I know this thread is focused on voice, but performance includes gestural stuff and movement as well, which we see on full display in our very first "cutscene convo" to crack Us out of their skull-prison. So just to get into that non-verbal flair for a moment:
Watch how the Main Character approaches...
Regardless of which voice/class/background etc you select, the MC is going to slow step over to that corpse in a chair, popping their heels and floating their hands along the way, like they are walking the catwalk, and they know the whole universe is watching their ass.
I think the gestures and facial expressions absolutely should be discussed! Voice acting can be applied even to games with smaller budgets, which is probably why it was more of a focus on my end. But the acting in this game has a physical flourish that reminds me a lot of theatre acting. Granted the cinematic style would probably benefit from a more muted movie/television performance a la Red Dead 2 or The Last of Us, but I feel like the theatrical performances hit closer to the soul of table top role playing.
Now reload and instead of using a hotshit Elf, Human or Tiefling MC (that everyone is probably playing) watch how this scene plays out with a burly Dwarf doing the same. It's pure comedy lol.
And that's just dissecting how the main character walks. Now add in the facial expressions they make during this whole exchange. Is that your character?
Then take the next scene with Lae'zel and watch her gestural performance there, compared to the MC's reaction shot. I can tell exactly what Lae'zel is about and who her character is (an aggro fighter) without even hearing her voice. Now look at the MC with their hair blowing in the wind looking all extra vapid in response hehe.
You quickly realize that it's not just Voice that is going to intrude on your sense of character (the MC is silent in these exchanges) but all our gestures and movements and reaction shot facial expressions. They are pre-dialed, and our performance is predetermined.
This is what happens, because all the direction is the same. Same blocking, same gestures, same speed. It doesn't matter if your MC is a massive Gith warrior, or a dainty Elf rogue, the animations and whole scene will be basically identical regardless. I'm not saying they couldn't do stuff with enough variety and differentiation to make each Main Character performance feel unique, but it goes well beyond voice acting.
This is a fair assessment, and echoes similar thoughts I’ve had. Like when I was playing a hardened drow character and they made a horrified expression at Arabella’s death. It took me completely out of the moment. Their adjustment so far seems to be to cut these extraneous expressions out entirely, but I’d love it if they could find some way to blend class, race, and background when determining animation cycles. That might not be possible due to budget constraints but wow would it be a major breakthrough for the silent protagonist if they could pull it off. Otherwise we might just be stuck with viewing personal conversations primarily via shot-reverse shot or first person—not a bad thing, necessarily, leaning into the voyeur aspect you mention later—but perhaps a missed opportunity.
Also, fun fact, but Lae’Zel’s introduction was what sold me on the game. Even though the animations were janky, her character came across so clearly it reminded me of watching Gillian Anderson perform Blanche with such physicality that I could forget her terrible southern accent entirely LOL.
I loved Morrigan! Now that was a complete performance! I just think the more cinematic the experience becomes the more work they have cut out for themselves. I stop judging it like a crpg video game at those points and start judging it by the standards of theater or cinema. I don't want my protagonist to feel like a bad actor on top of everything else lol. Again it's not that they couldn't pull it off, but I don't know that Larian has demonstrated they understand how to use the Prologue. They are using it currently to set up the Plot, rather than the Character. Trying to make the audience care about Plot before they care about Character is very challenging.
Crpgs are a very young medium on the whole, while theatre and movies have been around for quite some time now, so I understand not quite evaluating them on the same level. And that’s without taking into account the balance between the gameplay crowd and the narrative crowd.
I see what you mean by plot over character. Right now they’re making the tadpole mystery the central premise and building their main cast around it. In medias res style openings seem to be all the rage for a lot of video games lately as well. I can understand the appeal. Hook people with a central mystery and let everything unfold around that. But it can also strain suspension of disbelief if it’s not handled with care. Already ‘because tadpole’ seems to be the answer to a lot of questions in the game, which is a touch concerning.
