Is there a way to shut off your own character's voice? My character sounds like such a wimp I want to kill him myself... The dialogue is horrible anyway but nothing is worse than how my OWN character speaks... UGH

I love voiced protagonist, the best feature being added, if you don't like it you can remove it with a PC mod, there is no option for that on PC?

I loved the idea, but my guy speaks like a little boy.. By the way, I'm on Xbox One...

In dragon age my character sounds like a man.

There are two voices to choose from in dragon age. I don't see why The SS couldn't have two voices for each gender.

The short answer:

Because voice actors are expensive, and Bethesda decided early on that the additional cost for more voice actors was not in their budget.

Really pleased to have voiced protagonist in FO4.

Looking forward to it in TES-VI

This is exactly how I feel about it. I love it and I love Courtenay's delivery!

He sounds like a man to me on the PC and Xbox One.

I think the male protagonist was pretty flat. I'm not sure if it's a clipping issues with the voice but his emotions change suddenly and all over the place, so it's not very convincing sometimes, especially with sudden anger outburst.

I'm mixed on the voiced protagonist. On one hand I don't hate it as much as I thought I would, it adds a sort of cinematic flair to the game. But on the other hand, with so much dialogue it isn't really feasible to provide any degree of choice with regards to the voice so the voice has to be fairly bland and generic to conform to the largest possible number of character types. Anything too specific would pigeon-hole the character even more than the generic one does.

I'd have preferred a different voice type, but I'm sure it would have been ridiculed as sounding too much like Clint Eastwood or Adam Jenson (Human Revolution). The one we got was good enough, though ... at least when he's not trying to tell a cat to go home.

I absolutely hate it. A complete waste of development resources. At least I am on PC so I can use a mod to shut this abomination off. But would have rather had the resources spent on yet another kind of 'Radroach' than this.

I also observe it is possibly the only thing I disagree with Battlebloodmage on.

I've seen this happen with a lot of modern games, the male protag generally seems flat compared to the female version. There are exceptions to that (Troy Baker right off the top), but thats my feeling about it. I always play my own gender unless there isn't a choice, so I am somewhat sympathetic to those that do play these flat male protags.

I prefer the male protag to Courtenay. Don't get me wrong, she really sells the lines, but that's exactly what I don't like about it. Her performance dictates what my character feels or thinks in any given situation. And the writing/dialogue wheel is so bad (I absolutely loathed the first encounter with Shaun) compounds that problem.

My characters, no matter how many I make, or on which platform I play (I play on the PC and PS4) and all of your characters are always Courtenay or Brian. If I watch you play you are playing with my character. The personalization of our characters (or at least the perception that they are personalized) has been taken away. Beth should have been honest about their intention to dictate who and what are characters are going to be in game and required that they be named Nate or Nora, because, in effect, every character is now Nate or Nora.

And the reason I think this change is so bad, isn't because we are now playing a mediocre Bioware character, but because Beth has, until FO4, been unique in what they've offered. Trying to micmic Bioware has taken away this very unique and awesome freedom we've had. Also, if they wanted to be Bioware they should have hired a better writer for the protag. It's the rare line we get that says anything worthwhile, which compounds the pain of having to listen to a voice actor trying to sell the painfully mediocre writing.

I can change, I swear.

Yeah, voiced protagonist is not for everything, but I usually play my games in third person, and I'm used to Bioware games, so it just developed into a taste for me. I find silent protagonist tends to be very passive in general, and not a part of the game setting, voiced protagonist just allows more immersion. For a game people play for hundreds of hours, they really needed 2 voices per gender though if they were going that route, since playing the game for the 5th times with the same voice can get old quick.

Actually, in FO4, the opposite is true. They've written such bland and reuseable dialogue for the protag that the NPCs are carrying the story. Nate and Nora are just along for the ride. In previous games the protag has much more to say, more dialogue choices that offer something substantially different to say, and, although their writing has never been what you might call strong, the protag took an active part in the conversations. Now, not so much. We mostly say some version of yes, no, maybe, no...I mean yes, something snarky, clever or rude or yes.

Actually, perspective is something that I hadn't considered. A silent protagonist in first person isn't at all odd, as the player is running his lines through his head anyway. I play Bethesda games exclusively in first person, so this is fine for me. But I can see where it might play and look strange for a player who prefers to keep things in third.

That settles it. Future games need to get rid of the third person perspective. Yup, that's the ticket.

