Do you prefer a voiced or silent protagonist?

[Vergil]

Was thinking about the Saints Row games and about how they had a pretty schizophrenic way of handling the player character's voice. In Saints Row 1 the protagonist very rarely talked and this was something often referenced by NPCs. Then the protagonist suddenly became voiced in the sequel which is usually a big no-no in an established franchise. Call of Duty and Halo are other franchises that used to have strictly silent protagonists (at least during gameplay) that slowly phased that out in favor of an active speaker.
For RPGs it seems theres a 50/50 split depending on what games in particular the person likes. Fallout 4 took a lot of flack for suddenly introducing a voiced protagonist but games like Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and the Witcher were massively popular despite giving you a set voice. Do you have a preference between the two approaches? Does the genre of game make a difference?

[asf]

i play games with no sound

[rusty_shackleford]

it only matters if it's an rpg

[Oyster Sauce]

At the end of BG3 when you regroup with everybody there's a cutscene where the camera focuses on your guy while he opens his mouth and silently cheers before battle. It felt so cheap. It's not even a self-insert thing, you choose a voice for him, he has voice lines in combat and when clicking on ****. KotOR level technology.

That said, I only support AI voice acting now so developers can't use voice actors as an excuse to have **** dialogue/quest reactivity.

[Vergil]

At the end of BG3 when you regroup with everybody there's a cutscene where the camera focuses on your guy while he opens his mouth and silently cheers before battle. It felt so cheap. It's not even a self-insert thing, you choose a voice for him, he has voice lines in combat and when clicking on ****.

Baldur's Gate 3 is a weird situation to me. It seems like they fully intended for the protagonist to be fully voiced but decided to cut it either to potential backlash or cost reasons. The protagonist has lines randomly at arbitrary points I really don't get what the point of have a 1/6th voiced character was. It's even funnier that the moment where the character's voice is used the most isn't even when they're speaking it's when Orin shapeshifts into you for a cutscene as Durge.

KotOR level technology.

This one is even weirder to me. It's an active decision to record and program lines for switching to the character. Why do did they do that?

[DagothGeas5]

To me it has become the norm to expect the worst if there is voiced dialogue for the character after playing Bioware games (text says "I accept." voiced dialogue "Yeah, fine, whatever you say. I am the best anyway, so of course you would ask me.") added in with obnoxious facial animations, which are almost forced to be over the top to compensate for the muteness if the character cannot speak at any point in time.
If I play an RPG that allows me to make my character, it feels as if they are overwriting it with their **** when they do that.
Games like the Witcher for me are not exactly RPG as in I am playing as someone else's invented character, but, with my choices, giving them my own spin, so I am not as irked if there is something off there, as I don't feel as invested I believe, and am more of a "more involved passenger" along for their story, giving my occasional choice input to drive the narrative, while with a character of my own making it is more akin to shaping the world and story through them, and if that control is taken away, so is any interest I have in a character that they are "corrupting" with their own forced spin. Hope I am making sense.

Baldur's Gate 3 is a weird situation to me. It seems like they fully intended for the protagonist to be fully voiced but decided to cut it either to potential backlash or cost reasons. The protagonist has lines randomly at arbitrary points I really don't get what the point of have a 1/6th voiced character was. It's even funnier that the moment where the character's voice is used the most isn't even when they're speaking it's when Orin shapeshifts into you for a cutscene as Durge.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think I recall the protagonist being originally fully voice-acted, but they removed it after backlash on the reveal.

[1998]

For something like BG3 a silent PC is indeed odd and feels a bit out of place. If you have so many cutscenes, everyone else is fully (professionally) voiced, I would prefer having the PC also voiced. Would have been weird to play mute Geralt.

In games that don't rely that heavily on cinematic cutscenes, I don't have an issue with mute PC. Before I would hear his voice, I have anyway read all potential replies.

In some other games I actually turn down voices altogether. Mostly because lots of bad VA have the tendency to talk extra slow for some reason. In these cases I just read it myself.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

In any story heavy game where the main appeal is the story, the character you are playing as - the protagonist - needs to have motivations and hatreds to propel you through the story. It is very difficult to do that if the player is a silent protagonist, as the player becomes a passive actor who becomes a bludgeon wielded by other characters. In the first two Suikoden games, you the PC are ostensibly the leader of a rebel army, but it feels like your strategist character Matthiu and Shu are the actual protagonists, because the PC doesn't give out any orders. It is Matthiu and Shu who are analyzing enemy movements, thinking up plans, giving orders, etc. In Final Fantasy XIV, you are ostensibly "the Warrior of Light", the hero of the world, but in reality it feels like the rest of the Scions are the actual heroes, as it is they who are deducing the plot and figuring out what our next move is. A silent protagonist is okay in a game if it isn't about "the story". Ie, Elder Scrolls games, as the game is really just about you touring through this fantasy world and doing what you want like robbing people. The quests are just fluff.

