This question intrigues me. Interviews seem to imply it somewhat but there does not seem to be any real confirmation on this. Can someone provide some insight?

Sincerely doubt it, since you'd need at least 20 different voices (ten races x two sixes). And that's only if you had one voice option per combination.

Way too much voicework.


Now, there will be some sort of "voice", for the battle grunts and the dragon shouts (which will probably be heavily distorted and generic.)

Im sure that while talking to someone, you wont actually be...talking to them, kinda like oblivion, but im sure the dragon shouts will be voiced.

I highly doubt it because you would have to recrod a fully voiced Dovahkiin for every race and then for both sixes which is 20 in total. You would need to do this because a voice that would suit an Orc Character wouldn't suit a Wood Elf. There is also the problem that the player may not like the voice being used for their character that they have created.

Would be great in an ideal world... which is something we don't live in

Dovahkiin isn't a character.

The player has full control over who their character is. They can call them whatever they want.


Anyway, the day Bethesda have a voice-actor for the player-character is the day I never buy another TES game again.

Oh jeeze I hope not. Its my character not some voice actors character!!

agreed it takes away from your character and makes it more the games character if that makes sense. bethesda knows this i am 100 percent sure they wont do that

There'll be battle grunts...as I so love to point out, those moments where my 6-foot Nord gets hit during a fight and squeaks like a little girl. And dragon shouts.

And aside from that, hell to the no- no character voice, says I. As badly as they mis-voice the NPCs already, how much fun would it be to have your character speaking like those pieced-together phone company messages- changing to a slightly different voice every phrase?

yeah what the posts above me said, I would of course love if that would happen, but the thing that make these's games is roleplay, and you might not like the sound your person might make, good knows I would hate to sound like the adoring fan.

Not more than before...

They won't in Skyrim, but let's hope they won't in future games. The dragon-shouts are certainly a step in the wrong direction.

But they do sound cool though at least in the gameplay trailer...

... I am waiting to be proved wrong but I trust Bethesda, blind faith is a wonderful thing

What about just two voices = 1 male, 1 female. No distinction between races with the player character.
Just seeing the possibilities here if the developers did in fact do it, because obviously 20 different voices would be too much.

Subtitles on.
Voice off.

Because the voices also have to match the race that they are attached to otherwise it would be extremely tacky. An Orcs voice should be easily recognisible from an Argonian or Wood Elf for Example

Then There is the fact that the player may want their female Dovahkiin to be sixy and feminine, no good if the voice Bethesda were to use was a butch warrior type

Fully voiced, no. But I really loved the yells and war cries of the Redguard and High Elf. They should bring back the Morrowind voice actor for Imperials as well. Dark elves need a change though, that is for sure. And Bretons need to be different from Imperials again.

If the guy who voiced the elves in Oblivion comes back for Skyrim...we're basically screwd. Imagine a Bosmer performing a shout with a distinct sissy tone haha.

Even worse than with 20 voices, which would still suffer horribly from "That's not the way I imagined my character sounding." :thumbsdown:

Wonder what female shouts sound like...

Shouts and grunts of pain are OK with me btw, just please.. no talking, you'll ruin the experience.

As far as I know, the only time we'll really hear our own character is the grunting noises the PC will make, along with dragon shouts. And it's 99.9% likely the PC will sound like everyone else with the same race and six.

Going by oblivion, you could actually have far fewer voices

Orcs, Nords, Khajiits, and argonians had the same male voice actor, Orcs and Nords had the same female voice actor, Khajiits and ARgonians had the same female voice actor, so for these races the only ones who couldn't share lines are the Khajiits and argonians, since they require sound editing/particular vocal patterns.

Breton males had a seperate voice actor.

Bretons and IMperials had the same female voice actor.

Redguards had their own voice actors

All elves except for Mankar Camoran were voiced by the same two people.

Mankar Camoran was voiced by Chancellor Valorum.

Dragon Age Origins had like deep voice or battle voice or whatever it was. and you could choose what tone of voice you had, so basically 2 people could do the voices for each six and different tones

Right, and it was terrible. Hearing Lynda Carter's voice (as nice as it is) coming out of every Orc & Nord female svcked.

Based on the good variety in Fallout 3, I'm expecting a better mix of voicework in Skyrim.


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As for the main topic.... fully voiced player character works fine in a game where you have a defined character - you have just one or two voices needed (depending on if it allows a choice of six), and there's at least some "personality" cues to go on in directing the voice actor (example - Mass Effect. Male & Female Shepard, for all the "good" and "bad" dialogue paths, are quite defined - it's easy for them to get some really good voicework in there.)

But in a "make any character you want" game? With lots of choices of race/etc? And no defined background or personality? Fully voiced wouldn't work. And it wouldn't be practical.

(Games like the older D&D games, would give several choices of male & female voice... but since each one was just a selection of battle phrases - like "Die scum!" "Charge!" "I'm wounded!" - you could do that. And there'd be a cutesy voice, a seductive voice, a rough voice, a cultured voice.... you'd pick the one that fit your character. But again - very limited amount of voice acting for each case.)

Fully voiced character has been officially denied through several interviews. That's just not how BGS does their game.


However, in line with generic racial grunting-exertion sounds, It was implied (But not confirmed) in the GI audio design interview, that there will be a set of voice overs for the Dragon Shouts, for each race/gender. Not explicitly said it would be the player, but there isn't many who can otherwise.

Soul calibur IV allows you to choose from about 10 different voice styles then you can change the pitch of them i think it would be amazing to have this.