Why the protagonists in FPS games are always silent?

[Ubisoft_Agent]

In most first-person shooters the protagonists are always silent. They never talk or even response to their commanders. It's ridiculous when their teammates are responding commands like "roger that", "affirmative" or "solid copy" but the protagonists never say ♥♥♥♥♥. What makes even more ridiculous is that when these protagonists appear in cutscenes in third-person perspective they can talk normally. However, when they get back in game they become muted again. Why the developers have to design in this way?

[Blargo]

Iunno.

[Cleverhardy (She/Her)]

In single player FPS games, we are supposed to be our own character. We experience an adventure we know is too dangerous to have. We get to have a say in those situations.

[sasuke uchiha]

Not in Halo, black ops, or battlefield.

[Ubisoft_Agent]

引用自 Cleverhardy (Now on Discord)：

In single player FPS games, we are supposed to be our own character. We experience an adventure we know is too dangerous to have. We get to have a say in those situations.

So you mean the developers assume us too scared to say any thing in the battle?

[sfnhltb]

I think it is supposed to help increase immersion for a broader audience where the intent of the game is the player completely takes the role of the character being controlled in the game, as if the player is from a different country (or gender, language, etc.) than the protagonists voice actor it could make it harder, and for some games it would be very hard to get a full range of voiced protagonist responds (say an open world, character building game like Skyrim, where presumably thousands of hours of dialogue for every race/class/gender combination would be needed to be able to interact with all the NPCs and different situations that can occur during gameplay)

You could also just presume that Gordon Freeman, et al, are just deaf and using sign language to communicate with the NPCs around them :P

[N3tRunn3r]

Cuz it is you, the player, and you do your own thoughts while in middle of a conversation.

[Ubisoft_Agent]

引用自 sfnhltb：

I think it is supposed to help increase immersion for a broader audience where the intent of the game is the player completely takes the role of the character being controlled in the game, as if the player is from a different country (or gender, language, etc.) than the protagonists voice actor it could make it harder, and for some games it would be very hard to get a full range of voiced protagonist responds (say an open world, character building game like Skyrim, where presumably thousands of hours of dialogue for every race/class/gender combination would be needed to be able to interact with all the NPCs and different situations that can occur during gameplay)

You could also just presume that Gordon Freeman, et al, are just deaf and using sign language to communicate with the NPCs around them :P

引用自 N3tRunn3r：

Cuz it is you, the player, and you do your own thoughts while in middle of a conversation.

So the intention is to make the player can easily put himself into the shoes of protagonists?

[sfnhltb]

引用自 Bravo_Frost：

So the intention is to make the player can easily put himself into the shoes of protagonists?

I think that is the most common intention for doing it, interestingly visual novels often do the same thing - where they have voice acting, frequently the main characters' responses are text (or text choices) only, I assume for the same reason. It is also partly about retaining the player's sense of agency - if the character you are controlling interacts with others in ways you don't like it can be very jarring and annoying.

Half Life seems a special case as well - there are a few parts where NPCs respond to you as if you had replied despite having nothing voiced from Gordon, so you get only half the conversation.

As you suggest it can create some weirdness - for example in the Borderlands series the PCs from 1 just say a few stock phrases during battle while you (and friends) control them, but otherwise are the same sort of silent protagonist. However in 2 when they are major NPCs as you interact with a large number of times they suddenly develop much more rounded personalities and deeper backgrounds/motivations that a few random audio diary snippets scattered around.

[Meneluma]

Try Bioshock Infinite, you'll have the dude you're playing as read out loud every sign you come across in the main story path, have monologues with himself and do proper dialogue with the NPCs when he has to.

[O5]

It all started with pong.

[Flavor]

so the player can fill the shoes of the protagonist

[SpicyPepperoni]

引用自 MADHEM：

It all started with pong.

The whole video game genre was rigged after that...

[pants]

it increases immersion as most of us never speak out loud to other humans face to face anyways

[sage2001]

In Titanfall 2, the main character had some selectable dialog options.

But as for the other FPS games with mute protagonists, it probably has something to do with immersion and making the player feel like the character through their actions in-game.

[JDumbz]

It would make sense that they don't talk. You do it yourself or have the thought process of whatever what your bring told.

Some games do have the main character talking, like Dying Light, or CoD Blackops.

Either way, both works for me, I just play the game.