Baldur's Gate III News

[Cahir]

I believe silent protagonist works much better in isometric crpgs, where you can usually create a totally custom protagonist and the voice acting is sparse. I can totally relate with silent protagonist in such games without feeling off in any way. On the other hand, in most open world games, where more often than not you play pre-generated protagonist and most dialogues are voiced, silent protagonist is a no-go for me. Baldur's Gate 3 would fit somewhere in-between, but due to its cinematic feel, I'd totally miss voice acting for the protagonist.

A very good example is Fallout 4. In vanilla F4 protagonist is voiced (with a very good female voice, if you ask me) and when I first installed one modlist it came with a silent protagonist mod as default. I instantly realized something is very wrong, but I couldn't grasp at first what it is. Then I realized, the protagonist is silent, which *totally* broke immersion for me in this game. Unfortunately, back then it was not possible to disable this mod easily, which essentially made be abandon this modlist and look for a different one.

As for BG3, seeing how much money went into production of this game already, I can totally see Larian recording voice acting for protagonist, in case of custom character even a couple of voice actors per gender. That would require a lot of additional funds, but I am 100% it would be worth it. Of course, if they add an option to turn it on or off in game options, that would make both players like me, Urdnot Wrex or Antimatter and also players like Zaxares happy. It's not going to happen, I know, but that would be awesome.

 

[Urdnot_Wrex]

I feel it's important to note that I do not think games with pre-designed protagonists are BAD, mind you. They just scratch a different kind of RPG itch, and it kind of feels like most AAA RPGs we've been getting in recent years have all been the voiced type, so I've been dying for a good silent'ish protagonist RPG to come along again.

I think it's important to remember we're looking at two different topics here.
"voiced vs mute protagonist" and "pre-generated vs custom character".

To me, they're not even remotely about the same thing.
RPGs with a fixed protagonist, like The Witcher 3 or the Mass Effect series, don't leave as much freedom of who you're playing as a game with a fully customizable main character. They scratch a different itch, can focus more on a story, but the lack of "playing a version of yourself" might not work for players who are looking exactly for that.

The possibility to choose one of several pre-made origin characters, if Divinity: Original Sin 2 is any indication, is a good compromise: You either make a fully customized main character with your own specifics, tags etc, which gives the option to play Baldur's Gate 3 as "yourself", or you pick one of the pre-generated characters. Not because you hate character creation, but because having a set character background gives unique story perspectives, like Fane or Lohse in D:OS 2 know or see a few things a generic dwarven male won't experience, and vice versa.

The only link I see between voiced protagonist and pre-generated protagonist in this case would be that the origin characters already have voices, they're recorded as NPCs, so the step to record player lines, while still long and expensive, is not as big as finding a new cast of custom voices, which makes it a bit more likely that at least they're voiced in BG3.

Also, I have to ask a maybe slightly confrontational question:

If immersion, identification with the main character and playing as "an extension of myself" is so important to some people, how does a voiced protagonist disturb that feeling?

I talk. A lot. Being mute would make me feel a lot less like myself than if the inflection wasn't 100% the way I intended.

 

[Nimran]

I’m gonna have to wait until I get a new pc before I can play this now. My current one is so old.

Ah, well, I’ve waited for years for this game to finally release from early access, what’s a few more months?

On a related note, I’ve been getting that BG itch again, so I’ve been running a cleric/ranger. It’s been a blast so far.

 

[Antimatter]

When I played original BG games (without EEs and with them), I never felt the fact my character didn't speak in dialogues meant he doesn't have a voice. On the opposite. And I enjoyed BG2 soundsets so much that Male 2 and Male 3 can still be easily reproduced in my head when I just think about them. I imagined my character, and they could be of any race/class, spoke exactly with that voice, I had no problem with, say, them being a dwarven fighter/thief and an elven sorcerer. As for the lack of full VO, I couldn't imagine otherwise for the technology of that time. You might laugh at this, but my love for BG was always connected--in a way--with the VO of the MC and NPCs.

When DA:O was released, I enjoyed its cinematic focus on party interaction, it looked much more realistic and felt like the next step. But back then, I still "barely" played any games other than a few selected RPGs, TBSs and RTSs.

As my experience with games grew, and it was also thanks to the new technology, I started to absolutely adore full VO. It began with Mass Effect, continued with The Witcher 3, and then only progressed from there.

Considering BG, and also Might & Magic VI are kinda "granddads of RPGs" for me personally, a few short personal barks included in those games weren't the limiting factor, they were the beginning and drove my imagination to voice all the lines in my head with that particular voice.

