I started a new DOS2 character while I was waiting for the full release of BG3, and it helped me remember how much I love CRPGs (it’s the only one I’ve played aside from BG1 when I was a kid).
The narrator was something that really stuck with me, as you didn’t always see detailed actions of your party and NPCs during dialogue, so you had to use your imagination based on the narration.
Having now started BG3 with it’s fully cutscened conversations and interactions, it really feels like an evolution. They are so well captured and acted that it makes the game feel so much more engrossing.
I’m loving the game, but I’m not going to lie, the fact that the player character lines aren’t voice acted is a little jarring, because everything else is voice acted so well.
I have no idea why, but I had it in my brain that the only reason the PC wasn’t voice acted in the early access version was because it was early access.
I even can acknowledge that the way it is aligns with industry standard, but even after playing for hours since release, it just feels jarring to me to only hear one side of the conversations.
I don’t mean to come off as complaining; just sharing my thoughts.
My guess would be it’s a cost-cutting/time-saving measure. Fully voicing all the PC lines would skyrocket the total amount of lines each VO would need to read (think not only of all the dialogue you select, but all the dialogue you don’t, as well as all the dialogue that results from those other options you didn’t pick, and dialogue specific to backgrounds and classes that’s not available to you on a given playthrough). That‘s before accounting for the extra animation and whatnot.
I agree that it would be really cool, but if it’s even half as expensive as I imagine it would be, I understand why it’s not in the game
Is it still the case even when you play as an Origin character? It would be odd to have that character fully voiced as a companion and mute as a player
I guess it is a matter of perspective? I think it makes sense that the player character doesn’t talk because it’s meant to be your voice.
If I would choose a dialogue option and some other persons voice would come out it would be jarring to me.
I think a voiced protagonist makes sense in games where you play the role of an established character like the witcher or the Maas effect mc.
If I create a character from scratch which is a stand-in for me, I want nothing that pulls me out of the fantasy of me being it.
So in my opinion custom chars should be silent and origin chars should be voiced. But options to change that should be included.
Yeah, this is a little disappointing, but only a little since everything else is so great.
I’m just waiting for the day when I can create a custom name and games can use voice AI to slide it into the prerecorded NPC dialogue.
