This is without a doubt an incredibly divisive issue. There are really only two camps here. Those in favor of the voiced protagonist and those against. I'm not really interested in the political argument of why more freedom for RP is better or how the voiced performance provides for a more compelling and interesting story. What I am addressing is why this is here to stay and likely we will see a voiced protagonist in TES VI (although due to the nature of ten races that could be problematic).

1. All the other major open world/RPG competitors are doing it.

Voiced protagonists are nothing new to games. However, a voiced protagonist with varying choices to choose from is a relatively new invention. Most would largely credit this to BioWare with the creation of the dialogue wheel and the voiced protagonist of Shepard in the Mass Effect trilogy. We have seen it replicated in their other property, Dragon Age, as well as CDPR using a similar system in The Witcher 2 and The Witcher 3. Not to mention, games even without a dialogue wheel of choices provide a voiced protagonist in virtually every medium. Whether it's Grand Theft Auto, Bioshock, Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty, Uncharted, The Last of Us, Tomb Raider, Halo, etc. A voiced protagonist is without a doubt a component of AAA gaming today.

2. BGS storytelling and main quest lines have been historically weak.

BGS has never been known for making a truly compelling main story experience. Going as far back as Morrowind, BGS has never had a main story for any of their games really stand out. In Morrowind, you are Nerevar reincarnated to defeat Dagoth Ur once and for all. In Oblivion, you are essentially Martin Septim's messenger the entire game trying to prevent Mehrunes Dagon from invading Tamriel from his plane of Oblivion. In Fallout 3, you are a vault dweller looking for his father and ultimately uncovering the secret to water purification. In Skyrim, you are the prophesized last Dragonborn who is destined to battle with Alduin, the World Eater. Even though I believe BGS made a decent effort with Skyrim, none of the stories ultimately really rivaled other competitors in the industry. Whether people agree or not, this was in part because BGS games have been one of the few in the industry to maintain the silent protagonist approach.

3. BGS is looking for ways of innovating upon their winning model.

BGS is a pioneer. They are always looking at doing these they've never done before in their previous games. In Oblivion, it was features such as Oblivion gates and Radiant AI. In Fallout 3, it was VATS and moral choices. In Skyrim, it was dragon fights and Radiant Story. With Fallout 4, it's a voiced protagonist, the overhaul of crafting, and settlements. BGS is always trying to innovate and never shy away from trying new things, especially in areas they underperform. Storytelling has always been a major thorn in BGS' side. It's the one thing nobody has largely liked about any of their games. It's also one thing a game should not ignore because story does matter. Especially in a role playing game, the entire point of role playing is to create a great story, and that has just never existed in BGS games. They were always better simulators than actual RPGs. Thus, making this leap and trying to tell a more personal story just made sense and was a way in which BGS believed they could improve the storytelling experience.

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Why is a voiced protagonist unlikely to disappear from BGS games? For one, it's their first attempt at it and they are largely getting a feel for the process. They had to determine how to allocate resources to a voiced protagonist and how to craft the dialogue in a way that can provide for a variety of varying responses. Secondly, BGS isn't known to just add a game changing feature and then take it out subsequently in the next title. They innovate upon it, tweak it, improve it, and figure out ways of making it better.

Again, it begs the question how exactly this would work in TES VI. With ten races, it would be inappropriate to have all of the races sound the same for males and females. Of course, BGS could restrict what races players can choose in TES VI, but that has never been the tradition in any of the titles going back to Arena. We'll see exactly what BGS does. Perhaps this will be merely a Fallout innovation, much like VATS, but I doubt it. I believe a voiced protagonist is here to stay and I believe BGS is right that a majority of gamers will be content and probably like the addition of a voice. Obviously not everybody will be happy, but that is the case with any feature in any game. It's a matter of a cost-benefit anolysis and determining if X feature will lead to a better Y result.

