Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General 2020: Still no voice for non-English languages??

Hello,

I used the search function but didn't find a thread particularly to this topic.

Back in the old times each and every game (even the low budget productions) have had voices for some non-English languages. I'm from Germany so I can tell it for this one at least. Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 have had it and other titles as well like Neverwinter nights 2 (with 1 I'm not sure).

I understood that in times of Divinity OS 1 and 2 the productions were not so large like what we have here with BG3. But when I see how strongly the graphics evolve with this title, the understanding that we in 2020 still don't have voices for non-English decreases :-(

In my particular case I understand English in most cases without problems. But when it comes to "old English" or some rather special terms, I simply don't. So I have a loss of information let's say of about 10%. But in a game like BG3 the understanding is crucial. Of course we have German subtitles but at least in my case it's hard to concentrate on English voices and German subtitles at the same time as I need to take care of what happens in the actual cutscenes. The concequence is often that I set the voice level to 0% in the settings so that I can concentrate fuly on the subtitles and don't miss a thing. But of course this kills lots of atmosphere.

Is there a special reason to keep the voice localizations out? At this level it's hard for me to believe it's because of money constraints??

Thanks in advance for any opinion!

Bye The_Unknown

voice acting is actually realy expensive Hans.
Especialy in a game with this ammount of dialogue. Im surprised they actually fully voice acted the entire thing

Remmeber that NWN had a publisher. Not having a publisher is a big deal in terms of money constrains.
also, its a different time. Most people assume that the majority of people interrested in the product speak english anyway.

From someone whose wife has done voice acting and translation to and from English into German...

That process is usually one of the last things to happen. It’s too cost inefficient to translate and voice act content that is still subject to change. I’m sure you’ll see localization later down the release schedule.

I am honestly still shocked that Larian games affords full VO to begin with.

Something to keep in mind is that those RPGs of old had far less VO overall, and had publishers backing. Doing multi language release will cost a lot of course, but will also require a robust infrastructure of translators, casting directors and such and recording sessions in various countries. That’s something an indie studio, ever a prosperous one, might not necessarily have access to. And with games becoming mainstream I imagine cost of VO increased as well due to overall rise in quality.

I know though, how Germans love to dub everything though:-) and I sympathise. While I usually prefer to play games in English, Baldur’s Gate2 definite version for me is with Polish dubbing. They hired some experienced theatre actors for that... somehow. That was quite a cast.

Which is funny, since German dubs SUCK.
They all do.
The problem is with how Germans do dialogue in anyhting.

No accents or dialects allowed unless its a comedy.
only stilted Theatre german allowed that sucks the soul out of any character they portray.

Well thats what you get when youve got a language that, by the logic of any other language, is actually more like 8 seperate , sometimes mutually unintelligeble, languages pretending to be one.

I actually like the way they did it in the original trilogy. You´ve got a sample of the voices of your companions and a silent main character. When any of your companions or some NPC speak, I use to "hear" it in my head with the voice of Jaheira, Minsc, Khivan, Jan, etc... and my character will speak with the voice I have in my head for him.
My sister actually voiced his characters in IE games.

I understand this won´t be feasible in this game because you have origin characters and of course have a good voice actor could give an edge to many dialogues with NPCs. Point in case, Raphael, IMHO the best dialogues in the gameplay so far.

That’s quite some statement...
Are you German by any chance? Because I agree that the majority of media content dubbed into German isn‘t great, but I could say the same about dubbing in many a European country, and I’ve lived in many.

Accents in German for example are allowed, and are used, for example Bavarians used for Scottish accents etc...

As I’ve said, my wife has done voice overs and translation and would agree about how poorly programs are dubbed. Simpsons for example is poor in German, but that’s an issue of jokes and play on words not translating from one language to another.

As for 8 into 1? That’s an odd comment, but I’m happy to discuss ;-)

Wow, Not even the Simpsons have a good dub? That´s got to be terrible, sorry about that.

I thought Castellano Spanish has the worst dubbers so far. They made memes about it.

Every country is usually asking for localizations but when it comes to spanish voice-overs may people are like "Nah, I´m good", "I will manage" uh, just "use your resources to add more content, hermano"

In parts it is simply to do with how jokes work. What is funny in English isn’t funny in French or German and if all you do is a literal translation, it loses its power to be funny. Obviously ugly you attach visual Humore to the dialogue it can be doubly hard. But that’s just normal.

When it comes to actual dubbing I hate it because you always here how the voices are not integral to the original sound. In Germany to boot they tend to tie one voice actor to one real actor so that no matter what film that actor is in, it’s the same German voice actor. Sounds reasonable, but I often find that just because you are that persons designated voice it doesn’t mean you can act out the nuances an actor might lend to a different film. I.e. a good actor for Bruce Willis might have been chosen and their voice is ok in an action film but grated in something like 6th sense. It’s subjective, but I would rather original tone with subtitles.

i dont know where accents are used in german dubs.
The only things i can think of are Heimatfilme and maybe some Berlin related dramas.
That and comedies.
Austrian and Swiss moveis are another thing, but dubs never use accents or the like. Maybe foreign accents. Russian accents in cold war movies i suppose.

I dont think ive ever seen Bavarian used for scots, outside of maybe a comedy.
Id certainly say Tyrolean accents would fit the rough highlander talk bill, but its not something ive actually seen.

And most Movie productions you see in German have this very samey """"high german""" that doesnt reflect any actually spoken language.

>are you german
Native speaker, not a german tho.

>8 different languages

If Serbian, Croatian and Slovenian are different languages then how is Swissgerman not a different language? I for one cannot understand it. And im pretty sure the same is true for a variety of other dialects like platdeutsch or saxon.
What was the saying again? A language is just a dialect with an army and an anthem.

Ah yeah, exclusivity is usual in many countries. The same voice actor will cast a number of actors, no matter the movie or the character. Sometimes is a weird match indeed.

That´s usually strange for the original actors when they show them the voices in other languages and met the voice actors. There are some (talented) voice actresses that also dub male characters, mostly kids, teens or cartoon characters, but there are exceptions.

Same happens in videogames.

Usually, they use the "standard" variation in of the language, no dialects or accents, but there are exceptions. The female french lead in "Da Vinci code" movies or some other characters, mostly in animation movies.


I heard that in "Life is beautiful (1997) they changed the german soldiers to speak Italian in the german dub, wich would be a strange combination. Sometimes you have to do weird things so plot points would not be lost in traslation.