Finished my first BG3 run, man the acting is great, especially at the when characters get their big emotional moments. I’m thinking “that’s acting!”, also recognised Omni Man immediately.
Now I’m on to Alan Wake 2 and omg I can’t take the dialogue and voice acting. It feels jarring. The prior game I played was Silent Hill 2 and I remembered it was OK, the MC was very chill in a horror game but its kinda explained by the story
One thing I find jarring about BG3 is the lack of vo for the player character. It seems like a weird omission in this day and age. (Not counting the dumb ‘I clicked here, so my player has to say something’ vo. Like, shut the fuck up with your dumb chess references, Gale!)
I think the silent protagonist choice is valid in more of “sandbox” story like BG3. Speaking for myself, voiced protagonists tend to “lock” me into a specific role. I absolutely love the voice acting for Geralt of Rivia but when I play a witcher game I’m not inserting myself into the game, I’m becoming Geralt and making choices based on how I believe Geralt would make them.
I don’t really see it being a sandbox. I mean, all answers are given, and you select from those choices. That’s the same as other games that have pc vo. I feel like it would have made more sense to have no voice options at all, and to just get rid of the ridiculous quips. That way, you create your own voice in your head. In no universe would the character I created complain about having to put her hands onto everything before opening a door.
Anyway, not a big deal, but like I said, it was a bit jarring.
I played BG3 straight after Cyberpunk and that really stood out to me as well. The immersion and emotional impact of voiced protagonist lines really got me invested in Cyberpunk in a way I missed in BG3.
It’s supposed to be immersive, I think, so as not to force a voice that doesn’t match the roleplaying in your head.
I’m with you, though, I’d much prefer VA.
I am in the other camp, I like the immersion.
I also have a tendency to not bother with VA, though, and to just click through the second I finish reading the dialogue, except for lines in particularly dramatic parts of the story. Sometimes not even then. Just figure I’d offer a counter opinion especially since this thread is probably going to be full of people who always choose voice acting when it is an option, given the thread is all about it. I am glad so many people derive joy from it, just because it is Not For Me doesn’t mean I think it’s Bad And Worthless :)
They recorded some lines for the custom character. They think aloud when you approach the gith gank squad.
They also reverted a decision to have all the origin characters do a bizarre past tense narration in favor of the present universal narration the familiar narrator VA does present tense. Maybe they abandoned having the player character speak when they changed that course.