Bethesda: Your Starfield Character Won't Have A Voice

I’m fine either way. I have enough imagination to fill the gap.
As long as they don’t do a bad job as Destiny 2 did for a time, it can work very well (e.g. FFXIV).

It would be an understood decision if we are talking about TES 6, but it’s dumb to creat silent character in the world there already is the Mass Effect trilogy.

Yeah, yeah, I know that Bethesda is in the process of creating its magnum opus, that Starfield is a very ambitious RPG and that Gordon Freeman also didn’t speak, but it isn’t an argument to get old-fashioned way.

This means the 150,000 lines of dialogue will go much further. Great decision.

Fine with me to have my character not speak dialogue. Bethesda games for me are RPG games where I get really, really engrossed and immersed into my character. Having a lack of voiced dialogue really helps with that.
Also, what's up with people not enjoying reading lately?!

@BartoxTharglod I'd even extend the point with Mass Effect, that no matter how excellent the voice acting is, I'm always playing "my version" of Commander Shepherd as opposed to "my own character" with other Bethesda RPG's. The voice acting also definitely helps with Mass Effect's cinematic vibe too, but I feel Fallout 3 and Skyrim are much more open world freeform games compared to Mass Effect.

Seems a weird choice.

.... and despite having high hopes for this game, the characters and lip syncing are pretty awful.
This is a game spearheading a line up of the richest corp trying to show its at the pinnicle of technology. Anything less than state of the art is unacceptable, especially when playing an rpg where believable acting and line delivery are paramount. This is not even close to state of the art and looks a decade old.
There seems to be a shortage of ambition here thats difficult to understand.

Starfield has left a lot of people disappointed. In all fairness I can see why it was delayed. I still think it has the potential to be a fun game.

Oh thank god. I hate RPGS where your player character has a voice. I’d rather imagine how they sound in my head.

I enjoyed my character having a voice in F4 but its the right call for starfield with the size of the game, the custom backgrounds, and the absolute field day Modders are going to have with an actually universe to play in.

Silent protagonist is the best option here.

I do prefer it with VA but still not a big deal to me. What I quite deslike is when the protagonist is silent (like FF XIV or Link in all games). I find that is the one thing that breaks immersion the most

In my opinion a game is not really a role playing game if the player created character is voiced so this is a big win for me.

On games where you get to really create your character and really role play, I prefer no voice for the protagonist. Else, you almost always end up sounding like a white average American regardless what kind of character you created.

Mass effect “worked” only in that, despite all customization, I felt I was only ever given the choice of two potential lead characters.

Maybe someday someone will be ambitious and give us a large array of main character acting voices to pick from, who knows, but in lieu of this, I’m happy with mute protagonist.

I think it’s the right move. In term of character creation it gives you more freedom than a character with its own voice and personality.
Cyberpunk is the best exemple of that lately. I made a great character but after hearing V’s voice I deceided to completely change the way he looked because it just did not match. You don’t have this probleme with a mute character

Perfectly happy with this. Its impossible to record 2 versions (male/female) voice lines let alone all the variations of dialect to suit the way I and everyone else may want their created character to sound like & play. Its bad enough having some 'generic' American accented lead Character for 'English' language versions as that takes away from 'me' being in the game - its not 'my' voice...

When I read 'text' based options to respond to NPC's, I read them in my 'voice'. Having a 'voiced' lead is OK if you are looking to play another persons 'story'. I expect to hear Lara Croft when playing through her story but as I am Role playing, putting 'myself' (or my own Character) into this game, I want to hear the right voice for it too.

Honestly, for me this is the best news. I hated having a voice ok Fallout 4. It just didn't work for it. Loved the skyrim, Fallout 3, and Oblivion silent characters far more.

Voiced characters worked for mass effect and watcher's games for example.

@Titntin wow…you don’t think starfield is ambitious???? Ok…🙃

@BartoxTharglod The Last of Us does it perfectly. The best acting i’ve ever seen in a video game.

@Bleachedsmiles Look at that screen shot. Thats official, and I havent seen a character look like that for 10 years. This is an rpg.
It needs MUCH better.
The gunplay is also very poor.

They may have ambition elsewhere, but they certainly have missed the part where big games are now fully acted.

For balance, the character creator looked top, and the ship customisation and combat looked great too. Environments looked pretty, but a little bland, but Im sure that will change.

I dont want to rag on the game, im as interested as anyone to get a classic here, I just wish they were pushing hard in all the right places and believable acting would make a huge addition. I hope they improve it.

First the wooden and stiff facial animations of characters and now this. For me, this is a huge negative. But I understand millions will probably be excited about it if dozens of Skyrim editions are anything to go by.

Perfect. My character speaking almost ruined Fallout 4 for me. Still one of my all time favourite games but I play it with mods to mute my character and to show the full lines of dialogue. I’m extremely happy with this choice for Starfield.