Starfield Will Have First Person Dialog, No Voice

In a tweet from Bethesda Game Studios they have confirmed that the dialog in Starfield will be first person and that the player character will not have a voice. This is a change from Fallout 4 where the protagonist was voiced — the voiceless protagonist is more of a throwback to previous RPGs.

So far reactions have been mixed online, with many commentators on social media ridiculing a triple-A game for not having voice acting. Other fans bring up the excellent point that Starfield is an RPG, and having a voiceless protagonist means you can better imagine yourself as the character.

It’s also hard to believe that you could offer enough voice options that you’d be able to match the appearance of every character iteration possible in the game’s apparently deep character creator. Plus, if Starfield has the amount of dialog we’re expecting it to, it would have taken a lot of voiceover work even to cover just male and female protagonist dialog.

Another possibility would have been to offer a few voice options, but make them toggleable — this would have pleased everyone, but would also have meant that modifying quests and their accompanying dialog would be much more difficult. Regardless of how people feel, this late into development it’s unlikely they’ll suddenly shift gears and record a bunch of dialog; if you were hoping to hear a generic gruff action hero grunting the whole game, you’re probably out of luck.

Are you happy about the lack of voice dialog lines? Wish Ólafur Darri Ólafsson was voicing the protagonist? Let us know in the comments!