I think they have to choose. Either they can have a really spectacular and engrossing but singular performance, or they can maintain the pretense of player character choice and control with some variety. I don't think they can really have both in a game like this. It's probably not impossible to achieve both, but I've yet to see that pulled off in an RPG game, or any game really. The requirements to set that up are so much more demanding than just voice work, once they've decided they're going to show us the Protagonist performance In-Full, as if this was a movie. I think its better not to hold up the mirror in that case, at least not in a D&D game. Like just don't show us, and we can maintain the illusion. Show us and that illusion is dispelled. The player character in the latter case must be content with just fitting the part and playing the role they're given. The player becomes a spectator or voyeur, rather than the one innovating or creating a role of their own. Totally different forms of role play and a very different sense engaging with the idea of performance.
At the very least, they need to figure how best to allocate their resources. Larian has a fairly considerable budget, but it’s not unlimited, and even if it was they’d still have to deal with deadlines and the expectation that the game releases in around two years. I’ve heard rumblings of the silent protagonist being fully voiced, and frankly I would much rather have a variety of scenarios akin to the ones you proposed than an MC who talks. It’s already rather jarring in its limited occurrences. SaurianDruid brought up Fallout 4, and while the dialogue feels a fair bit more robust, it’s a genuine concern and complaint.
I'm not sure if the OP question was really in reference to the Main Character, but that's how I read it. For the MC the answer is "almost irrelevant" and I think it damages the whole vibe just by existing, but for NPCs the answer would be "extremely important" and the quality of the voice acting is probably the be-all in that case. It works for Morrigan as my companion, but I don't want to be Morrigan as my protagonist, if that makes sense. I think Larian has hopelessly complicated things by suggesting that we should be able to do the latter in a D&D game with their divisive Origins concept. I find the whole concept of a Pre-Gen protagonist anathema to the central project of D&D.
I have complicated opinions about the Origin system. I agree pre-gen characters in DnD feels off, but there’s also something strangely charming about it. It makes the group feel more communal as opposed to the MC being the sole leader. And leaning into it can open up some neat role playing opportunities. Like I had my group split up while talking to the tiefling refugees, and enjoyed role playing as Gale while recruiting Wyll, or Lae’zel while chatting to the newly weds. (The Githyanki tags are quite priceless for that interaction.) But it also required quite a bit of meta gaming on my part, as I knew where to bring the group together to trigger specific cutscenes.
The Origins system if continuously iterated upon could bring a new dimension to role playing, but currently it seems to mostly just get in the way of players’ immersion. And the pay off simply isn’t worth it for the vast majority of fans. None of which even touches on the multiplayer component. Which… yeah, I understand the ire about that. I love multiplayer games but trying to be both a multiplayer and single player experience simultaneously is always going to create a design philosophy at odds with itself.
The mise-en-scène for the "Crashing Nautiloid" says so much about what this game is, and what it's trying to be. It's impossible for me to avoid coming back to it, even if I don't really have choice anyway. The fact that they've spent a year on the first Act, and yet the prologue remains largely unchanged (except we can spring Shadowheart from her tank I guess, and now it's night time, sorta?) it just says a lot to me. They need to try a bit harder there, if they want to win me over. Don't make me wait 3 hours to find out what you've been working on lately. The prologue should be a fucking masterpiece by now. They've only had what, like a thousand rehearsals? lol
The night scene is so bizarre, and then the cut to blazing daylight is laugh out loud hilarious. I wonder if they’re experimenting with making a day/night cycle work within the engine, or maybe segueing it into the scene you get if you camp alone the first night. Just very strange.
And yeah… I didn’t mind the prologue the first time I played it, but now it mostly just comes across as tedious. Rescuing Shadowheart actually has some major changes on how she treats you (honestly to a point where she feels less interesting to me), but breaking her free isn’t in and of itself all that engaging. Aside from firmly establishing the Githyanki artifact, I suppose, which is again placing plot over character.