When I saw how more realistic games handle voices and how immersed I could get in those games, it was a natural continuation. Cyberpunk 2077 sealed this potential question once and for all for me. It has only 1 voice for Male and 1 voice for Female characters. But the VO for the female V (and I played through the game once with the female) did such an awesome job that I'm in awe. The protagonist in CP 2077 is not as established as Geralt or Commander Shepard, and the game is first-person, and yet her voice not only never harmed my ability to feel like "me" in all those immersive scenes, it was an integral part of it. The fact ME and TW3 weren't party games isn't important here, how I felt with the character is.

I always looked at a potential BG3 (even before it was announced) as a continuation of that BG2 -> DA:O -> ? trend, with more focus on party interaction. And to me, having full VO is a natural part of this.

Now when BG3 was actually announced, and then we got all those details, and then I played the Early Access version, and then watched how they improved all the cutscenes etc, it can only be natural--to me personally--that the character has their full voice.

@Urdnot_Wrex is spot on there saying that "voiced vs mute protagonist" and "pre-generated vs custom character" are different topics. I think @Cahir's comparison and the mention of games with established main characters brought a small confusion (but it was a great insight with which I agree fully). To me personally, a voiced protagonist never meant their voice was a limiting factor. It was only the beginning of my connection with this or that character. "But why if original BG worked that way for you, BG3 wouldn't?" Well, a lot of time has passed, my gaming experience has evolved, and technology changed. Also, those games were isometric, while BG3 won't be, especially with its cinematic cutscenes, etc.

I can conclude that in a way, playing a mute protagonist would break immersion and make the character more distant from me. So it would be the opposite effect actually to what @Zaxares is describing. I had this impression from playing Pathfinder games. I didn't feel I was playing as "me" there, I felt I played character X or character Y based on their class/heritage etc, and the lack of full VO played a big part in that.

But you know what? Maybe that is a language thing. I'm not a native English speaker, so the character having their pre-set voice, especially done by a great VO actor, can never be bad in my opinion. I enjoy listening to a foreigner speaking.

 

[Nimran]

I used to be in the camp that prefers silent protagonists, but now I just don’t think it matters. Call me weird, but I never get ‘immersed’ in a video game. Same thing with reading books, I like them, but I don’t ever feel like I’m actually there, or want to. If people think that’s the only way to enjoy a story, then good for them that they’re getting their wish. I couldn’t care less.

What I care about is options. Whether I’m creating and leveling up a character, exploring areas and open worlds, or talking to npcs, what I like is more options. I want more than just “I’ll do the quest” and “I won’t do it.” I want to determine my price for doing it. “I’ll do it for this much,” or “Do this for me, and I’ll do it.” Not many games actually give me that power, which is a damn shame. Taking BG and BG2 as examples, certain quests can net you extra rewards if your Charisma is high (honestly too high in this case, but that’s not the point). Even those regrettably few moments are enough to convince me not to dump Charisma. If more quests in more games did something like this, then I would be a very happy person, but they don’t, so my happiness is often limited.

At the end of this really long rant about my particular tastes, I will say that game developers have used the fact that they have to pay for voice acting as an excuse to limit the number of dialogue options in their games. This is why I often find fully voiced lines to be a step in the wrong direction. But if a developer tells me that that isn’t an issue, that they’ll give me robust dialogue options and full voice acting? I’d say go for it, with my blessing.

 

[Cahir]

At the end of this really long rant about my particular tastes, I will say that game developers have used the fact that they have to pay for voice acting as an excuse to limit the number of dialogue options in their games. This is why I often find fully voiced lines to be a step in the wrong direction. But if a developer tells me that that isn’t an issue, that they’ll give me robust dialogue options and full voice acting? I’d say go for it, with my blessing.

This reminded me of a fragment of the last Panel from Hell, where one of Larian writers said she is testing 700 lines of dialogue, which is basically 4 mouse clicks from a player. There were so many permutations of this dialogue. This implies there will be many options in BG3.

 

[Chronicler]

This reminded me of a fragment of the last Panel from Hell, where one of Larian writers said she is testing 700 lines of dialogue, which is basically 4 mouse clicks from a player. There were so many permutations of this dialogue. This implies there will be many options in BG3.

Honestly, that sounded so excessive.

I understand it's like the future and we can fit more lines of code in there without straining the hardware, but at what point is it just not worth the man-power to get that hyper-specific in adjusting every line of dialogue to every conceivable arrangement of circumstances you could've created.

I know "choice" is the big buzzword in videogames, but are we really that afraid of a linear narrative? Would Lord of the Rings have been that much better if we'd been able to send frodo on a detour through a pond and have Gandalf acknowledge that he's wet in a later scene?

