Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Why can't we have a fully voiced protagonist??

Larian, my favorite studio, please hear me out.

Gaming has advanced. We're in the 20s of the 21st century. Having a mute protagonist in such a high-quality, roleplay-oriented video game is not only outdated, it's downright weird. There are video games over a decade old that have a custom player character who is fully voiced, and let me tell you - the majority of those games' popularity stems precisely from that feature.

I can't comprehend why you didn't fully voice the player character. If the limitation was financial, I can understand that. But it's been some time and I suppose your coffers have been refilled, due to this game being such a success. If it still isn't enough, or if you think this isn't a valid investment, you could make a sort of paid DLC that enables Tavs and Origin characters to always speak their lines.
I'm not sure how implementing the voiced feature works technically, but if it's doable, please consider it. If you're still not sure, I suggest you make a survey about this and see if the players agree. It can't hurt to at least make a survey, right?

The reason I'm being so insistent on this should be obvious, but... perhaps nowadays everything is muddled in the sea of compulsory opinions and self-imposed limitations.

The most important aspect of having a fully voiced player character is the CONNECTION. There is something truly magical and unique in hearing your character speak. It's like a small godlike power of creation, provided by the game, and it's pure gratification. It is thrilling and fulfilling. There is also the feeling of anticipation, to hear and see how that character will perform and come alive. Having their own voice in dialogues gives them genuine identity, makes the player feel more invested in them, and subsequently makes all the decisions feel more impactful.
But when your character is just standing there mute in a dialogue, and you just read what they're supposed to say out loud - the magic falls flat, evaporates. Muteness feels like a setback, and our character loses some of its importance. Most of all, it feels forever incomplete.

I have found myself yearning to hear my character's voice, and anticipating those moments, just to feel that unique connection... And that connection fades or even breaks every time I see my character, quasi-participating in a conversation with another NPC - who always seems superior in comparison, just because they can actually SPEAK.

What is the actual argument for not having dialogue lines voiced for the player character?
I'm under the assumption that fans of roleplaying video games who defend the mute protagonist mainly do so because they are USED TO this shortcoming. Old habits like that can be very detrimental for the future of video games. Old roleplay games that didn't fully voice player characters are such because of lack of funds, or lack of development time, or lack of talent - or all of those combined. I know for a fact that you guys have tons of talent, you have employed wonderful voice actors, and the sheer dedication to your games is staggering.
So, just... why??

Addition:

I have just found out that there has already been a survey about this in Early Access, and the majority voted for mute protagonist - which additionally baffles me. I guess I was spot on with my "detrimental old habits" assumption.

So I will correct my suggestion for the survey option into this:
Make the fully voiced protagonist anyway and implement it as an OPTION in the game settings. I would like my roleplay experience to actually be complete, as would many others (who were outvoted, apparently), I'm sure.
I realize this may be complicated to implement from the technical standpoint, but it shouldn't be impossible. Devs, correct me if I'm wrong. All I know is that it will definitely give even more credibility to an amazing game that has, let's be honest, set a new standard for the roleplay genre.

Please think about it.

There are several reasons I personally have long been against fully voiced protagonists in crpgs. One is that it can end up limiting roleplay options. If devs have to fully voice everything, that means severely limiting the number of dialoguue options we can have. If the devs see a point where it would make sense to add a reaction, then what would be typing in a line of dialogue then becomes getting a voice actor in, paying them, paying for whatever equipment is necessary to actually record, then paying for the process of mixing and adding the line to the actual game. So by necessity the number of options given have to be pared down just so they aren't prohibitively expensive (I personally am against full voicing even for companions for this same reason. I think companions and NPCs should have occasional voiced dialogue in big, important moments but leave it as text otherwise.

The next reason is actually a counterpoint to what you say about connection. I find that if my protagonist is voiced, it takes away connection. I can't imagine a voice for them, can't imagine how they might phrase things, suddenly they aren't my character, they're the character the developer envisioned. Because devs can't account for every nuance of a character, nor should they have to or even try to. A mute protagonist lets me dictate as much of my character as possible. Frankly I already find BG3 frustratingly limiting in the types of character personalities I can give to my characters, full voicing would only limit me further.

”advanced” would suggest that something is better than it used to. I don’t think that’s objectively true. It’s a trade off - you gain some you loose some. That’s why we haven’t seen a proper cRPG with fully voiced PC.

