The lack of asian accents bugs me

[Captain Australia]

I mean .. c'mon.

There's a feature to tie the soldier voice to their nationality, so clearly this has been thought about a lot.

I mean .. seriously .. there are ten variants of American, UK, a couple of aussies, OK there's the coalition of Justice for ya. But there are 10 variants of German, Italian and French FFS. Two Aussies, TWO. Four UK variants. FOUR, then 40 ... ****40**** variations for middle European accents .....

So why is there no eastern variation in the voices ?

Personally, I'd like some asian flavour .. No, my japanese ranger does NOT have to yell "Banzai!!" as he jumps in to decapitate a sectoid............ but .. something.

I don't even need to see specific variations - Japanese, Korean, Filipino .. I can live with a generic asian voice.

But I think this is a really weird shortfall, and when you look at the long list of recorded voices .. it just strikes me as a real deficit, and maybe racism by ommission or something ??

Also, one that I'd like to see is variations on Indian accents - it would be great for once to associate that with a Krishna style warrior and positive role model, instead of telemarketing.

[3D Master]

You mean asian languages, not accents. The only accents that exist in the game are primary languages spoken in a country.

[talemore]

Sum Ting Wong !

[Captain Australia]

?

No, I mean accents. As in english spoken with an accent. UK and Australian are an example, yes, I know Spanish, they're speaking actual spanish, I havent checked out all of them but I'm assuming of the ten ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ german ones, they arent all spoken german but rather characterisations of a german speaking english .. in ... AN ACCENT.

But fine, let's be all pedantic and say that those characterisations are LANGUAGES (with 10 different accents on each) ..

The core point being that China and India are the largest population centres in the world, and those LANGUAGES or ACCENTS (♥♥♥♥) are not represented.

Japan is culturally admired and imitated throughout the western world, and yet I can't have a Japanese sounding guy.

That's the point. Let's not get caught up in pedantry, I'm remarking on the lack of representation of some cultures that are clearly reflected in the flag.

African nations are good too. I don't necessary want to hear the whirs & clicks of someone responding in Kalahari Bushman tongue, but I'd love to hear an african soldier respond in english with tonality and characterisation that matches their origin (I personally think an african person speaking english as their second language sounds great)

These aren't language packs, these are characterisations that you can customise for your soldiers in a very MMO-ish way, making them look and sound how you like. If all 10 french examples are people speaking purely french, that sucks .. I'd like maybe one or two like that, and the other 8 to be french sounding characterisations speaking english or a mix.

[Captain Australia]

and +1 Sum Ting (definitely) Wong

[Coyote]

Lack of russian in vanilla infuriates me.
They have too many options for some of the other ones that just really sound the same.

[Kahvipannu]

Originally posted by fireborn:

Lack of russian in vanilla infuriates me.
They have too many options for some of the other ones that just really sound the same.

ISn't there a mod that unlocks the unused russian voices in the game?

But yeah, asian one would be nice.

[choomba]

i agree, the accents should be more divided. maybe they distributed them for the poeple in that regions who actually buy the game? cant believe that there are not asiens among the customers. Ok. propably not many bushmans play xcom^^

[Exarch_Alpha]

No, just no. "Rooraparooza" when you select a japanese, is that what OP wants to hear?

Lock this.

[Eggy]

I would assume this is a cost thing.
You can have the same "german" guy do 2-3 different voices in german and then also do some some more in english with a german accent. But its unlikely he will also be able to do japanese for example.
This is why there are lots of american, australian and english varations as any decent voice actor can pull off all these and would of been able to provided multiple characters worth of voices.
"british" - "english" also covers the scotish, irish and welsh accents also giving more variations.

There was a mod early on that aimed to adress this issue, but I think it died.
I assume due to lack of decent voice actors or because voice mods are notrius for using memory and causing problems.

[learnedhand]

A few comments:

1) I'm not sure I would want "asian accents" (I'm asian) since they tend to be stereotypical in a bad way.

2) I'd rather they spend time/resources on other things for this game.

3) There are several mods for asian languages.

[Captain Australia]

I don't like modding a game until I've beaten it vanilla ..

Any voice not performed by a local actor will feel stereotyped to a local (example, the Aussie voices always feel exaggerated to me).

I'm not asking for mockery, just representation, I think every nation that has a flag in the XCOM cohort of countries should have some corresponding voicing.

My oncologist is a lovely chinese man, and his voice would be fantastic. It's not stereotyped, just a soothing chinese person, a guy who is calm and in control of his ♥♥♥♥ at all times.

Chinese
Japanese
Russian
Indian
African

Just add 3 or 4 variations on the above, and I'm happy. And no mushi-mushi, roraparooza stuff, just serious voicing representing what would be more than half of the world's population who are for some weird reason not represented.

[Nyx]

you know it cost money to hire voice actors

[Captain Australia]

....... ah .. yeah, thanks for the productive comment, mate.

[Nyx]

there is no other comment needed that is why there arent any asian voices.

[Gentoo]

Cuz they are cheap? It isn't like they haven't made a ton of money off of this game and the last one. Make us some voices devs.