I have no idea what the numbers are for Fallout 4 on consoles, but without a doubt Fallout 4 was breaking numerous records on Steam. For one, it had over 450,000 players logged into the game at one time, which is a record that not even GTA V could beat. The success of the game alone will likely justify that BGS made the right move. In other words, with how well the game is performing, I find it unlikely a voiced protagonist will not return for TES VI and eventually Fallout 5. BGS doesn't add a new innovation to their toolset if they aren't fully committed to the cause. I don't see a voiced protagonist being any different.

I know for some this might be a deal breaker for you, but the same exact discussions happened on BioWare Social Network with regard to the Mass Effect dialogue system and voiced protagoinst being implemented into Dragon Age. People to this very day will continue to attack BioWare and tell them that a voiced protagonist was a mistake, yet the Mass Effect trilogy is BioWare's most profitable original IP and it only made sense that Dragon Age would follow suit. BioWare even applied the voiced protagonist and dialogue system to SWTOR, their first MMO, so regardless of how one may view a voiced protagonist, money seems to suggest it leads to better results.

They could easily add an option to disable his voice, or give his voice a separate audio slider. Im a fan of the voiced protaganist. The problem is when adjusting the dialog audio it makes his go up too and its deafening when he talks so now I just dont listen to anyone since alot of npcs are too low to hear so I dont care about them. We need a separate audio slider for the protag and for the npc's.

Divisive or not, opinion or not, without the option to turn it off, the people who dont like it and there are legions of them will never buy a fallout or elder scrolls game again. No loss to gamers there are tons of gamers that have environments like Fallout and TES without being annoying to those players.

The voiced protag is implemented in a dumb way, its a new idea that they didnt think through. No volume slider separate from the npc dialog is just lazy and shows they dont care about the gaming community. Their losing alot of respect for cutting corners like this. Many of us who are fans of the Fallout games love the NPC's and their stories and now most of us cant hear them since their audio is to low and there is no way to turn it up without the protag ending up SCREAMING like hes talking in all caps.

Good thread -

Here is my concern - A voiced PC in Elder Scrolls would require 9 quality voice actors for the 9 races - Then another 9 quality voice actors for the Male and Female. Totaling at 18 quality voice actors.

The quantity and variety of dialogue would probably be drastically hacked to compensate. However, they may just decide to do one voice for all the races which wold be detrimental to the game and experience.

With that, I'm not sure if they will use a voiced PC for the next Elder Scrolls. I would almost state that they probably will not

While they could, I don't see BGS offering an option to invalidate a new feature they are trying to promote. There is no option to turn off the voiced protagonist in any BioWare game or CDPR game to my knowledge. It just doesn't happen. Of course, there is already a mod on Fallout 4 Nexus that allows you to disable the voiced protagonist if you really want to. It's obviously not difficult and plenty are already downloading it, so I don't really see a need for BGS to do anything.

I do agree that audio for some NPCs is too low and I had to turn it up, although it was largely the music playing over the voices that made them difficult to hear for me. Either way, this is BGS' first attempt and I'm sure they'll continue to tweak this system.

I think some of the races could sare the same voice actor(ex. One voice actor for the orcs, argonians and nords)

I think you left out Imperial. There are ten races, unless you are suggesting two of the men races should sound the same or two of the mer races?

Imperial, Redguard, Nord, Breton, Altmer, Bosmer, Orsimer, Dunmer, Argonian, Khajiit

In either case, I do agree there are issues with ten different races having ten distinct voices. You also have to factor in gender so that's potentially twenty voice actors needed. That's just unruly. SWTOR has the most main protagonist voice actors for a game and they have sixteen. I don't see BGS making those strides in TES VI. Which is why I believe BGS will either restrict the races we choose (unlikely), or rationalize why all the races essentially sound the same, unless they can somehow use technological tweaks to augment the voices.