There are hybrid titles (like Witcher3 or Mass Effect and probably closest would be Dragon Age: Inquisition) but I think one just has to compare how limited those titles are compared to BG3 to guess why BG3 doesn’t have a fully voice PC.

I prefer mute protagonist not because I am „used to
It” but because I see it as being antithetical to whT I value in a cRPG - I want to create and roleplay as a character and having a character constraint by a performance goes directly against that.

Not to say that fully voice PC doesn’t have advantages - but those advantages come at the cost of roleplaying. Your Geralt, Shepard and Inquisitor are pretty much the same as mine - they might have made some odd choices here and there, but there isn’t much wiggle space.

I think BG3 did prove that one can make a game that is interactive and encourages player expression that still has mass appeal. I would agree with you that more passive titles with strong protagonist are and easier sell, but Latina managed to pull it off. So no, neither mute PC nor turn-based are dated.

I personally prefer a silent protagonist if it's "my" character. Like, I would prefer silent for Tav, but would be happy with a voiced Origin character, except that it would probably be prohibitively expensive. I prefer more dialogue options to voiced main characters, by a lot.

For characters like Tav, I find having voiced lines to be frequently jarring. The tone frequently comes out a bit off to what I imagined. It in fact winds up sometimes breaking my immersion, and I don't get anything out of it. It just takes longer for the scene to happen, since I have to listen to the voice work on top of reading my selections. Consider how people already complain about their Tav's body language in some scenes, like that they don't like facial expressions in some scenes. There are complaints that Tav looks too romantically at Gale in his weave scene, or that they don't look upset enough when a companion is going through something traumatic, or too upset if the Tav doesn't like someone. The facial expressions work great in those scenes for certain Tav's but horribly for others. This tone thing is not an issue for characters I don't control, because I can't control others' tones IRL. I do prefer voiced NPCs, but I can enjoy games without that. Unless there are multiple voice options for the PC, it also limits the type of characters you can create.

Even if there was a setting to turn off the voice, it would still need the budget to create it, which I would rather be spent on more content, bug fixes, etc.

I think the main limitation would be cost.

Since the protagonist has multiple voice options to choose from, they would need to have ALL lines voiced multiple times, which adds up in cost pretty quickly.

Besides that, there's something about the "Blank Slate" protagonist they opted for. Giving more voiced dialogues could impact people's ability to project onto their character (It could be mitigated with Solasta style personality choosing, but that would require even more costs due to vastly increased dialogue amounts, multiplied by the number of protagonist voices)

Personally, I'd have preferred fully voiced protagonists, especially as I'm picking a voice for my character anyway for the random dialogues that occur when moving around. But I can see why it might not be feasible or desired by some.

I would still like to hear from Larian devs if the issue with voiced protagonist indeed is of financial nature, and whether it would really cut down on the content in the game. I don't want to make assumptions on their behalf. And ultimately, I am a consumer, not their employee or their representative. I can only ask for content, and I can understand if they clearly state it isn't possible for technical or financial reasons.

As for the immersion aspect:
The lines are already there in the dialogue options. What you choose is what you get. I expect the protagonist to have their own way of expressing themselves, I don't want them to be entirely my (mute) puppet. I don't go control-freak on my avatars, I expect the game to do things outside my control, because it WILL do it one way or the other. This isn't table top where you yourself can verbally playact and talk to your DM, and it can never be, the concept is different.
Voice actors have done a tremendous job in this game and I trust they would follow through with the atmosphere in the dialogue. I am not actually projecting myself into my character, I am more like their guide into the game's story. And that is why their muteness bothers me and why to me they feel incomplete.

I see I'm in the minority here. I see that the preferences of the majority are the main reason why the protagonist is mute. But I still wish to have my own preference on offer, and I would pay for this addition in the form of DLC or something similar, if necessary. If not... Well. At least I asked.

That all makes sense and is a perfectly valid point of view. It seems you have your own particular thing you want out of a crpg, which is fine and reasonable. Speaking for myself, I'm fine with the game doing things outside my control, but the whole reason I pplay crpgs is to be able to create a character I feel is unique, and has an inner life that's unique and can decide their choices within the game. I don't project myself, but I do try and craft as unique a character as I can within the limits given to me by a given game. I happen to feel that with full voicing, we are losing even more capacity to feel our characters are uniquely our own. Instead of being able to imagine differences in tone and attitude, there will only be one interpretation, one reading only, ever. I won't be able to imagine my sorcerer playfully boasting about her innate magic with gale as opposed to genuinely being self-absorbed and bragadocious, for example. Also there are so many dialogue options, trying to create a consistent characterization across them all would be a maddening task in itself. In theory you can do all sorts of things for all sorts of motivations in this game. You could help the tieflings because you genuinely care about their plight, or because you just want to get to Halsin and this seems like the only way to do it. Or you could say you want to help them at first but then betray them when you decide the cult is the better choice. Those are three different approaches to the same situation and all would call for three different approaches to direction and performance to make work.