 

[Nimran]

Honestly, that sounded so excessive.

I understand it's like the future and we can fit more lines of code in there without straining the hardware, but at what point is it just not worth the man-power to get that hyper-specific in adjusting every line of dialogue to every conceivable arrangement of circumstances you could've created.

I know "choice" is the big buzzword in videogames, but are we really that afraid of a linear narrative? Would Lord of the Rings have been that much better if we'd been able to send frodo on a detour through a pond and have Gandalf acknowledge that he's wet in a later scene?

More options do not just mean throwing Frodo into a pond. That is trivial and pointless. Choices are not trivial and pointless. And by no means is choice a bad thing.

Linear stories aren’t bad either, they’re fun once, but after the first time there’s no point in going through it again. I’ve played plenty of games like that, and frankly, they’d be better if they gave me more options.

 

[Chronicler]

More options do not just mean throwing Frodo into a pond. That is trivial and pointless. Choices are not trivial and pointless. And by no means is choice a bad thing.

Linear stories aren’t bad either, they’re fun once, but after the first time there’s no point in going through it again. I’ve played plenty of games like that, and frankly, they’d be better if they gave me more options.

Eh, I'd say BG1 and 2 were fun more than once, and at no point were there several hundred iterations of a conversation four lines deep.

You say choices are not trivial or pointless, but are you really gonna tell me all several hundred variations of that conversation are more meaningfully distinct from every other variation than the "Character notices you're wet" example?

 

[Chronicler]

I wanna be clear, this isn't like a huge condemnation of the game or anything. I just don't think I had the intended reaction to that one piece of marketing.

"Dozens of iterations of every conversation" sounds to me like "Wow, that's so many potentialities to explore."

"Several hundred iterations of every conversation" sounds to me like "Why? What are we getting out of getting that granular with it?"

It was still overall a very exciting stream. They were very excited about their work and I think that excitement is gonna shine through in their work in a big way, even if some of the choices they make in their excitement might sound strange. Often you get that when people are working out of genuine enthusiasm for the product. They're actualizing their own dreams, and that's personal on a level that isn't gonna resonate the same with every person in the audience.

 

[Chronicler]

Used to work at a diner. Run by a greek man. The olive oil was the nicest thing in the restaraunt. Had it imported straight from greece.

Lot of people would look at him and say, "That's an excessive amount of money to be spending on olive oil", but it still spoke to a pride in the quality of his offerings, even if it's not where you'd personally invest that money. It's like that.

 

[Nimran]

Eh, I'd say BG1 and 2 were fun more than once, and at no point were there several hundred iterations of a conversation four lines deep.

You say choices are not trivial or pointless, but are you really gonna tell me all several hundred variations of that conversation are more meaningfully distinct from every other variation than the "Character notices you're wet" example?

BG1 and 2 weren’t really all that linear, though. Sure, you had a beginning and an ending that were the same or similar, but the character you play, the characters you bring along, the choices you make, can be pretty different from someone else’s run. Being able to play a fighter, then a cleric, then a mage, being evil, good, etc. is what I mean when I talk about options. Dialogue is only one part of the discussion.

To be clear, I don’t advocate for hundreds of lines that don’t change much. I advocate for significant choices that mean something. Hundreds of lines don’t impress me if they don’t change anything.

I haven’t seen any of Larian’s panels, nor do I care to. I’d much rather go into the game blind. Perhaps that conversation is overdoing it, I don’t know. All I’ve ever done is talk about my personal preference when it comes to games. I couldn’t care less about what ‘buzzwords’ are being thrown around.

 

[Chronicler]

BG1 and 2 weren’t really all that linear, though. Sure, you had a beginning and an ending that were the same or similar, but the character you play, the characters you bring along, the choices you make, can be pretty different from someone else’s run. Being able to play a fighter, then a cleric, then a mage, being evil, good, etc. is what I mean when I talk about options. Dialogue is only one part of the discussion.

To be clear, I don’t advocate for hundreds of lines that don’t change much. I advocate for significant choices that mean something. Hundreds of lines don’t impress me if they don’t change anything.

I haven’t seen any of Larian’s panels, nor do I care to. I’d much rather go into the game blind. Perhaps that conversation is overdoing it, I don’t know. All I’ve ever done is talk about my personal preference when it comes to games. I couldn’t care less about what ‘buzzwords’ are being thrown around.

That's kind of all I was saying though.

I'm not advocating for no choices in any games ever. I was just saying this thing the panel described with the dialogue tree sounded like a weird extreme that wasn't immediately appealing to me in the way I think the developers intended it to be.