It wouldn't be the first time BGS has changed the voices for races. Remember how dunmer sounded in Morrowind? They were changed to sound more or less like all other mer in Oblivion and Skyrim. It's quite possible BGS could do what BioWare did with DAI, where they had a human voice, elf voice, and qunari voice. BGS could break that down for TES into a men voice, mer voice, and beast voice. That, I believe, could be a true possibility.

Thats just because their lazy and crap developers, there are indie pixel titles on steam with more settings than this game... you really need to check out more games because this games settings are worse than a visual novel game because there are so few. Saying other companies have no talent and are too lazy to put more settings in the game is not an excuse. Tell that to all the people who arent buying more bethesda games in the future not me, their just spread to thin at bethesda with falout, new elder gane, and doom. So all these games are suffering, everyone sees it, its all over social media and gaming sites since the botched release of fallout which says everything about all the other games their rushing out with not enough talent like you said to handle the load.

Kos game makaz fink gamers dont wont 2 reed nuffin

Sadlee dis may b tru

i hope it is indeed here to stay, feels more immersive and better developed, i like it more than a silnet protagonist, is boring

Eh that's not how I'd describe Bethesda. BGS makes some of the most ambitious and technically-difficult games on the market. The truth of the matter is they just can't do everything. Again, why would they have an option to disable a feature they are trying to promote? A bit counter-intuitive.

BGS has nothing to do with Doom and they only work on Fallout and TES, of which takes them many years to develop either new title. As far as success, BGS is only becoming more successful with each title they release. Since Morrowind, each successive game has done better than the last. I will not be shocked to see Fallout 4 become BGS' best selling game to date.

While I've heard some negative criticism of Fallout 4, of which some of it is warranted, most of the reviews have been overwhelmingly positive. Aside from some suggesting the game could have innovated more, many seem to suggest Fallout 4 is the likely GotY for many news sites. I tend to take what I see on the internet with a grain of salt, and so does BGS. They measure their success by sales, not by rants on forums or reddit.

Again, this is a divisive issue, but I don't believe it's going to be the "nail in the coffin" that really hurts BGS in any way. I believe a majority of gamers who buy Fallout 4 will be fine with the voiced protagonist, as it really is just a staple in AAA gaming today.

I think a fully voiced character is something that will differentiate Fallout and Elderscrolls titles. Just like the world, VATS, the guns, the settlement system, the perks, technology, etc..

Every installment of TES always receives criticism for its lack of NPC voice actors. If they used one voice for the male and female protagonist people would freak out.

I really see it more of a dynamic of games coming closer to films. BioWare has been spouting that rhetoric since Mass Effect and certainly we have seen games like The Last of Us and Uncharted also compared to being almost like films. That's a very powerful tool as clearly many people love movies, so making games as engaging as a movie through the use of voice acting is very appealing and can lead to a lot of money being made. I know you are being facetious, but there is still plenty to read in Fallout 4 on terminals, datatapes, notes, books, etc.

I don't want games to be like films.

W3 faaaaar too many cut scenes messing with the flow

Well that's really true in all of their games, even Fallout. BGS has never been great about having great diversity in voices, although Fallout 4 seems to be much better.

I already offered a likely solution to the problem, going the DAI approach. Having a voice for men, a voice for mer, and a voice for beast races. Since BGS has essentially streamlined all mer to sound the same anyways, the only point of contention would be with khajiits, argonians, and orsimers being vastly different.

I just can't see BGS going back to not having a voiced protagonist when one of the biggest criticisms of TES has always been the underwhelming story in large part because of a silent protagonist.

It really becomes a matter of opinion at that point. No game will ever match the amount of cutscenes MGS IV had, but certainly TW3 has a lot, as CDPR is largely inspired by how BioWare makes games. That being said, TW3 is also mainly open world and you largely do what you want and are subjected to cutscenes 24/7. Either way, it's a balancing act and people will always voice their opinions over what the right direction is.

I mean the protagonist always was saying things, but you didn't necessarily hear the voice because of tech limitations, space, etc. Every time you selected a dialogue option he was speaking lol.

