Sometimes, a silent protagonist can be louder than actually making noise, and silent protagonists beautifully embody this. What was once a hardware limitation for games like Crash Bandicoot, Super Mario Bros., and DOOM is now an informed choice by developers like Valve that helps elevate the game. With all the hubbub about Valve finally counting their way up to Half-Life: Episode 3, the question I have in my head now is, will we be getting a fully-voiced Doctor Freeman on our screens?
A part of me hopes that we don’t, because I truly believe that Gordon Freeman should be the poster boy not only for Half-Life, but also for why being silent in video games is effective.
Building a Connection
One of the reasons silent protagonists work is that they let the players fully immerse themselves in their character. Having a character be completely silent lets the players react to the environment in their own way, instead of voicelines telling you how to feel. Take, for example, Gordon Freeman yelping or grunting in any way when he was asked to pick up a can at the start of Half-Life 2. Either of those vocal reactions could already evoke an emotion that steers the player to feel a specific way. Instead, the player is left to see how they feel about being told to pick up a can, and that’s just a choice about littering.
Another example of immersion in video games that doesn’t revolve around self-expression can be found in Dead Space, specifically the first game. Sure, Dead Space 2 & 3’s Isaac Clarke found his voice, but those entries were leaning more into the action genre. Dead Space 1, on the other hand, was a claustrophobic horror fest that wanted you to feel on edge, and Isaac Clarke’s silence helped cement this feeling. There were no witty one-liners like Leon, just the desperate grunts from Isaac as he beat necromorphs to a pulp. Isaac never spoke because, really, who was there to talk to other than the space undead?
Part of the Character
Another way to look at the silent protagonist is that the silence is meant to be a part of the character. We’ve all met someone who’s either too shy to speak up or too stoic to even want to speak up, and the same can be said for video games. On one side of the spectrum, we have the ultra-shy New Kid from South Park: The Stick of Truth, who never speaks during the game because he is just extremely shy. This choice by the devs to keep the New Kid silent helped players enjoy their favorite characters in all their horrible shenanigans through the New Kid’s eyes.
On the other hand, we have Doomguy, hell’s infamous exterminator and certified badass. Doomguy’s jump into the modern era of gaming gave him the chance to be a fully voiced character. Bethesda could’ve honestly gone the Fallout 4 route and given Doomguy a few bits of dialogue, some witty remarks, etc. But that isn’t Doomguy, and the developers understood this immediately. Doomguy is the silent stoic giant that lays waste to an entire legion of hellspawn without uttering a single word, not even a grunt. But surprisingly, that isn’t the only reason why Doomguy stays quiet.
Maintaining Focus
If you’ve ever played Dragon's Dogma before, you would soon realize that there is such a thing as too much voice acting in a video game. Voice acting can add a lot of personality to characters, but too much may take focus away from core gameplay. DOOM understood that when they made silence a part of Doomguy’s character, the player could then devote more of their attention span to everything that’s happening on screen. There are a lot of things that could happen on screen, which is why DOOM is so addictive.
For this example, let’s take a look at many of the Souls games. Sure, the game lets you pick which voice your character has at the start of the game, but you’ll only ever hear yourself grunting or (in most cases) giving off a death rattle. But, other than those cases, your character remains as stoic as a knight because the developers want you to focus on the combat. This is where excellent sound design and music come in, drawing you into the sights and sounds of the world as much as possible. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve dodged attacks from behind because my character was listening instead of constantly telling me that “wolves are weak to ice and fire both”.
There are so many more examples of silent protagonists out there, each one being used for a different reason. But I also think it’s worth mentioning the underlying benefit of silent protagonists: Cost-cutting. Money talks, and voice acting doesn’t come cheap these days (as it should). So the next time you play any game with a silent protagonist, take the time to analyze how different the game would be if you could speak.
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