No No, never change!

hate it myself, its all personal preference so nice for those that like but

the main problem i find is the lines are delivered in what someone else thinks my character is emoting, constantly because of the poor dialogue system not only can i not find anything like the response i want (or i have to russian roulette what my character is actually going to say) its exasperated by the delivery in completely the different emotion i wanted. with a silent protagonist this would not been nearly as bad as although i still would not be able to find a line to what i wanted to say, and i would still have to play russian roulette on what my character was actually going to say compared to the poor description in the wheel, i could atleast headcannon my own emotional response and how i "voiced" that response.

the kellogg confrontation was the worst, with the already poor dialogue system i basically was given 4 options to reply in exactly the same way with my character voicing it with the exact same emotion for all 4 lines.

its not that i dont like voiced protagonists (geralt and shepperd = niiiiiice) but in FO4 it just does not suit and the poor dialogue choices give you absolutely no real different way to react with different emotions, you just have to go with what ever emotion the voice actor has been directed to portray

i play female and like the actress and her voice but id prefer this to be the one and only time (as its too late to not) for both the TES and FO worlds

it could work with either far far faaaaaaaar more lines (never going to be, the voice actors guild is far too powerful) or let another company write all the dialogue and do direction

If Bioware and CDProjekt can do it, so can Fallout 4, it was just their first attempt at voice over, so there are flaws in them. If it is that expensive then DAI wouldn't be able to fire 2 different voices for their protagonist, which in total, DAI has more words for their protagonists than Fallout 4. Geralt also has a lot of lines as well, and for a games like Fallout 4 which bound to make hundreds of millions, sparing a few more thousands of dollars if we're being generous, would hurt but would enhance the experience.

I think the problem is with the dialogues, they need to hire better writers to write their story and dialogues in general, and paraphrasing is not the same as sarcasm = every lines possible.

thats the problem im alluding too, bioware and cdprojekt are good at it, beth has never been good at writing lines they should know this

and no the line "if x can do it so can y" is a nice little line that always works in the movies but doesnt automatically make it so in real life

the problem is FO characters are supposed to be a complete blank slate and need a much broader range of emotional responses than what both geralt and shepperd would need

for everyone to play the SS as they want it would require a staggering amount of lines

the problem with the VAG is they set the rates, they tell you how much to pay, and if you ever so much as offend them in the tiniest of ways you will be blackballd in which case no member (for the actors them selves there is no choice but to belong, if you are not in VAG you do not work simple as that) will ever voice for you

but i agree it is the dialogue system letting it down

if beth wants voiced protagonists then they really need to up their writing game or preferable farm it out to a company that can do it

It's so bad I mute my tv but still doesn't fix the biggest problem which is how it limits options. As for people mentioning Bioware Mass Effect dialogue is terrible and DAI is a big step down from DAO. If TES 6 has it I'll till the GOTY version gets a price drop. To each their own but I can't stand it.

Even if they hire great actors they still will have limited dialogue option.

I can't disagree. I think this change was to mimic other popular games to try and make Fallout 4 seem more modern, but it just doesn't work. Minecraft, Borderlands, it's all in there, but nowhere near as good as the games it's copying.


Bioware are great at what they do - writing tightly focused character driven stories. Mass Effect 2 is one of my favourite games ever and a lot of that is because of the dialogue system. It works because the characters in ME2 are well established, and the plot is specific and driven. Fallout (specifically Bethesda's Fallout) is not like that - the entire point is the protagonist is your character, or at least should be.


It's weird, they give us a game where you can do anything you like, and go anywhere you want, but you can't be whoever you want - you're always Nate or Nora.


Subsequent playthroughs suffer as a result. Truly, Fallout 4 is Bethesda's weakest effort yet.

Also this.

I really like it, but I can also see why others may not. I'm fine with not having such a blank slate as we've had in the past - I took Nora's lawyer background and ran with it. This time around I'm more or less approaching gameplay like I would with a defined protagonist i.e The Witcher.

Also, Courtenays delivery is excellent. On my second playthrough I went with a male SS and to be honest, although the quality of Brians actual acting is rather good (if you take it line by line), it's not very consistent and his reactions/tone jump all over the place. That's more of an issue with the Voice Director though. They should have been making sure his emotion tied in with the scene and was consistent throughout. For some reason I haven't had this issue with any of the Female lines, although I assume they had the same director. Weird. Guess it's another FemShep situation for me ... The Commonwealth will always be saved by Nora as far as I'm concerned

thought the voice acting was done quite well, although I've listened to Nora's voice a lot more than Nates

still the variety of views you get regarding the voices reflects the big weakness of main character being voiced IMO, one voice has to represent many different ideas of what the character should sound like

almost impossible for a voice actor to please everyone

be even worse in TES where there are 10 different races to represent