For me, as I know I've said elsewhere on these forums before, a voiced protagonist is really important for me to bring my PC alive and make them feel present in the game world, particularly when other characters in the game are fully voiced. I know some people can manage to invest their silent puppets with character through their imagination and own voice acting, but I'm afraid I need the help of professionals to really feel my main character isn't the least real, interesting or charismatic one in the game.
Dragon Age: Origins would be my undisputed favourite game if it had a voiced protagonist, but as it is I now find it really hard to replay and watch my character standing there silently while everyone talks around them. Whereas, despite the limited options, my "canon" Shepard feels both real and mine and I'll happily replay any of the ME games. I do understand folks' concerns that voiced protagonists might mean compromising on the amount of dialogue, but personally I think well-chosen, well-written dialogue is more important, and both that it should be possible to include enough such dialogue even if voiced to give us the flexibility to create the characters we want to, and that if the dialogue isn't well-chosen or well-written then adding more of it isn't really going to help!
Lack of a voiced protagonist isn't going to be a deal-breaker for me, but having my character be vocal would have been among my top 5 wishes for the game to really live up to its potential and I am still going to keep my fingers crossed this is at least partly a false alarm!
... Larian do a vastly superior job of understanding the potential for roleplay outside of dialogue. That is something I really appreciate.
This comment really resonated with me. I'm not sure how much it's the fact I've played and replayed the same bit of game and experimented with different ways of doing things more than I have with any other game, and how much it's Larian's approach to game design, but I've really felt when playing BG3 that the whole game can feel different playing different characters not just the dialogue and selections I make within it. My concept for my character affects how I approach challenges such as getting into (and out of) the goblin camp and Ethel's hut and so on, where I'll go and in what order, how and when I use stealth and so many other things. Even how much I loot! If Larian manage to build on this and provide multiple other ways to express who my PC is then it might make up somewhat for lack of voice ... though I'd rather have both!
