Chinese voice acting?

[Ninn]

I do not really jive with the American voice acting, it feels out of place in a game set in China, and it feels unnecessary since I always play with subtitles anyway. I was wondering if there is a Chinese language option for audio that lets me keep the subs in English, because I could only find options to change both audio and subs at the same time.

[Salty Juniper]

IDK if this makes things better for you but there's very little voice acting throughout the whole game. Most dialogue is accompanied by grunts, mumbling, or one or two placeholder words.

[Ninn]

Originally posted by Salty Juniper:

IDK if this makes things better for you but there's very little voice acting throughout the whole game. Most dialogue is accompanied by grunts, mumbling, or one or two placeholder words.

Oh for sure! It's not a big deal, obviously. I just wanted to make sure that there wasn't some easy fix I was missing, like moving around some files.

[AwesamLinux]

Yea the voice acting in the game is weird and there is no way to change it. Game has a few full spoken lines in English and Chinese, but most dialogue is in made-up language and English mumbling.

Maybe the idea was that the main characters would speak English, and all pedestrians Chinese... Or the devs ran out of time and money, so they released the game with whatever voice lines they had recorded and used placeholders for the rest.

[Tr0w]

Doubly annoying because it's set in 1990s British Hong Kong so there should be a mix of British and Chinese (or Chinese people speaking English with Chinese accents). American accents really have no place here, Sleeping Dogs was annoying for the same reason.

[Salty Juniper]

I'm making a wild guess that the developers wanted familiarity over authenticity regarding language, since you play as a spirit that can absorb knowledge and experience. In other words, since Night Owl quickly learns Chinese as if it's a first language from his hosts, Chinese sounds to Night Owl what English sounds like to North American players. Familiar and "without an accent". I'm not arguing for limiting language options, but maybe there was some logic like that.

[Daikatan]

Often when game has not very big bugdet, they can afford only one voiceover, and usually they go for the most universal one (English). It's like Life is Strange never had French voices.

[Tr0w]

Originally posted by Daikatan:

Often when game has not very big bugdet, they can afford only one voiceover, and usually they go for the most universal one (English). It's like Life is Strange never had French voices.

Eh? Life is Strange is set in Oregon with the town being based on Twin Peaks so US accents and English are not out of place with it.

[Salty Juniper]

Originally posted by Daikatan:

Often when game has not very big bugdet, they can afford only one voiceover, and usually they go for the most universal one (English). It's like Life is Strange never had French voices.

Oh, is English the only language even in other regions? I just assumed the voice acting language differed depending on the region you bought it in.

[Daikatan]

Originally posted by Tr0w:

Eh? Life is Strange is set in Oregon with the town being based on Twin Peaks so US accents and English are not out of place with it.

I expected French because Dontnod are from there. Also for me Max always looked like a typical early 20th century Paris girl.

[Ninn]

Yeah it's obviously a budget problem. I mean VA isn't even close to the biggest problem they obviously had with regards to budget, with the plot and characterisation feeling so rushed, limited assets and animations, etc. Shame there's no easy fix for this though.

[Squeezit]

Based on the comments here, it sounds like the demo was misleading. Maybe they spent all their budget on Denuvo.