Starfield is a big game with hundreds of planets to explore and many sandwiches to collect. But while all the NPCs you’ll meet in Starfield have voices, the game’s main character doesn’t. Bethesda already confirmed this was the case last year, but has now shared more details about why it made this choice, revealing that originally Starfield had a talking protag and that ultimately cutting the main character’s voice helped the game grow in size.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Personally, I'm not a fan of this trend that's been semi-standard since at least Halo: Reach. The whole silent protagonist thing really takes me out of the game; I would much rather hear any voice for my character.

Contrast this with, say, Cyberpunk 2077 where the main character talks quite a bit. This makes me feel way more like a real person in the game world.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I disagree, the voiced protagonist in Fallout 4 really limited the role playing aspects. I felt like most conversation prompts ended up being

A. Yes, I’ll do that B. Yes, I’ll do that but be a sarcastic dick about it C. No, but actually still yes I’ll do that D. Leave conversation

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

And the previews were useless. I ended up being a sarcastic dick most of the time when I wasn't trying to.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

It isn't a trend, it is standard for Bethesda games.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I don't really want to hear my character talk in an RPG where I am making the character and supposedly have my own background, look and sound in mind and am the one selecting what that character says. Unless if they have tons of different voices, like old Bioware RPGs did, I would prefer to just read it myself and give whatever voice I want. It immerses me in the game much more, where I feel like the character I am playing because I am given opportunity to say the dialogue choices my self.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I think it all depends on what sort of game you have, specifically if it is story driven or immersion/exploration driven.

Halo Reach is story driven and would have absolutely benefitted from a voice. Mass Effect was primarily story driven and the voiced protag worked great.

Fallout 4 is the opposite and a silent protag would have been better as silent, like in Fallout 3 or Elder Scrolls games.