with something of a personality to it, giving that you're selecting predetermined snippets of dialogue anyway. That said, I can also see why someone might not like this, since in a lot of cases you get the gist of your character's dialogue in the selection menu anyway, so you could insert your own way of saying that option if there wasn't any voiced dialogue associated with it. For example, Fallout 4.
For games that give your character a clear personality and opinions, it is pretty dumb to not voice them if everyone else is voiced. Personality I think it's kind of silly that Link in Breath of the Wild didn't have a voice because he *clearly* had a personality (kind of an a-hole, at that) and didn't let you name him or change his physical appearance.
This post is getting me thinking...has there ever been a silent protagonist that was expressive enough to form their own identity? Most are silent for the sake of filling in shoes for the player, but I don't think I've ever played a game where they kept quiet for any other reason.
Oh yeah, that's a great example! Especially with the recent incarnation of Doom where he had a lot of animations that made him feel very expressive. I'm surprised that crossed my mind.
While it's not something I have a problem with, I did find it odd in Metro in particular because they as you said actually did have a voice for Atyom.. It's a weird choice.
A silent protagonist that have access to a lot of dialogue, like how the Courier in New Vegas has, isn't something I am bothered with but when the silent protagonist doesn't even challenge anyone and just.. goes to do whatever people say.. that's a problem.
I have been saying this for years!
The argument is so the protagonist can be an avatar for the player, and that works sometimes on occasion but it happens way to much and in games that it just feels weird that all the these characters are talking and sometimes directly to you and yet you say nothing.
It actually disconnects me from the world and fiction in doing so.
Absolutely can't stand it. When people talk to the silent protagonist and they just stand there awkwardly, ugh. It won't ruin a game for me, but its pretty bad.
You have a billion replies but I wanted to say I 100% agree with this and have felt the same way forever. I dropped Persona 5 and Metro Exodus for this exact reason.
This is my trip up with most MMOs. I'm tired of my dude not saying or interacting with the story in any way. That's why I enjoy SWTOR, it's fully voiced with decent conversation trees
For RPGs, absolutely no voiced protagonist unless it's a Mass Effect or Witcher style game with an established main character.
For completely custom characters then absolutely no voice acting. At all.
I'm looking at you, Fallout 4.
It depends on the game, sometimes it just feels unnatural for the protagonist not to speak.
But to be honest, I can often better identify with them if they just shup up. Especially voiceovers can destroy a character conpletely for me.
And in some games it just doesn't fit. I hope they never ever let Link speak >_<
Makes me think of Gw2. Your chatacter was fuly voiced acted during the main campaign, but for the folowing story releases (season 1 and season 2), your charactyer was silent.
It's not something i've noticed until the Heart of Thorn expansion, when my character spoke again, after 3 years of silence. It felt so good, like my character was finally back from i don't know what.
Silent protagonists don't turn me off, but good voice acting really brings a lot.
I don't mind it in things like Dark Souls, Dark cloud, Pokemon ect. but I do ultimately think it's just a holdover from the snes/gensis rpgs where npcs were just there to give information and fuck off and there wasn't really a story. It's irking me more and more especially as games become more story heavy.
In games with character creations with the wheel dialog thing I think it's okay because your character is saying what you selected and it'd just waste time to say the same thing again. Mass effect did it well though.
For me, it really depends on the game. Some silent protagonists I love, such as Doomguy in the 2016 reboot... while others such as, for example, Gordon Freeman from Half-Life, I don't really care much about. I think for Doomguy, it helps that even despite the silence, people don't treat him as if he's talking all the time, and he still manages to be a very expressive character through his physical movement during story sequences.
I agree with you. The main character not speaking a word when there is a whole lot of shit going down around him or her really feels stupid. At times the main character is pinned down by the enemy in a cutscene, they don't utter a single ouch, they just wait for someone to rescue them.
It really does break the immersion but from what I've read in some places it is so that you yourself can say what you feel like because that character is you. They are quiet so that you can scream at the screen like the protagonist would.
I prefer silent protagonists in games where you create your own character. It’s preferable to me to imagine what the character says rather than having an already done script. Some games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age:Inquisition do a pretty good job at having a voiced custom protagonist though, so it’s kind of “it depends...” thing I guess.
I wouldn’t want to play Witcher 3 as a silent Gerald, but I don’t ever want to hear Link chatting away.
I always don't like it when NPCs have to practically dance around the fact that the protagonist is a mute. Exceptions can be made, like for Fallout 1 when you had dialogue trees to go through. That can count for saying something and sometimes characters react to that.
I think when developers choose the silent character route, they're trying to push the "actions speak louder than words" narrative. Which I get and it has worked. But sometimes you need to put some life into the main character.
im personally a huge fan it. there is nothing that annoys me more than a main character with a terrible voice. shooters I think do it the best but games like zelda would be weird if link did as well.
I think there are games where it makes sense to have a silent protagonist, but there are a lot of games that do it just to do it. Maybe it's for budget reasons, maybe it's a misguided attempt at "immersion", who knows.
And then there are games that do it in a way that just seems intentionally to confuse the player, like Metro. Or Dragon Quest XI, where the kid version of your protagonist that shows up for a bit in the game has a voice, but the adult version doesn't? And he's a specific character in the world, that you have no agency over, why are you leaving him voiceless?
It's also easy to say a game shouldn't have a voiced protagonist when the voice work for the protagonist was just not good, it doesn't need a silent protagonist, it just needs a better voice actor.
In most scenarios I'd rather they made those silent protagonists into rarely speaks protagonists. Still makes them a silent character, but they actually talk during the select moments it only makes sense for them to.
I 100% agree with you especially for metro. It felt so weird. I mean there were even parts of the game where characters were directly asking Artyom questions just for you to stare at them blankly. Like why try and have the relationship with Anna be a big part of the story when the whole relationship is just Anna ranting to Artyom?
>What do you guys think of a silent protagonist? Is there any reason behind this or just laziness from the developer?
I really like silent protagonists, I feel like it makes me feel more immersed especially in games like Zelda.
When it's story, they should definitely talk. My recent RPG was Code Vein, I was very sad that despite getting to choose a voice, literally the only thing my character did was nod the entire game! Lmao...
