Subj : Starfield originally had a voiced protagonist, but scrapped it to
To   : All
From : TechnologyDaily
Date : Tue Aug 29 2023 14:30:04

Starfield originally had a voiced protagonist, but scrapped it to allow 
players freedom to be who they want

Date:
Tue, 29 Aug 2023 13:15:17 +0000

Description:
Starfield's design director, Emil Pagliarulo, has explained why the game 
features a silent protagonist.

FULL STORY
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Bethesdas ambitious space-exploration RPG Starfield is right around the 
corner, and its now been explained why the title features an unvoiced 
protagonist, despite having over 200,000 lines of voiced dialogue. 

 Starfield s character creation will not only allow players to customize 
their in-game appearance, but it will also give the option to select a 
background and traits, so its unlikely that any two protagonists will be 
exactly the same. 

In a new interview with Polygon, lead designer Emil Pagliarulo revealed that 
the player character was originally supposed to be voiced - in fact, the 
studio hired a voice actor for the role - but they determined that having a 
set number of voices for the protagonist would limit players creative freedom 
to play as the character they want to be. 

Early on in the game, we did have a voiced protagonist. In pre-production, 
the plan was to have a voiced protagonist, Pagliarulo said. We hired an 
actor, we got the voice, we listened to him and we were like: You know what, 
this guy is too specific. So then what are the options? Do we have, like some 
RPGs do, four voices? Do we have one voice, but hire someone else whos more 
convenient? But [in Starfield ] you can make every different type of person. 
We realized that the only way to really do it and let the player be the 
person they want to be was to have an unvoiced protagonist. 

There was a time in the industry where every protagonist was voiced, he 
continued. It was a AAA thing. We started realizing, You know what, maybe 
thats not the case, maybe fans will actually enjoy the game even more. 

Ultimately, this decision ended up being really freeing for Bethesda - 
Pagliarulo added: It was not having a voiced protagonist that allowed us to 
create such a big world. It certainly is a big world, too - Bethesdas Pete 
Hines recently teased that he's still not done with the game after 160 hours. 
Needless to say, players are going to be very busy, very soon. 

 If you still need to pre-order Starfield, you can find out everything you 
need to know (including about the different special editions) in our 
Starfield pre-order guide . You can also check out more upcoming games in our 
roundup of new Xbox Series X games .



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Link to news story:
https://www.techradar.com/gaming/consoles-pc/starfield-originally-had-a-voiced
-protagonist-but-scrapped-it-to-allow-players-freedom-to-be-who-they-want


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