Yes, and you are not wrong to prefer that kind of defined protagonist. Personaly, when playing a game like Baldur’s Gate3 (or Pillars of Eternity etc.) I like to come up with general character concept - who that characters is, what his background is, what his personal goals are, what his plans were before he got swept in that adventure. There is a lot joy to be found in being more active with role playing choices.

To be honest, I never played a tabletop and initially I also preferred games that would do more character building for me. I gave it ago one time, I started to enjoy “role playing” more and more.

As someone above mentioned: if Larian added full VO for origins, but not Tav/Durge, I would fine with that. I suspect it would be a staggering amount of work, as I dont think lines as they are in the game could be simply read. More likely a separate script for each character would have to be written, to make it work.

One thing to keep in mind when considering a fully voiced PC is that the game can be played with different language options. In a game with a mute pc in my opinion it's acceptable if the npcs only have english voices, as they are only some background addition to the text based dialogue. But if the PC is voiced, you need to record all dialogue for all language settings or it breaks immersion and makes it quite wierd for people who prefer to play in their native language.

I will repeat what I wrote in my previous comment, since it's obviously ignored:
I would still like to hear from Larian devs if the issue with voiced protagonist is indeed of financial nature, and whether it would really cut down on the content in the game. I don't want to make assumptions on their behalf. And ultimately, I am a consumer, not their employee or their representative. I can only ask for content, and I can understand if they clearly state it isn't possible for technical or financial reasons.
Also:
I have NEVER played a video game that is voiced or even subtitled in my native language (it isn't English, not even close), and I have NEVER complained about that fact. I really don't want to think how non-English speakers, who are used to having their own localization in video games, are becoming entitled.

One more thing:
Since I have realized that people generally prefer the mute protagonist (including Origin characters even), I would still appreciate an optional (paid, if necessary) addon/DLC which gives voice to the protagonist, for those of us who want that type of immersion.
This game is still actively supplied with new content and I don't see a reason not to consider this route.

In all this, I am mainly addressing the devs. I appreciate all the comments from players here, but please be objective about what you like and what you want, not what you "think is possible". It definitely IS possible - otherwise Larian wouldn't have suggested it earlier.

Yeah, we all would ... especialy in EA, where their communication would have ben most effective, even if they would just state "nope" on suggestions they had no desire, or plans to implement or even concider ... but its not happening, not around here, the forum is quite strictly one way oriented.

Anyway!

I wonder ... have you ever seen some properly done Voiced game?

And i mean by that solving this weird problem voiced games have ... and that is picking a dialogue option.
Since as far as i know, there are only two options devs invented so far:
1) You only get few words / extremely short sentence ... the problem is what your character say afterwards can quite often be very different than what you imagined ...
2) You get whole sentence and your character says exactly the thing you just read when you were picking ... the problem is, it gets reaally weird that you have to hear those things twice, also all the voiceactor adds for you then is their own tone ... wich once again dont necessarily coresponds with what you imagined ...

I dont say voiced protagonist is bad thing ... it simply belongs to different kind of games.
With voiced protagonist, you are playing character that were created for you ...
With silent protagonist, you are playing character you created ...

I wouldn't say "Quite often". It's generally only a small amount of times that games don't present their options correctly. Which can be easily addressed by simply... Not misrepresenting options.


It's no more weird than having a character stare blankly at others who then start talking based on... You telepathically communicating to them?

Having voiced dialogue helps scenes flow better. As conversations become more dynamic, both parties are verbal and emotive, they move like real people do. It gets away from the classic trope of video games where NPC's simply gush out elaborate dialogues to a protagonist that just walks up to people and stares at them.


In either case, the character is created for you. Even with silent protagonists, the dialogue options are pre-created. You don't get to choose exactly what you say just the same way you don't get to choose how a voiced dialogue is vocalized. You simply are picking pre-made responses that are closest to what you would like.

