Why did Bethesda have to kill the immersion by using American voice actors? One of the biggest immersion killers with RPG is the fact that such games use modern American voice actors and accents and it sounds terrible. NO offence against the American accent but it just doesn't fit such RPG style games and the accent is too new.

Out of all of the voice actors in the world they pick American's and the kids in this game sound like today's America. The Witcher 2 and Gothic 2 are hardly perfect either but Elder Scrolls is terrible in this respect. It's just amazing how such game developers think American accents are normal in such a game and I've even heard accents that sound straight from New York. Can you not find trained American voice actors who can make their accent not so harsh? Clearly not.

Arnold Schwarzenegger who voiced guards is not from US of A.

What? There are a lot of different accents in the game... From Austrian to cockney, they've got the range.

I love when people say "American accent" like there's only one.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AmericanAccents

Already had this a while ago. http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1308583-horrible-accents-of-the-nord-guards-in-skyrim/

OMG these threads are so useless

I didn't say all of the voice and yes that accent sounds Austria, which is fine.

Gothic 4 is even more annoying because the main character has a British accent and pronounces words the American way. Instead of battle, it's baddle. LOL

Not sure what's up with the Arnold accents, I saw in other threads that people thought that was how the "nordic" accent should sound which it obviously isn't.

For those that don't know Arnold speaks with a southern German/Austian accent which is middle-european if anything far from nordic.

People say "British accent" all the time.

'"I'm just a humble blacksmith with a Californian accent! How am I supposed to save the world and sell franchise rights to theme parks?"

American accent always sounds out of place in fantasy games to me. However, there is a good range of accents in this game, but the Nord one is so hard to understand I almost turned on subtitles.

I think a good posh English accent would suit Elves, I mean like Darth Vaders, the nasty sounding posh English, not the snobby wussy sounding one.

Perhaps Italian for the Imperials, they are based on Rome right? or sort of :wacko:

They're still American accents, just like Yorkshire is a British accent. Also I already said I heard two types of American accents, one sounded like it was from New York/Chicago area, the quest where you return that dog(that talks) to it's master and the statue talks.

This...

and

There are a ton of Different accents in this game.

There's a range of different accents in the game. But more importantly, who are YOU to decide what Nords sound like? Skyrim's not a real place, just because they based the look on a real country doesn't necessarily mean everyone is going to TALK like they're from there as well.

The only accent in this game that bothers me is the "Arnold" one. it's awful. But even though I am american, I get what the OP is saying. Our "accent" would not have been around that long ago, I guess. But if you think about it, the races tat are in the game would probably not speak English!

I for one don't mind when the accent isn't too harsh - a lot of the american voice actors do a nice job, and make there accents sound quite understated. However, I then met a certain character called Barbas, and proceeded to scratch my own ear drums out of my head. Seriously, why is this idiot actually TRYING to sound like a homeless man from the mean streets of nyc? Totally broke my immersion, but this is the only time it has happened.

Wow seriously? The voice acting in Skyrim killed your immersion? That is about the most lame thing I ever heard.

Troll harder please.

All voice acting is evil down with voice acting lets go back to the mid 90s for games! maybe even early 80s whose with me!


Kidding

I do have to agree with OP on this. Got in a debate over Felicia Days dragon age real action vids. Most of the actors had that American twang that doesnt fit with this kind of fantasy world. The game Dragon age itself did really get voice acting right, Welsh and Irish accents for the Dalish Elves was a master stroke, bringing in the brilliant Eve Myles for Merril. And as for Skyrim I havent been that dissapointed by the voice acting, even the repeating guard lines, it would take a lot of game space to make each guard unique.

I do agree with OP that in games of this genre American accents have no place. In Skyrim the accents are mainly Nordic of course, but then each race has its own, mostly posh English or lower class English (I do wish some of the Bosmer would have Irish or Welsh accents though). Then every now and then, you hear an American accent from the kids, and it does break immersion slightly, not a massive deal, but enough that to me it stuck out like a sore thumb. Especially the kid running around Whiterun, consider this is an early encounter, it didnt establish well enough the regionality of Whiterun.

As with OP, nothing against American accents, in fact I LOVE New york accents, and one of my good friends who is American, I listen to her podcasts beause I find the accent so relaxing.

Is it that you think the Americans speaking American shouldn't be allowed? (I disagree with this. More variety is always better. Fantasy is fantasy. :shakehead: And it's an American RPG franchise and it's a pretend world. You don't get to say which accent is new or not.)

Or is it that the other accents are poorly done by actors (American) who think they are doing another accent but are failing? (This might be a legitimate complaint, although as another commenter pointed out, Skyrim is a pretend place).

@Valien - Romans didn't speak Italian...they spoke Latin.

I believe they wanted him to sound like that though. Besides, what wrong with a few "American" accents? The game has a wide range. Delvin from the Thieves Guild sounds Australian(I think?), then there's the guards with the Austrian accents and other various accents/voices.

Isnt Delvin Cockney London?

What an ignorant premise for a thread. First of all, there is more than one American accent/dialect. Second of all, most of the dialects in the States are derivatives of English dialects. For example, the "New York" dialect is almost the same, mechanically-speaking, as standard-English. Finally, I'm hard pressed to recall one example of an authentic-sounding American accent in the game...

American?

I thought we spoke english.

I can't stop crying from laughing so hard...

Oh...my...god.

Why would American accents in a fantasy world break immersion?

This is not a Medieval game.

It is in fact it's own completley seperate world (even though they did use the word "Nord" for one of the races)

Now if it was created as a medieval game experience, then I could see what you guys were saying.