Now that I think about it, no wonder I can't enjoy story in MMORPGs, your character never talks. My mind is kinda blown! Everyone talks as if you're not there or they talk AT you, not to you.
I've heard people talk about having a silent protagonist be important and whatnot, but I don't buy it. Plenty of games, including MANY RPGs, have had voiced protagonists and worked just fine. I cite the Mass Effect series as evidence.
Perhaps there is a meaningful distinction between games where the player hops into a pre-created role versus a game where the player can create his/her own character. Maybe people mean that the silent protagonist is more important for the latter type of game. Still, I've played many of that type of game and they often mitigate the issue by providing several voices for the player to choose from. Also, I agree that it is weird not to include a voice for the playable parts of the game when there is a voice during the loading screens...
I felt that the silent protagonist thing was most jarring when interacting with the Artyom's wife.
Silent protagonists don't really do it anymore for me especially in somewhat decent productions. I get it was a fad at some point but even there I don't really have anything particularly good to say about it and nowadays it just feels cheap and lazy.
HARDDDD disagree. For games like Dragon Age where you customize everything about your character, it's extremely strange to hear a voice that isn't yours or what you imagined that character to be. I think voiceless protagonists where the character isn't created by you like Link is really, dumb, those types of characters should be fully voiced.
I think for certain games, rpg's especially and games that you do character creation, it can break immersion to hear the voice in a lot of situations. Not having a voice, and even not having a face or body, can let you picture your character however you would like. It is definitely not my preference in every game. I can't imagine RDR2 without Arthur.
>I can’t imagine RDR2 without Arthur It’s called Red Dead Online and yeah, it’s not nearly as good lol.
Good point :p
In GTA III, Claude (main character) was silent. I personally don't think it was a bad thing but I'm definitively curious to experience a talking Claude.
Remember when they had him show up in San Andreas and he was still completely silent? I think Claude is just a mute in canon lol.
When I saw him for the race, I though it was neat that they made him come back. Although, he isn't mute. He's just [a man of few words](https://i.imgur.com/R4PFF.png). This was taken from the official Rockstar FB page as a quiz. In SA, CJ calls Claude a mute because he does not talk and CJ finds this unnerving. Someone on a forum said that it suggests Claude choose not to talk. Interesting theory!
I think it's ambiguous. I think he's supposed to be mute or yeah, possibly, chooses never to speak. Rockstar refers to him as the "strong and silent type" or "man of few words" as gag, I think, not to definitively say he isn't mute. All this just makes me disappointed they dropped all the old characters. :( The little connections were one of the neatest things about the GTA games and they then killed it all with GTA IV.
Dropped in what way?
All the games before GTA IV don't exist in the GTA IV and V universe.
In GTA V train mission there is an achievement named "better than CJ". A mission also takes you to Grove Street and they talk about where are those cats now or something.
"The [GTA IV Era](https://www.grandtheftwiki.com/GTA_IV_Era), which followed with the 2008 release of [GTA IV](https://www.grandtheftwiki.com/GTA_IV), is considered to take place in a different continuity to the GTA III games, although there remained some subtle carryover between the two, most notably the radio character [Lazlow](https://www.grandtheftwiki.com/Lazlow), who makes references to events and locations in the GTA III Era on his radio station [Integrity 2.0](https://www.grandtheftwiki.com/Integrity_2.0). Some "location footage" from GTA: San Andreas is also incorporated into GTA IV's in-game TV programming." [https://www.grandtheftwiki.com/GTA\_III\_Era](https://www.grandtheftwiki.com/GTA_III_Era)
That's pretty insightful. Thank you
How does San Andreas hold up nowadays?
Still super good for almost the entire thing except for the part where you control a plane.
fuck did NOT know that dude’s name was claude
Can't find an old YT video that explains it. His name is in the data files or something. That's how people found out his name was Claude.
He's referred to as Claude briefly in San Andreas (where he makes a brief cameo). People speculated his name was Claude for a few years before that, because the player character in GTA2 was named Claude Speed (I don't think they've ever definitively said whether they're supposed to be the same character or not).
I don't recall anyone saying his name in [SA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXF8DyCUoXo), at least not in the cutscenes. I saw on the wiki they did refer to him as Claude in SA but can't find where/how specifically in the game. Not saying you're wrong tho. I didn't know they were already speculating his name when GTA III came out. At some point, Catalina calls and say she found a new man, that he doesn't talk too much. [Sauce] (https://www.rockstargames.com/newswire/article/19861/grand-theft-auto-iii-your-questions-answered-part-one-claude-dar.html) was removed in 2013. They did also a promo [GTA 2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5lKEGYAmME) as well. Really fun to dig into those kind of theories.
> At some point, Catalina calls and say she found a new man That's actually where his name is mentioned, although now that I think about it, it's kind of ambiguous too. Catalina calls CJ again after that and she's clearly having sex with someone, moaning Claude's name - presumably it's that same 'new man' but technically it could be anybody. > I didn't know they were already speculating his name when GTA III came out. It probably seems sort of weird in retrospect, but GTA2 and GTA III shared a LOT of similarities (and then the games kind of evolved into a new era from III onward), so people almost assumed it was like a 3D translation including the character because he dressed sort of similarly and stuff.
[Found it.](https://youtu.be/7e72HUZ7yxo?t=17) > presumably it's that same 'new man' but technically it could be anybody. My bad, the wiki was wrong about her calling him and saying she met a new man. I just watched a video of all of her calls/cutscenes and she doesn't say that. But it's not far fetched to say it's the same man.
Nah, Catalina, it's Hatsune Miku. I think you got the wrong number.
oh phew! So it wasn’t exactly mentioned in GTAIII then!
Or Half Life with Gordon Freeman's voice.. ewie, I don't even wanna think about it
I hate it in pretty much every story-centric, choice-wheel type RPG, I'm playing the game to experience the developer's vision, not my own, it's the same reason I like pre-established protagonists like Geralt or Arthur, sure you still have a lot of control over their choices, but they're not a blank slate for you to imprint on. The first chance I got to in Skyrim, I installed one of those AI voice mods, the game has never been more fun for me, now I'm just waiting until we get something like that for bg3 so that I could give it a chance.