Unless a game is doing something like using AI to create NPC dialogue in reaction to your specific inputs, you'll only ever be headcanoning that your character is saying what you want (Even then you'd probably be restricted to responses that still follow the game's overall narrative) and the reality is you're playing a character created for you (That you simply have some control over the direction they take)

Now when you mention it Rag... I don't think I can think of an RPG that wouldn't run into this problem. I am pretty sure Mass Effect was the game that figure out how to do fully voiced protagonist aka. selection of short descriptors with a lot of illusion or choice (aka, three lines to choose from, after which protagonists said the same thing anyway). Probably Alpha Protocol would be my favourite use of the system to date, offering much more reactivity than is ususally seen.

I don't think I have seen a game that tried no2. (giving full written text, and than rereading it after player picks one). Maybe Gothic1&2? Can't quite remember.


I think you are discounting a value of leaving things to player's imagination. Yes, there is an inheret limit to what player can do in a computer RPG, and inheret limit to what a game can respond to. There is, however, a difference between not being able to acknowledge or respond to player's roleplaying and limiting player's ability to roleplay. That a game can't respond to the voice of my protagonist I have imagined is to me a far lesser problem, than a game imposing a voice and intent on my protagonist.

I'm not discounting that.

But whatever the case may be, fully voiced or not. You are limited in your ability to "Roleplay" by what the game has prepared for you and thus how characters respond to what you have available to pick.

You might imagine your character saying something different to what is written, but characters will react to literally what is written.

This might grant some leeway for you to headcanon something slightly differently worded but provides the same overall meaning (I.e. What you state is illusion of choice in ME's dialogue) but you're still a slave to exactly how the writer imagined your character made the response in regards to any actual interaction (I.e. Any well refined dialogue system that isn't Bethesda-esk cardboard cutouts staring at each other)

While voiced protagonist still maintains exactly the same state as non-voiced in terms of being tied to exactly how the writer wants to portray your character's dialogue. Only you can now have much better scenes, with your protagonist actually emoting and interacting with other characters creating a more realistic dynamic experience.

The only benefit that non-voiced has, is your ability to imagine your character has a totally different voice to the one you literally picked for them and that is used for bunches of assorted lines through world interaction and combat (In BG3 at least, other non-voiced protagonist games don't include any vocalization for the protagonist at all)

The OP seriously thinks THIS is a good idea:

1. One reads all the options one could pick what to say.

2. Then one picks the option one likes best.

3. And NOW .... a "full voiced protagonist" repeats what we just have read ...

And unsurprisingly all the OP can muster as "reason" for this obviously completely stupid idea is "its the 21 century".

And all you can muster as a counter argument is "It's stupid"

Ignoring the facets that such a system can contain. Like, dynamic experiences.

For example;

When opting for one of the Barbarian intimidate options. Instead of just reading a line written in all caps and having the character make a frowny face and the other party simply responds to your silence with fear.

You instead select the option and your character, now fully voiced, acts it out. Your character is screaming at the other party and getting up in their face to intimidate them, and amid this, the other party is reacting in real time to your character. They will be getting defensive, trying to back off.

The latter creates a more immersive experience. Characters react to things in real time. Even if you know what your character will say due to reading it beforehand, the overall impact of the dialogue is more prominent. Characters can react to what you say AS your character says it, rather than after the fact. Your character feels more alive because they're actually saying things, not just staring silently at everyone.

And then in other dialogues that are theoretically more neutral and can be taken multiple ways, we have to assume what tone the character is going to have, no matter what we interpret a line as indicating. A line that can seem like a playful joke could be delivered really harshly and outright mean. At least without a voiced protagonist we can accept that however an NPC is interpreting our words, it's down to them in part, not purely how our character said it.

I also think you're overestimating just how limited we are with an unvoiced protagonist. Currently, If my sorcerer character wants to keep saying to Gale that sorcerers are better than wizards, I can picture that being just a running tease, a joke between the two of hem. If it was voice acted though, I have no doubt Larian would have those lines be delivered like a pompous jackass who genuinely believes it.

I've played rpgs with fully voiced protagonists I've enjoyed, specifically all the mass effect games and the latter two dragon age games, and I've loved them all, so it can work. But silent rpg protagonist work too, and I honestly think they're generally better for a crpg where you can have such an open space for creating a character. Sure there games are always limited, but they implicitly encourage you o build out and imagine your character backstory, they encourage you to make a character your own and roleplay them, and that's something I don't think should go away. It's notable that as soon as dragon age went fully voiced, their protagonists got much more defined backstories. Because that's something a game has to do if it's going to be fully voiced, so that the character can be defined. Further, how are you going to make it feel natural for a barbarian and a wizard to say the same lines the same way? Because in between those unique class dialogues there's a slew of neutral dialogues that every character can and probably will say. Again, a game with as many classes as BG3 makes it hard because those classes imply different ways of being. Different types of people. DA2 and DAI get around this with differing tone options and making background more significant than class, but in BG3 we have so many classes and possible backgrounds. Just by virtue of those, you create too many possible personalities to create a voice for.