It's more "cinematic", that's why. Watching games is so much easier than playing them. And maybe more importantly, it makes much better marketing material.

This is a good thread, and so far everyone is playing nice and discussing this rationally. Thank you.

However it is too general of a topic for Fallout 4 General, so I am going to move this to Community Discussion

I like having a voiced protagonist - I just don't want it to mean there is less content or fewer options due to everything having to be voice acted.

I think a voiced protagonist eliminates the ability to role play as yourself, which for me is a complete immersion killer. It forces the player into a particular character (as defined by the tone, accent, quality of the voice portraying the player character) and role and that just goes against the whole idea of being whatever character you can imagine in an open world. The player's every action and reaction, their mood, their perception is dictated by how the voice actor runs the lines. It is just too limiting and it just plain would not work for TES. In my opinion it takes the 'RP' out of 'RPG'.

My problem is just the lack of skill checks. I don't mind my character being voiced if skill checks are in.

I liked how Baldur's Gate did voice selection. You picked the general tone for the laughs, grunts, little one-liners, etc. A combination of that system with the dialogue options of a game like Fallout:NV was pretty nice imho. I'm still not sure though. I imagine the voice protagonist helps marketing immensely, since youtube and twitch have become such a thing.

It's a real shame that so much went into character creation but its completely useless to me because the voice wouldn't match the face, nor would the voice match the preferred playstyle.

Yes and no. For me, the "role playing" has always been the exploration of the world and the environmental storytelling BGS has become iconic for. I have never found much role playing in the story or any of the quests. They always seemed rather static to me and largely dull unless particular characters (Sheogorath, Cicero, etc.) brought those particular quest lines to life. Again, it was voice acting that largely turned that text into something more.

Again, I'm not interested in a debate over whether one system is better than the other. However, there are different types of role playing, and for me the Sole Survivor having a voice does not detract from my ability to craft my own character when I explore the open world without that voice. My same rationale also applies to Mass Effect, although in that game it was more of a collaborative effort of building your own Shepard. At least for me, I was able to make my Shepard and identify with him even if Mark Meer was always the voice. Meer not sounding like myself never took away from my immersion or the capacity to shape Shepard how I chose within the constraints of the game.

As DAI already proved voicing multiple races is possible and plausible, I think it can work in TES. Men and mer can all be voiced by one distinct voice actor. The issue is more so with the distinct voices of khajiit, argonians, and orsimer. BGS could try and have one voice actor do all three and try to be neutral, but, especially for Khajiit referring to themselves in the third person, it woul have substandard results. More than likely the beast races would have to be voiced separately and then there could be one actor each for men and mer. I don't know if BGS will do that, but it's definitely possible if they want to continue allowing us the freedom to choose between ten races.

If you are referring to needing a certain charisma or intelligence for skill checks, charisma is at least still in. I don't believe intelligence is for dialogue anymore as BGS has largely streamlined stats, but that's not really a voice or dialogue issue. That's overall a general RPG progression issue.

Is that one of the biggest criticisms of TES? That's the first I've heard of it.

Story has always been a major criticism of TES. Individuals have offered varying rationale for why story has always suffered, but certainly one of the main elements that has been provided is the lack of a voiced protagonist. With all conversations being one sided with the NPC talking at you, it can be difficult to build a immersive and impactful story. BGS has even talked about this before. That's not to say that having a voiced protagonist with a great story is not possible. Games like KotOR and DAO are examples of great games that had amazing stories with silent protagonists. However, those kind of games seem to be more of the exception to the rule.

Because of the nature of TES having ten playable races since Morrowind (Imperial was added), I cannot say how a voiced protagonist would exactly work. I've provided some practical solutions, but who knows what BGS will do? What I'm fairly certain of is this is not a feature BGS will use once and discard. I don't believe it will be exclusive to Fallout either. I think it's here to stay and Todd and the team is probably already brainstorming (if they haven't already) how they'd do a voiced protagonist for TES VI.