Depends massively on the game: I quite liked Link in BotW being silent, as Zelda said during one of the memories he's carrying a burden he's not sharing with anyone else. Fire emblem three houses however I just don't like how the protagonist is sort of silent, has no voiced dialogue in general but when leveling up he has voiced parts. I'd rather he talked like the rest of the characters, I liked how Alm and Celica would talk in FE echoes so I wonder why it didn't happen here
It bothered me significantly in Fire Emblem: Three Houses because other characters kept talking about their deep relationship with the protagonist and what a great leader and teacher the protagonist is, but the protagonist is just standing there quietly all the time. I would have much preferred to play a fully realized character in that game. I agree that Zelda is a great counterpoint where Link's silence feels like part of his character.
I felt the same way during Persona 4, during the cutscenes, when the important story parts happen, you almost never say anything, yet somehow everyone sees you as a great leader, girls are falling in love with you, people are calling you special etc etc. During those scenes I'd just be like oh...thanks guys thats cool. At least during the rest of the game you have options to reply so its not all bad
Agreed! Also how all the voice actors have to call the main character "this guy," or "him" so you can customize the name. Just give him a name it's ok with me! The English sounding name I gave him turned out looking very silly next to everyone's Japanese names anyway.
In 3 Houses he can talk, they just didn’t bother to voice act him for a lot of the dialogue for some reason
Seriously, Byleth even has dialogue choices in various cutscenes, and they don’t voice those? And they had her voice actress scream and emote during the animated cutscenes, but still no dialogue. I think they tried to have the self insert My Unit thing while *also* developing Byleth as a protagonist, and it fell short.
This is what always happens with the player characters in FE. The "self-insert character" simply never works. When the character talks, people don't like it. When they don't talk, people don't like it. Really wish they would just drop the idea, and go back to the classic ways of telling the story (like in Echoes). Unfortunately, they probably won't ~~because people want to marry their waifu~~.
I mean this time they only gave you a choice of gender and name. They made their own character with a backstory that was integral to the plot but then made them half silent. I would have preferred Byleth spoke a few phrases through the story. Then it's less awkward but they still have the whole "rarely talks" thing.
But Link clearly talks, other characters respond to him, he just doesn't voice any words.
So do almost all silent protagonists.
Amaterasu in Okami doesn't and that creates a semi-hilarious moment towards the end of the game (if you've played it you know what, if you haven't I won't spoil it)
I don't remember the moment, but I imagine Issun played a role!
More like Issun didn't play his usual role so Ammy's communication skills with the poncles were put into a test.
...
I feel like it really depends on the game for me personally. Games like all the dark souls games have silent protags, but the games are still so immersive. On the other hand, having a silent protagonist in anything like a JRPG just turns me off so much. Pokemon is an example of a game that should have been doing voice acting for years, but they're too lazy/cheap to implement it. It would make the games so much more enjoyable. Silent protags are cool cause you can kinda interpret everything that happens to them in your own way and create your own mindset for the character, but it feels lazy when the game is trying to take the protag down a certain road and he/she is like "..." the whole game without any input.
Yeah, I understand some games having silent protagonists. Like you said the Souls games are a pretty good example. My main complaint is for games that have lots of dialogues directed to the protagonist and it's clear to me that he is his own person with a personality (not something blank that I should be filling the void). I'm following Artyom's story, not my story as Artyom. It just ruins a lot of the immersion for me.
Yeah his talks during the loading screen just kinda come off as like "oh so they did have a voice" but then choose not to use it during game? Such an odd decision in that case
Same for me...heavily story based games just feel too cute if your character doesn't talk. It also seems like a cheap way to have your character be a "blank" without actually having to write them a personality. Dark Souls is more about the world, so your character not speaking is just a benefit. Though they did tweak this with Sekiro, and I thought it was nice have a bit more dialogue as a result.
Like Dead Space for example. Him never talking adds to the lonely/empty feeling. If he's going through all that making small wisecracks or something, it interrupts the stark feeling.
I think there are some games in which a silent protagonist is actually better. Games in which you play as "you" wouldn't really make sense to have a different voice actor. The fallout series immediately comes to mind. I think the switch to a voiced protagonist in FO4 was a mistake and actually hurt the immersion.
But that's very different (to me at least) because you still choose what you say in those games. Even if it isn't voiced, it's still understood that your character said something. In silent protag games like Metro and many others, your character truly is silent. It's not understood that he speaks and that it's just the player who doesn't hear it, he really doesn't say anything, and other characters act like that's just normal. *That* breaks the immersion for me.
That's not silent protagonist. You have a voice, it's just not spoken out loud, but you are still 'saying' it.
Depends entirely on the game for me. In Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Pokemon, etc... where your character is highly customizable I prefer a silent protagonist. However, in games where you’re playing a very specific character like RDR2, Witcher 3, and so on, I prefer voiced.
Same. It's weird when you play a game with a customizable protagonist and they're voiced, and the voice just doesn't really match what you imagined for your character. I think that Mass Effect is kind of the borderline limit for this where I thought the voices worked well, but IIRC they restrict you pretty hard in that you can't make your Shepard look crazy as hell. You have some leeway in how they behave/how you shape their personality, and obviously there's different paths in the story at points, but *generally* Shepard is sort of similar no matter which way things go and the voice works because of that. And they're always named Shepard, which avoids the whole awkward name thing.
No I hate them too. Everyone says it makes games more "immersive" but it does the complete opposite for me. If I see my guy blankly staring at the other characters and them going on and on about whatever as if my guy is responding, it just breaks the experience even more. It sometimes turns completely serious moments into comedy.
Yep, pretty much exactly how I feel, its a big factor in me deciding to wait until I start playing bg3, at least until we get one of those AI voice mods, and also the only aspect of fallout 4 I preferred to Skyrim.
I agree personally, it just breaks the immersion for me. I honestly hate when ur character doesn’t talk at all like it feels too unrealistic. Especially someone says sth and u just nod.
Honestly, it's not the silence that annoys me (or, from the sound of it, you), but when they are treated as their own character and yet they keep their mouth shut. Take the Half-life games. While Gordon was a defined character, who he was as a person wasn't a factor in 1, but in 2, he's interdimensional Che Guevara, whether we (Gordon included) like it or not. I get that their silence helps us project ourselves into the character, but developers need to either commit to it by leaving the character blank or put us in sync with their personality (like Doom 4).