But you're still limited by how the writer chooses other characters to respond to these things.

If Larian decided that any unvoiced dialogue regarding Sorcerers being better than Wizards would be delivered as a pomous jackass, then Gale would respond to your character as if they were a pompous jackass irregardless of how you headcanoned it to be. EXACTLY as if it was voiced.

In the end, no matter voiced or not, you're subject to how the writers make the lines because of how characters respond to them.

I can't pick one of the Barbarians intimidate lines and headcanon that I'm actually just teasing someone when the end result is the person on the receiving end trembling in fear.


Of course, silent protagonsts can work.

I personally believe they're simply inferior to well done voiced protagonists.

I'm far, far too tired of the cardboard cutout dialogue scenes that have plagued the RPG genre for decades. It's utterly unrealistic and takes away from the experience. Also, unlike days of yore, there's no technical limitation causing it (Back when games were contained on a single disc or cartridge, there was space limitations preventing a bunch of extra voiced dialogue being added).


Not really. Dragon Age went for defined backstories because it fit their narrative. I.e. Instead of having to create multiple different backgrounds in DA2 they simply made you a human with human parents and a human sibling who gets murderized. (It's worth noting that DA:I went back to generic character allowing multiple races just with a "I've lost muh memories" trope)


The same way games have been for literally years, including Larian's prior titles?

Allowing options of different types of voices which will come with their own styles of dialogue (Usually having something like a "Rough" voice for your gruff Barbarian/Fighter types, your well educated noble voice for your Mage types and some sort of sly roguish voice for your Rogue/Ranger types)

Or, better yet, incorporate Solasta's personality selection. Allowing you to tune a voice/dialogue to specific archetypes (I.e. Sarcastic, cocky, aggressive, shy etc).


You act as if every particular pairing of class and background needs a singular unique voice.

While in reality, the only thing that is necessary is voices to match backgrounds. Just because someone is a Wizard, doesn't mean they suddenly developed a "Wizard" accent. Dialect and accent is determined by background, not class. The only thing that is class relevant, is the class specific dialogue options which is a simple as having whatever VA is doing the lines for the chosen voice option, to record those class lines too.

So if there's a scholarly voice type, it will work for anyone who has a scholar background (Or is roleplaying a character that has received an education, such as a Noble or even an Acolyte) - This can be for someone's Barbarian just as much as a Wizard, depending on how someone is roleplaying their character (For example, if I decided I wanted to play a Barbarian who was a noble that received an education but just happened to develop rage powers, I can opt for a suitable voice. Just like I could use an aggressive voice for a Githyanki Wizard who was raised as a warrior)

Forgive me if I'm missing important context here because my crpg experieince mostly goes back to dragon age, but those voice styles were always only for random barks of about a line each, not stuff that goes through an entire game. And if we're limited to the vocal "style" we choose at the beginning, that could prevent us from letting our character's personality and demeanor change throughout the game. In pillars of eternity for example, I often have my characters there go through major changes. In my favorite playthrough, my Watcher went from being sullen and withdrawn to being fiery and passionate. That kind of option would likely be entirely denied to me if I had to pick one style of voice/tone at the start of the game and stick with that.

I could argue against each of your points, but I'm not trying to prove you wrong here or convince you of anything. I think you make some good points here, but I also think that the two of us just have fundamentally different opinions. I think that silent protagonsits are simply better for crpgs 9/10 times, and changing my mind on that is going to be as difficult as changing your mind on your opinion here. I know that there are always limitations because this is a game, but it seems that you consider those limitations far greater than I think they are. I think that the silent protagonist gives me enough freedom to work around what's already established by the writer to craft characters I want in the way I want. I don't care how the npcs or the game reacts to my character, the thingthat matters to me is that the character s mine to craft as much as possible within the inherent confines of the game. I think that going fully voiced would take away far more options and the benefits wouldn't be worth it and would result in crpgs that lose out on the things I fundamentally value in crpgs. I think we just have to agree to disagree and really hope that we get the types of games we want.