 

[Zaxares]

Also, I have to ask a maybe slightly confrontational question:

If immersion, identification with the main character and playing as "an extension of myself" is so important to some people, how does a voiced protagonist disturb that feeling?

I talk. A lot. Being mute would make me feel a lot less like myself than if the inflection wasn't 100% the way I intended.

An excellent question! And perhaps an insightful one. You see, I'm the opposite of you in real life. XD I'm actually VERY quiet and quite introverted by nature. I do decently well in social situations, but I'm generally the type of person who "only talks when I have something important to say." I guess for me, I'm used to allowing my own internal voice to fill the space when I select dialogue choices; it's not necessary for me to actually HEAR my character say something (again, outside of generic selection and response voice barks). Choosing a voice set is more like deciding what my voice actually sounds like, and from there my imagination will do the rest of the work. If you've ever played a CRPG and chosen a voice set, and then later had to remake the character and choose a different voiceset because one of their sound bites made you go "My character wouldn't say that!", then you probably know what I mean. (As an example, imagine choosing a voiceset that you think sounds like one that befits a calm, peaceful LG cleric, and then finding out that one of their combat barks is "ALL INFIDELS MUST DIE!" XD)

It's usually not so extreme, but a voiced protagonist subtly over time builds up their own distinct personality (like V, in Cyberpunk: 2077. Regardless of your background and your own headcanon backstory, over time V comes across as being somebody who's fairly anti-establishment, a bit arrogant, headstrong etc. It's quite difficult to reconcile if you wanted to play your V as someone who's quite calm, methodical, an "ice-cool operative" etc. You can sort of manage it if the protagonist is silent because you can pick the options that most sound like the character you're trying to emulate, but if the protagonist is fully voiced (or worse, carries on a convo for several lines after you've picked your choice) that tends to get stripped away.

But where BG3 is concerned, perhaps a good compromise are the 6 origin characters, as you suggested; fully voiced characters that you still have free reign to guide and control.

 

[Chronicler]

Do you mind if I ask a question for the people who are on the early access?

Does the player character have no voice acting at all, or doe they simply have unvoiced dialogue?

Like, these are two different discussions to me if the player has like battle cries and will chant while casting and has various bits of flavor voice acting when they stealth or pickpocket or fail a tumble or whatever, vs if the player is literally just silent at all times.

In Granblue Fantasy the player character is literally just silent. You'll be in battle and all your teammates will be shouting their battle cries and stuff and then you'll do your big attack and it'll just be stone silence until the next party member makes their move. That I'm not a fan of so much.

 

[Antimatter]

Does the player character have no voice acting at all, or doe they simply have unvoiced dialogue?

They don't have VO for dialogues but have barks for combat, stealth etc. Also, there is one cutscene in the camp (I think it's from the earlier version of the Early Access period) where the main character can speak a few words.

 

[Cahir]

But where BG3 is concerned, perhaps a good compromise are the 6 origin characters, as you suggested; fully voiced characters that you still have free reign to guide and control.

I'd say that would really be a decent compromise. I wonder how many players played the origin characters in Divinity Original Sin 2. I suspect if in BG3 origin characters would be fully voiced and custom character silent, the popularity of origin characters would be drastically increased. And I think Larian would didn't mind that.

 

[Antimatter]

I don't believe they would go for that. I mean, I wouldn't mind that half-solution if they can't voice the custom character, but from the developer's standpoint, it doesn't make sense. There was a poll in the BG3 subreddit (so there are very positive BG3 fans there by default), and the majority of the votes said they would play the custom character. BG3 is not DOS2, and the audience differs quite substantially. Many D&D players would prefer to play their own characters from D&D, or they would prefer to play "themselves", or they might have another reason not to pick the origin character for the 1st playthrough (and we can't ignore the fact that 60%+ of players play through games only 1 full time, even if it's such a hardcore game as BG).

I think the voices of those potential players who don't want to see origin characters favoured by any means in BG3 have been so loud since the very announcement of BG3 that Larian heard them. The pro-original games audience is already quite vocal, and it would be a mistake to anger them even more.

 

[Nimran]

Character creation is the bread and butter of DnD, so it makes a lot of sense that people would want to make their own from scratch. I wouldn’t mind turning Lae’zel (I think that’s her name?) into a warlock of the great old one just for fun, though.

 

[Antimatter]

Baldur's Gate 3 tops the list of 30 most-anticipated PC games of 2023, as selected by the PC Gamer global team of editors.

PC Gamer's most-anticipated games of 2023

30 games we think deserve your time, surveyed from the entire PC Gamer team.

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