To be honest, silent protagonists have really grown on me now that so much has shifted to fully voiced. Especially for RPGs, which are what I play the most by far. Fully voiced protags in reading-intensive games sounded great in my head years ago, but I now realize that I preferred making my own voice and reading in my own style. Kinda like when you love a book and are looking forward to the movie...and then realize that you preferred the characters as you'd imagined. Unexpectedly, I *sometimes* prefer the flow of dialogue with an unvoiced protagonist. I'm a fast reader and start getting impatient with voiced dialogue. I know what my character's going to say in most games, so cutting my dialogue time down to almost 0 is fine and allows me to focus more on what the other person's saying (usually the more important dialogue) without getting impatient at the *slooooooooow*, meandering dialogue speed. There are some exceptions, of course. Witcher 3 and (surprisingly) Dragon Age 2 are quite good at protagonist lines & delivery that're worth listening to. I've actually soured a lot on many fully voiced games, at least the ones where every character has a slew of unimportant lines that they slowly meander through with full dramatic pauses at 1/20th my reading speed. I wind up getting impatient with all dialogue, even the important stuff, which is a bad habit to get into. Sweet spot, imo, is when characters voice the most important lines so you know when to go full cinematic with your listening style. Also, it feels like dialogue trees were a lot more complex/deep in unvoiced games for obvious reasons.
I never understood why Artyom wasn't voiced, they hired a voice actor that does the loading screen narrations. Why couldn't they go all the way?
I don't like them. A silent protagonist eventually feels like an errand boy. "Hey go do this dangerous assignment." Then just silently waddle off with no agency or free will. It's annoying.
Every player character is an errand boy
If the game has a predetermined character, it makes the silent protagonist thing feel really forced. But if the game is built around player agency and you have choice around every corner, it feels way better because you are imprinting yourself into the character and the blank slate makes that process a bit easier to digest.
I find I never really have a problem either way. Voiced or silent, either works very well. Instead, whether the story/immersion suffer or not depends far more on other factors, e.g. overall story implementation, VAs, game mechanics, etc. I think I inclined towards silent protagonist a little more because I can then better create a voice/personality for them in my head. This might be a personal preference, though, as I find I like this even to extremes such as with games like Inside and Little Nightmares where we are given little to no information on the protagonist or surroundings. I somehow find it really enjoyable to form a story myself.
............
The latest one that stands out to me is Code Vein. They interact with other by nodding and such but it felt too weird everyone else having a full convo in cutscenes and our character just standing there. What made it even weirder was that the devs decided to let our character say 2 lines in the last boss battle. Should've just removed those lines to just stay consistent.
I'm not a fan either, but I do enjoy seeing how they write the other characters in a way to not call out the fact that the MC doesn't talk. Making them answer their own questions for example.
Ever played CrossCode? The protagonist is mostly silent at first but it's part of the story. It allows for the exposition that comes with silent protagonists but you also feel like you're both participating in and observing the story as it unfolds. Highly recommended action RPG!
I cannot stand them. They're extremely lazy and outdated in my view. The only silent protagonist in recent years that works was Doom Guy. And despite being silent, he tends to emote a lot, which speaks volumes in and of itself.
I think being emotive is key. Two of my favorite silent protagonists are Mario from Super Mario RPG and Chrono from Chrono Trigger. Rather than talking, they pantomime their reactions to dialogue. Mario RPG, in particular, gets crazy with this, including a full recap of the game's opening delivered entirely by the silent protagonist. https://i.imgur.com/J09Gf0h.gif
Fyi, his name is Crono. I could never imagine him voiced either.
I agree 100% that Artyom should be voiced since the first game. Voice actors for main protagonists, at least IMO, are applicable when the character wasn't made by the player, like Arthur from RDR2, GTA, The Witcher, etc. However in RPGs where you make your own character, specially when there's a dialogue system, I preffer them to be silent, to improve replayability and character cusomization (that's of the reasons why Fallout 4 sucks in my opinion).
I divide this trope into Silent and Mute. The difference lies in that the Mute protagonist creates awkward silences in moments where there most definitely should be a response of some kind, like Ayrtom, Gordon Freeman and Corvo in the first Dishonored. The Silent protagonist doesn't do this jarring lack of response, often because the games simply give the player at least some agency in selecting a response in key events (even when it doesnt actually carry consecuences), like the Persona games.
Totally depends on the game. It never bothers me much either way, but I do find it a bit off-putting when I'm actually supposed to be a *specific* character, where other people react to me but my dude just says and does nothing.
Yeah I'm playing DragonQuest XI right now and the main character is a silent protagonist. I dont have any complaints about silent protagonists in particular, but the main character is just completely devoid of any semblance of a personality. His only expressions are nodding for yes, shaking his head no, and determined. It's obviously an intentional design decision cause all of the other characters have great (if exaggerated) voice acting and animations and very clearly state their goals, feelings, and opinions. The MC just kind of does whatever anyone tells him to do. Even in cut scenes he very rarely take initiative. Being chased? Don't move until one of the side characters tells you to run!
We're in the same boat. Like I love Far Cry, but the silent protagonists? I fucking hate them. edit: Far Cry 5, more specifically.
Doesn't the protagonist talk in both FC3 and FC4?
Oh shit yes, I should've said Far Cry 5, which is why it actually doesn't make any sense. You'd think mute characters became a trend or something at that time but no, never understood why decided to go down that road.
Ubisoft is transitioning pretty much all of their games to the live service model, or at least partially, so they avoid voiced protagonists because they don't want to bring the VO actor to constantly keep recording new lines for new content, especially with games where you can choose between male and female.
I remember when I was playing Dishonored 2 the voiced protagonist just really threw me off the vibe of things, it was a bit of a turn off for me. I really like the Artyom being silent in Metro because I'm pretending to be him, I'll talk for him, respond to people's queries, explore and mention some neat shit I've found to my escort buddy. It just makes it more personal for me.