[OnTilt]

I prefer all the characters to be voiced like Ocarina of Time and the older Lego games: a few grunts and emotive phrases and then just text.

[Magick]

I always liked the old style of just having a pitched "noise" per character:

It sort of just "fit" and my mind filled it in. I didn't need them voiced at all.

[KnightoftheWind]

A silent protagonist means less opportunity for devs to portray my character as any variety of ****** or obnoxious girlboss with a big mouth. In Sony's Cinematic games, the player character almost never shuts up and it got on my nerves really fast.

[OnTilt]

I always liked the old style of just having a pitched "noise" per character:

It sort of just "fit" and my mind filled it in. I didn't need them voiced at all.

This is good too, yes.

[StudiedAsleep]

Idk don’t mind either tbh. Some games are good without some are good with.

[Segata]

I only like voiced characters when they have memeable phrases and voice acting (JC Denton & Adam Jensen, Leon in RE4), for the rest I prefer the silent route, specially in most RPGs.

[Oyster Sauce]

Timestamped

RE4 is timeless, RE4 Remake is a product of its time

Shut the **** up!

[Finarfin]

Jesus. Yappy *******. OG RE4 was not this ****. Also did the REmake devs watch these "Focus M" videos and thought "OH YEAH, that **** is great"

[GayFatRetard]

it only matters if it's an rpg

What if the RPGhq had voiced posts? Wait, nevermind. Bad idea. Or is it?

[Sinfield]

This is one of the questions that fall under "Just do whatever best suits the game you're making".

[sheet]

Every protag should be a cocky early 2000s space hero archtype that quips at alien corpses and says he ****** the mother of every boss he encounters.

[Ranselknulf]

I prefer a voiced protagonist, but I want it to sound like I do, but also how I sound to myself when I talk, not how I sound when I watch a video of myself talking.

[Tangerine]

I want the character to have a voice, but not actually be voiced. Spoken dialogue is slower than I can read.

[Algol]

If it's not quippy, faggy Reddit **** the entire time, voiced protags can be fine. But since it's next to impossible for ******/******/mystery-meat writers to do this nowadays, good luck.

[Norfleet]

I want to see a protagonist that spends pretty much the entire game communicating solely in monosyllabic grunts. At the shocking grand finale, he may optionally utter a single word, to the shock of everyone around.

[Oyster Sauce]

I want to see a protagonist that spends pretty much the entire game communicating solely in monosyllabic grunts. At the shocking grand finale, he may optionally utter a single word, to the shock of everyone around.

Dead Space

[MrTwinkls]

I want to see a protagonist that spends pretty much the entire game communicating solely in monosyllabic grunts. At the shocking grand finale, he may optionally utter a single word, to the shock of everyone around.

► Show Spoiler

[Atlantico]

If it is an RPG like Mass Effect where you are playing a distinct main character who has a personality then voiced is fine.

If it is an RPG like Fallout 2 where you are playing a character you create yourself, I don't want voiced lines. That's immersion-breaking.

[TKVNC]

I would like voiced dialogue that is AI, with means to adjust diction and tone, and that lets me choose my responses.

Otherwise I'd rather just be silent. I can fill in what my character sounds like with my imagination.

[Niggler]

If it is an RPG like Mass Effect where you are playing a distinct main character who has a personality then voiced is fine.

If it is an RPG like Fallout 2 where you are playing a character you create yourself, I don't want voiced lines. That's immersion-breaking.

Shepard

[Niggler]

At the end of BG3 when you regroup with everybody there's a cutscene where the camera focuses on your guy while he opens his mouth and silently cheers before battle. It felt so cheap. It's not even a self-insert thing, you choose a voice for him, he has voice lines in combat and when clicking on ****. KotOR level technology.

That said, I only support AI voice acting now so developers can't use voice actors as an excuse to have **** dialogue/quest reactivity.

Jennifer English is the main reason for me supporting AI voice acting

[ThulsaDoomer]

To add some variety to the opinions already shared, of which many I agree with, for me it comes down to the kind of RPG, and the intention for the protagonist. For games like the Witcher or Deus Ex, you are merely inhabiting the body of an already existing person, who has more or less made up their own mind about how to view the world. I would vastly prefer these protagonists were voiced, it helps reinforce their pre-written personalities.

Otherwise, no voice is ideal. I can come up with my own interpretation based off the choices I make. It may just be me, but it's like how you would respond in reality, you listen and then immediately formulate a response based on rapid choices in your head, but in a game format, this ends up taking a lot longer since you gotta make the choice, then wait for your character to speak it, which is simply revoicing the choice you already made. It's a bit clunky.