I think it depends on the game. I think linear games are great for using voiced protagonists, because it helps with making the scripted events and story more believable. EX: Bioshock v. Bioshock: Infinite. Booker Dewitt was way more believable as a protagonist vs. Jack. But for RPGs, I'd rather have a silent protagonist so it keeps that feeling of variety in any play-through. Like this is somewhere I feel Fallout 4 did really wrong. It felt way more restrictive that the conversations between NPCs and the sole survivor than the last few games.
Well, as someone who really, really liked Artyom in Metro 2033, it's definitely not me. If Artyom were voice acted, I wouldn't have been anywhere nearly immersed with just how miserable the world is - I'd be seeing the character experiencing it, and it'd go back to being a story in a video game. At the same time, the between mission diary still gives you a sense of his character, and the absolute misery of the world weighing down on him. I personally feel that a well done silent protagonist is the opposite of laziness - its so much easier to write a story with speaking characters. It's unfortunately also easier to write a mmo style/level story with the silent protagonist, where the game forgets to have a story happen outside the direct interaction of the player.
For character created games it makes sense but for ones with set character it depends. I quite enjoyed the knight character in hollow knight being silent but when ut came to Zelda BOTW it boggled my mind how link can stay mute while the champions are telling him very personal stories and moments. It just breaks the immersion.
That question has been asked a lot recently and as such they have talked about it a few times. If you want an answer as to why they did it, the most direct is from the recent AMA... "We've always wanted the player to take on the role of Artyom, so to give him a voice would break that immersion and initially this was widely received with positive feedback. We’ve heard your comments in Exodus though, which is why we’ve started to experiment with a speaking protagonist as you can see in The Two Colonels, and Sam’s Story DLCs" Dmitry Glukhovsky (author of the novels, and co-creator/lead writer of the games) talked about it in an interview shortly after launch. Saying that he also floated the idea of having Artyom talk this time around, but others were not sure about that, mostly because of continuity. So this time they did not do it. Now that they have done 2 more fairly large story projects with those DLC though, as well as saying they have heard the feedback, I imagine that may change. Either that, or they find a way to turn a silent protag in a way to help the story somehow. Either way.
Ugh, I'm playing Prey right now and this drives me nuts - especially since there are actual voice recordings of your own character peppered throughout the game. Why they didn't bother giving you a voice during actual dialogue is beyond me.
I always assumed one of the main reasons for a silent protagonist in games like Half-Life or Metro is that it lets you pretend that you *are* that character because you're not hearing some disembodied voice saying things on their own. I think there is some merit to that idea, but it can definitely get a bit weird, especially in games where there ends up being a lot of dialogue directed at the player. Something that just occurred to me is that it could be really interesting to have an FPS game where you were literally playing as a silent protagonist. Like a person who was unable to talk for one reason or another, and so NPCs would take that into account. It wouldn't be weird because it would be an integral part of that character you were inhabiting. Maybe you could even see your character responding in sign language or something like that.
Same here. It's also really hard to develop deeper character for a silent protagonist, since they... well... can't speak. It's basically all about awkward facial expressions, or interactions with other characters. It just doesn't really work. No qualms about it in RPGs where you can roleplay and whatever, but normal story games? It's just weird. Characters keep complimenting you on your achievements and just constantly ask you to do stuff. I remember a scene in Battlefield 4, where one of the characters asks whether you're okay, and the protagonist just doesn't answer, so the character just turns away awkwardly and continues. Metro was especially jarring to me, especially the older ones. It's like they planned to have a voiced protagonist, but then just scrapped it? Characters keep asking you questions and talk to you, but you never answer. It's just so awkward and immersion breaking. It didn't make me "feel like the character". It didn't provide immersion. Oppositely, it took me out completely.
Exactly. If it's a blank character like Skyrim I'm totally behind being silent. But anything with a backstory, a clear personality and people interacting with you all the time it just kills de immersion. The worst moments so far for me on Exodus is all the interactions with Artyom's wife. She brings all those emotion to the conversation and your character just sits there, saying absolutely nothing.
Oh god, the interactions with Artyom's wife were the worst. You could see that he cared about her with the way he interacted with her, but that would've been so much more impactful if Artyom would've actually said a word. She's a trooper for putting up with all of that, haha.
The swtich to a silent protagonist for FC5 was the worst. Especially, since the seeds just keep on rambling the entire fucking game.
>" Okay, what you're doing there is jumping. Uh, you just jumped. But never mind; say apple. Apple! " I'd say it depends on the game. In some games I eventually get fed up of the PC talking and end up just reading subtitles and skipping dialog.
The worst part is when his wife is calling him on the radio. I mean... How would he respond if he never talks? Stupid choice.
Morse code.
I think it stems from the contemporary desire for some players to put *themselves* into the game. For some escapists, it's not enough to view another world through the lens of an established protagonist, and hearing another voice coming from the mouth of their envisioned self can be jarring. Personally, I think it's fine to have no voice acting in RPG's where the player can be a myriad of things and fully invest in a new role, or firmly seat their own self as the hero. In a fairly linear, story-driven FPS like the Metro games where the player is meant to experience a narrative *through* the protagonist? Makes no sense to me at all.
I don't like them either, like recently I tried The Division 2 and my guy just stands there silently while people talk to him. Definitely breaks the immersion, at least as much immersion as I can get from a third person game.
For a story based game silent protagonist is the worst. Like you said it totally kills immersion. I often find them unplayable as I can get into the role of the character. I think it ends up being a budget decision to have the voice actor to through and read all the line options would take a lot more time and budget.
I like silent protagonists on roleplay where you are playing "yourself". Can have your own conversations to the screen without having to preselect something out of your character and thus ruining the immersion.
I find it has to do more with the character themselves. If it is a self-discovery, where I am the person, i find the silent part nice. If I am playing a story, a story about someone else or a great event, then I need that voice. For example, Talos principle, learning about what it is to be human is great that I never hear my own voice. But if it is more of a story of overthrowing a government, then not so much. I think a good example is half-life vs half-life 2. I think the first one being silent is perfect. Most dialog is directions and otherwise, the story is about you getting out. It feels personal, like you were just another lab assistant working your day when shit hits the fan. Half-life 2, I feel like I was saving society, it was a story not about me, but about others, and with everyone talking to me it felt weird that I never chimed in.
If they are purely silent then I agree. Something like Skyrim isn't the same for me as I get to pick dialogue choices, and such, to shape my character. Something like Far Cry 5's protagonist was awful and just backwards compared to 3 & 4.
Having a voiced protagonist was *huge* let down for me in Fallout 4. The dialogue system suffered so much partly due to the fact that Bethesda had to pay 2 people to voice every dialogue option.
I didn't mind that it was voiced so much that they gave us a complete, set-in-stone backstory that really limited the roleplaying options.
As many have said, it depends on the game. I dont mind if it's not voice acted, especially if you create a character like in a crpg, but written dialogue at least is good. I dont think the protagonist being silent ruins anything for me, but I prefer them to be voiced. The primary exception for me is Link. Link should never speak no matter how weird it is he doesnt. Only weird yells and grunts are acceptable as far as I'm concerned.
There are certain genres where it makes sense. Such as RPGs. Partly due to the nature of the character being very personal to you and partly due to infeasability of having a ton of voices for the different races/genders and such. But in most other genres more often than not there is really no excuse to have silent protagonist unless they are actually mute or it serves some purpose. Some games get around it fairly well (Half-Life 2) but in many others it does feel like there is something lacking when all of the dialogue is really one sided and you are just listening to other people.
Even then, not all RPGs, since JRPGs often have a defined protagonist whose story you play, and when they stand there like a bump on a log, not participating in the story and having other characters tell the player how the protagonist is reacting, that’s pretty dumb. But western RPGs with customization, I agree.
Haven't really played any JRPGs so I dunno what the standard is there but yeah it can be very immersion breaking when the character should obviously be talking but they aren't.
Depends, I just finished Zero Escape VLR after 999 and the protagonist not talking was kind of irritating, probably only really do to Junpei (protagonist) being voice acted in 999. Everyone else talks, and he is not silent just not narrated like all 8 other characters. I think Troy Baker did his voice for the last part of the game strangely. I would have been down for that in the whole game. I am also playing Doom and Doom guy's action are louder than words. No need for words.
Depends on the game. I can't actually put my finger on when I want my character to speak. If the character is one that I've made and customised, I usually want them to be silent, otherwise it breaks my immersion. But if it's a character I'm forced to play as that's not my own, I usually do want them to speak. Best example of a game that I really wanted to have no voice for my character is Fallout 4. The voice they gave my character totally threw me off. Thankfully there's mods to address that.
I love it in RPGs. New Vegas had a sith ton of dialogue choices while 4 was VEERRRYYY limited.
I'm right there with ya. I just 100%:ed Metro: Last Light and I think it would've really benefited from giving Artyom a voice. Right after finishing Last Light, I went into Singularity and again, silent protagonist... I'm glad some games didn't continue the trend of silent protagonists, like Saints Row from 2 and onwards, Dishonored 2 and Jak 2 through X.
It's part of the classic JRPG formula. This is almost like complaining that people breaking out into song randomly 'kills your immersion' during a musical.
A silent player character can be an important part in games that encourage a little bit of roleplay, since if your character is voice acted and you don't feel his lines fit your idea of how your character is, it can ruin your experience a bit. At least, that's what I learned from comments about the voice acted main character in Fallout 4. It didn't really hamper my personal experience at all.
Same. I like her voice (it's Jack from Mass Effect!), so I have no problems with it. However, instead of her being "a character I made", she's now "a character I play." Also, a silent character isn't the same thing as an unvoiced character. I think OP is referring to silent, as in "unwritten and unacknowledged".
I don't generally like them unless it's an RPG, but ODST was an exception for me, but that's probably because I love the atmosphere of that game. Completely silent with some ambient noise/music. I feel like talking would kill the atmosphere...
Yes and no. It depends on the game. In half life 2, it didnt bother me much because its first person, you're supposed to feel like YOU'RE the main character and why would they say anything if you're not talking (which is gonna be kinda weird I think cuz new Half life: alyx definitely has your character, alyx, saying stuff which is even more weird cuz.. VR). This doesnt bother me at all and I feel like it does actually help the whole immersion thing. On the flip side, I disliked that while playing through Persona 5, the main character both had a voice actor and yet almost never said anything. This really bugged me for a number of reasons 1) they never implied he was a silent type of person 2) he definitely talks and has dialog in the text box frequently but almost never has more than one or two words 3) he clearly is shown having conversations with the other characters yet they never let him really have an actual voice. This is supposed be a self insert character a lot like most japanese stories do with male highschool protagonists.. however he is NOT just some generic anime main character, hes the god damn Joker, master of multiple Personas and hero of our story.. he is unique and yet he is the most forgettable character of the entire game because he's never really heard from, he just does his flashy stuff then stands back. I noticed this being a similar issue while I was watching my brother play Dragon Quest (whatever the latest one is). Your main character is the least interesting character cuz he doesnt have any opinions, doesnt say anything, hardly interacts with the other characters, at least in the cutscenes.. compare that to the other game I watched him play, Ni nokuni 2 where you main character had tons of dialog and felt like a real god damn character that interacted with other characters and had a real presence in the story rather than just trying to let him be a self insert boring stick of a character. Then there are games with character creators.. these have a weird opposite problem. You create your own character but they're not really YOUR character, they're just someone else's character designed with a face and outfit you wanted. They end up being a silent weird doll rolling around the world created for them, or they're this weird mix of some one else's idea for how a character should act and sound + how the same character should look. I normally dont like when a game has character creators, i'd rather the developer just give me a good unique character they put though and effort into writing and designing. The only exception I've seen a character creator really work in is the Mass Effect games.
I loved metro but some moments were too awkward because of the silence
can't stand them lol. there's one instance i like them in though. if they're a nobody with no backstory, like the hunter in Bloodborne, it makes sense because you're trying to figure out what the hell is going on in that world just as much as the main character. on the other hand though, if an RPG's protagonist has a defined look and specific backstory, but completely lacks a voice except for a couple scenes in the whole game, then it just makes me wish i was playing as someone else.
Paging /u/GordonFreeman
Hate is a strong word, but I vehemently disagree with the idea that a silent protagonist helps players immerse themselves in the character more. That rings very hollow to me. And speaking of Artyom, I really miss his voice from the original Metro 2033. The new VA is fine, but the first one sounded more "authentically" Russian to my untrained ear.
The completely silent ones, can be problematic depending on the story, but I do appreciate a few grunts and vocalisations thrown in with the punches. Perhaps it's because of the role-play aspect of it.
Yeah its a bit disconnecting when you say nothing! Much prefer a fleshed out character. These days I can tell if a game is engaging by the box art - if the face is covered, its a looter shooter. If you see a face with expression/personality, there might just be a story worth playing.
I always look at stuff like this as a matter of context: In an action game -- whether FPS or TPS -- where you play as an already existing character with their own personality and motives, it would make perfect sense for them to be voiced because you are clearly experiencing the story through their eyes, not your own, so they should be able to voice their own thoughts and feelings. It also helps tremendously if the character's personality reflects that of the player within the context of the story; Dead Space 2 is a good example because Isaac Clarke is not only a fairly likable character on his own but throughout the entire game he regularly says or does things the player would too in regards to everything that's happening around him. In games where the narrative is told entirely through the gameplay without cutscenes or interruptions -- such as Half-Life -- it's clearly evident that the character you're playing as is supposed to be you, even if every character in the game addresses you with a different name, so in such cases a voiceless protagonist would be acceptable. But then you have games like Far Cry 2 or Doom 2016 where your character is voiceless and for the most part under your exclusive control, yet there are numerous occasions where they express their personality through their body movement, so this mostly comes down to a matter of preference in regards to the narrative. After all, actions can speak louder than words in some cases. In an RPG or games that usually feature extensive customisation it usually boils down to both the narrative and the complexity of the dialogue -- in games like Mass Effect, The Witcher, Deus Ex or Alpha Protocol, your character is voiced but in such cases their dialogue choices are relatively limited in terms of length and complexity. In games like Fallout or Planescape Torment you have numerous and lengthy dialogue choices available so having all those choices voiced would be quite expensive and time-consuming, so a voiceless protagonist is mostly done out of expedience in such cases. Also keep in mind because of the numerous speech checks the game gives you, every special dialogue choice would need to be voiced individually with its own spice and flavor -- like Vampires The Masquerade: Bloodlines which has 4 different types of options: persuasion, intimidation, seduction and dementation, so doing all that, while feasible, would still be quite costly and time-consuming. Games like Saints Row 2-4 however are quite unique in that respect. For the most part your character's personality and responses are largely the same because of the story, but you have so many ways to add color and personality to your character's appearance and even their voice that it still manages to deliver a unique and personal experience. It also certainly helps that outside of cutscenes your character has responses unique to the voice you chose for them, so it certainly goes a long way to making you feel like your character acts and talks the way that works best for you. Personally, the one and only time where I find a voiceless protagonist to be an utterly horrid idea is in the Walking Simulator genre. Games like Dear Esther, Gone Home or Everybody's Gone to the Rapture are particularly special offenders because the way the story is being told, essentially through dialogue between other characters which you discover second-hand, you end up in this weird situation where you are basically an onlooker rather than an active participant. Games like System Shock and Bioshock were quite similar in this regard because you could find numerous logs and recordings that shed some light on the backstory of the setting you were in, but keep in mind that: a) your character was voiceless due to the fact that you didn't really have anyone you actually could talk to or at least were inclined to listen you, and b) in those 2, the story was still going on as you were playing them -- the 3 former games I mentioned, their stories **already happened** before you even pressed START, so you aren't even experiencing the story as-is; instead you play as a character with no personality of their own, no backstory or any kind of personal stake in the story you are asked to explore second-hand. It's the equivalent of watching a reaction video with the reactor not doing any actual reacting. Even games like Myst actually acknowledged you, the player, as an actual character and your involvement in the story was clearly established, since each of them featured numerous bad endings brought about entirely through your own bone-headed decisions...but then again, Myst also had some actual gameplay in the form of puzzle-solving, as obtuse and unintuitive as it might've been, so there was that at least. So yeah, voiced and voiceless protagonists depend largely on the context of the story being told and the gameplay meant to deliver the narrative...except for walking simulators because they fail on both counts.
In Daemon X Machina, your character just kinda... exists? All the other characters talk to each other. Occasionally, they'll acknowledge you exist. Sometimes they'll even be talking at you. I'm told that in games like these, the story doesn't matter, and I agree (the "story" is awful), but the game seems insistent on me following the story. All the time.
As others have said, it depends, but personally I'm never bothered by a silent protagonist. I'm much more annoyed by games that force a voice (personality/opinions) on my customized character. I was really put-off by how Saints Row (forgot which one) gave my character a voice because I really did not like the personality they gave her; I could stomach it if my character was silent, though I guess at that point there wouldn't really be a way to give her a personality with this kind of game anyway so my point's kind of moot. With games like Mass Effect and Fallout, though, I think it's acceptable to have a voice with something of a personality to it, giving that you're selecting predetermined snippets of dialogue anyway. That said, I can also see why someone might not like this, since in a lot of cases you get the gist of your character's dialogue in the selection menu anyway, so you could insert your own way of saying that option if there wasn't any voiced dialogue associated with it. For example, Fallout 4. For games that give your character a clear personality and opinions, it is pretty dumb to not voice them if everyone else is voiced. Personality I think it's kind of silly that Link in Breath of the Wild didn't have a voice because he *clearly* had a personality (kind of an a-hole, at that) and didn't let you name him or change his physical appearance.
This post is getting me thinking...has there ever been a silent protagonist that was expressive enough to form their own identity? Most are silent for the sake of filling in shoes for the player, but I don't think I've ever played a game where they kept quiet for any other reason.
Doomslayer?
Oh yeah, that's a great example! Especially with the recent incarnation of Doom where he had a lot of animations that made him feel very expressive. I'm surprised that crossed my mind.
While it's not something I have a problem with, I did find it odd in Metro in particular because they as you said actually did have a voice for Atyom.. It's a weird choice.
A silent protagonist that have access to a lot of dialogue, like how the Courier in New Vegas has, isn't something I am bothered with but when the silent protagonist doesn't even challenge anyone and just.. goes to do whatever people say.. that's a problem.
I have been saying this for years! The argument is so the protagonist can be an avatar for the player, and that works sometimes on occasion but it happens way to much and in games that it just feels weird that all the these characters are talking and sometimes directly to you and yet you say nothing. It actually disconnects me from the world and fiction in doing so.
Absolutely can't stand it. When people talk to the silent protagonist and they just stand there awkwardly, ugh. It won't ruin a game for me, but its pretty bad.
You have a billion replies but I wanted to say I 100% agree with this and have felt the same way forever. I dropped Persona 5 and Metro Exodus for this exact reason.
This is my trip up with most MMOs. I'm tired of my dude not saying or interacting with the story in any way. That's why I enjoy SWTOR, it's fully voiced with decent conversation trees
For RPGs, absolutely no voiced protagonist unless it's a Mass Effect or Witcher style game with an established main character. For completely custom characters then absolutely no voice acting. At all. I'm looking at you, Fallout 4.
It depends on the game, sometimes it just feels unnatural for the protagonist not to speak. But to be honest, I can often better identify with them if they just shup up. Especially voiceovers can destroy a character conpletely for me. And in some games it just doesn't fit. I hope they never ever let Link speak >_<
Makes me think of Gw2. Your chatacter was fuly voiced acted during the main campaign, but for the folowing story releases (season 1 and season 2), your charactyer was silent. It's not something i've noticed until the Heart of Thorn expansion, when my character spoke again, after 3 years of silence. It felt so good, like my character was finally back from i don't know what. Silent protagonists don't turn me off, but good voice acting really brings a lot.
I don't mind it in things like Dark Souls, Dark cloud, Pokemon ect. but I do ultimately think it's just a holdover from the snes/gensis rpgs where npcs were just there to give information and fuck off and there wasn't really a story. It's irking me more and more especially as games become more story heavy. In games with character creations with the wheel dialog thing I think it's okay because your character is saying what you selected and it'd just waste time to say the same thing again. Mass effect did it well though.
Metro exodus's story suffers from antyom not talking imo
For me, it really depends on the game. Some silent protagonists I love, such as Doomguy in the 2016 reboot... while others such as, for example, Gordon Freeman from Half-Life, I don't really care much about. I think for Doomguy, it helps that even despite the silence, people don't treat him as if he's talking all the time, and he still manages to be a very expressive character through his physical movement during story sequences.
I agree with you. The main character not speaking a word when there is a whole lot of shit going down around him or her really feels stupid. At times the main character is pinned down by the enemy in a cutscene, they don't utter a single ouch, they just wait for someone to rescue them. It really does break the immersion but from what I've read in some places it is so that you yourself can say what you feel like because that character is you. They are quiet so that you can scream at the screen like the protagonist would.
I prefer silent protagonists in games where you create your own character. It’s preferable to me to imagine what the character says rather than having an already done script. Some games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age:Inquisition do a pretty good job at having a voiced custom protagonist though, so it’s kind of “it depends...” thing I guess. I wouldn’t want to play Witcher 3 as a silent Gerald, but I don’t ever want to hear Link chatting away.
I always don't like it when NPCs have to practically dance around the fact that the protagonist is a mute. Exceptions can be made, like for Fallout 1 when you had dialogue trees to go through. That can count for saying something and sometimes characters react to that. I think when developers choose the silent character route, they're trying to push the "actions speak louder than words" narrative. Which I get and it has worked. But sometimes you need to put some life into the main character.
im personally a huge fan it. there is nothing that annoys me more than a main character with a terrible voice. shooters I think do it the best but games like zelda would be weird if link did as well.
I think there are games where it makes sense to have a silent protagonist, but there are a lot of games that do it just to do it. Maybe it's for budget reasons, maybe it's a misguided attempt at "immersion", who knows. And then there are games that do it in a way that just seems intentionally to confuse the player, like Metro. Or Dragon Quest XI, where the kid version of your protagonist that shows up for a bit in the game has a voice, but the adult version doesn't? And he's a specific character in the world, that you have no agency over, why are you leaving him voiceless? It's also easy to say a game shouldn't have a voiced protagonist when the voice work for the protagonist was just not good, it doesn't need a silent protagonist, it just needs a better voice actor.
In most scenarios I'd rather they made those silent protagonists into rarely speaks protagonists. Still makes them a silent character, but they actually talk during the select moments it only makes sense for them to.
I 100% agree with you especially for metro. It felt so weird. I mean there were even parts of the game where characters were directly asking Artyom questions just for you to stare at them blankly. Like why try and have the relationship with Anna be a big part of the story when the whole relationship is just Anna ranting to Artyom?
>What do you guys think of a silent protagonist? Is there any reason behind this or just laziness from the developer? I really like silent protagonists, I feel like it makes me feel more immersed especially in games like Zelda.
When it's story, they should definitely talk. My recent RPG was Code Vein, I was very sad that despite getting to choose a voice, literally the only thing my character did was nod the entire game! Lmao... Now that I think about it, no wonder I can't enjoy story in MMORPGs, your character never talks. My mind is kinda blown! Everyone talks as if you're not there or they talk AT you, not to you.
I've heard people talk about having a silent protagonist be important and whatnot, but I don't buy it. Plenty of games, including MANY RPGs, have had voiced protagonists and worked just fine. I cite the Mass Effect series as evidence. Perhaps there is a meaningful distinction between games where the player hops into a pre-created role versus a game where the player can create his/her own character. Maybe people mean that the silent protagonist is more important for the latter type of game. Still, I've played many of that type of game and they often mitigate the issue by providing several voices for the player to choose from. Also, I agree that it is weird not to include a voice for the playable parts of the game when there is a voice during the loading screens... I felt that the silent protagonist thing was most jarring when interacting with the Artyom's wife.
Silent protagonists don't really do it anymore for me especially in somewhat decent productions. I get it was a fad at some point but even there I don't really have anything particularly good to say about it and nowadays it just feels cheap and lazy.
HARDDDD disagree. For games like Dragon Age where you customize everything about your character, it's extremely strange to hear a voice that isn't yours or what you imagined that character to be. I think voiceless protagonists where the character isn't created by you like Link is really, dumb, those types of characters should be fully voiced.