Finished my first BG3 run, man the acting is great, especially at the when characters get their big emotional moments. I’m thinking “that’s acting!”, also recognised Omni Man immediately.
Now I’m on to Alan Wake 2 and omg I can’t take the dialogue and voice acting. It feels jarring. The prior game I played was Silent Hill 2 and I remembered it was OK, the MC was very chill in a horror game but its kinda explained by the story
Kingdome Come 2 has great voice acting too. Some really funny characters (Adder is my favorite crazy Pollack) . They suffer from a lack of voice actors though so some characters have the same actor.
Alan Wake 2 has great voice acting. I think the main character is just naturally more subdued and when compared with the theatricality of BG3 it just seems worse if you’re expecting that style.
I keep hearing this, but I honestly don’t like both VA & facial expressions in Control. Both are usually incredibly wooden and stiff, with the facial expressions veering hard into the uncanny valley, but without redeeming stylized highlights.
I felt this way after playing God of War 2018 and ragnarok. Everything else just felt pretty boring for a while. Currently enjoying my first play through of Red Dead Redemption 2.
BG3 is great and all but there are other games with at least equal voice acting quality. For all its qualities I never felt like “wow, I’ve never seen voice acting like this in a game!” when I played BG3. It’s really good and really consistent but nothing earth shattering.
I know I bring up Disco Elysium a lot, but that is one game where I got repeatedly shocked at the quality and diversity of the voice acting. With the exception of one single character I think it’s acted to absolute perfection.
I also didn’t really feel the same about Alan Wake 2 like, at all. I thought it had superb acting (both voice and full video segments) and probably hold the quality of its acting above BG3 personally. Alan Wake 1 less so.
mass effect and the first few dragon age games had great acting, Kingdom come has great acting, most of the Sony exclusives have great acting, it’s out there. It’s just rare.
I second Disco Elysium’s voice acting and also all of Supergiant Games catalogue, especially Bastion, Transistor, and Hades. Portal 2 is the most hilarious video game of all time, and a major part of that is its voice acting.
The Stanley Parable, Borderlands 1/2, Prey, System Shock 1/2, the Bioshock series, SOMA, the new Doom games, Path of Exile, all elevated by their voice acting.
Now that I think about it, the marvellous thing about BG3 isn’t just the acting of the main characters but of the minor NPCs as well. It shows an unprecedented attention to detail and love and care.
I think the only “bad” acting I encountered in the game was that one kid who was apparently voiced by one of the staff’s kids. And that’s only because the model looked too old, for which I suspect that the kid chose their own model.
Agreed. Great voice acting is one thing. Quality voicing a cast that gigantic is another. I first noticed with that frog in the hag’s area. You don’t even get it if you don’t cast speak with animals and talk to this random frog hopping around, but if you bother to, you get this short, amazingly acted dialogue.
BG3 has great voice acting, but I don’t really think it’s that far beyond any other games. As a personal example, Cherami Leigh as Female V in Cyberpunk 2077 is probably my favorite voice actor in the last several years, even if BG3 is probably my favorite game in that same time.
Dude Cherami Leigh also voiced my favorite gaming character, Gaige the Mechromancer from Borderlands 2. She’s fucking phenomenal.
It’s a bummer none of the echo logs made it into the game, but they’re still great. The fact that she cuts her arm, and then instead of patching it up, she just slices her arm clean off and then builds a mecha arm WHILE she’s bleeding out is so fuckin hardcore. I love it
Femme V really nails the emotional arc of V’s story in ways that the VA for masc V doesn’t, to the point that I’m truthfully less invested in my current playthrough (male street kid origin) than I was in my original (female corpo).
That said, everybody who did voice work in BG3 did fantastic in ways that have made other things I’ve touched feel hit-and-miss – I nearly dropped Avowed due to some early mid voice work making me worry about the overall quality – but Neil Newborn has been rightfully getting acclaim for Astarion, and you have to hand it to him – they gave him the character, but he was the one who decided “I’m gonna chew the scenery so hard I shit splinters” and made it work so damn well.
Legacy of Kain: Defiance. They got actual stage actors and real acting veterans to voice a lot of the major roles in that game. It feels like you’re playing through some epic dark fantasy movie because of it.
Also, it may sound weird, but some of the audio logs in Prototype 2 actually fucked me up because they did such an amazing job. The one that’s stuck with me the most is one you can find fairly early on in the game, where a mom is trying to stop a government soldier from shooting her son because he’s nonverbal (and therefore can’t “prove” he’s not infected), and it’s absolutely gut wrenching. I had to stop playing for a few minutes after I heard because it was so intense. Here’s the recording if any of you were curious.
What makes BG3 so great is that it doesn‘t just have voice acting, it has full acting. The actor of Astarion worked for 4 years on it and claimed it was the equivalent to shooting 4 seasons of a TV show. It‘s a huge scope that almost nobody can or want to afford. I mean those studios who can just don‘t take that part very seriously and are eyeing with simply opting to use AI instead. I doubt it will ever be recreated, maybe not even by Larian themselves.
BG3 is definitely one of those games with good (even great) voice acting. But there are more of them out there.
RDR2 has some of the best writing and acting performances I’ve ever encountered in a game. The Last of Us is in a similar vein.
The Uncharted series has some of my favourite voice acting, especially Claudia Black (Chloe) and of course Nolan North (Nathan).
Claudia Black also voices Morrigan in Dragon Age Origins, which is chock full of stellar voice performances. I’d argue that Dragon Age 2 and even Inquisition had some memorable performances but The Veilguard sucked.
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Kingdome Come 2 has great voice acting too. Some really funny characters (Adder is my favorite crazy Pollack) . They suffer from a lack of voice actors though so some characters have the same actor.
At least Silent Hill 2 was great as well. Lae’zel’s actress Devora Wilde actually did some mocap for it. She did some Maria and some of the monsters.
She’s streaming her own playthrough on Twitch. It’s hilarious and painful. BG3 was the first video game she’s ever played since the Sims back then.
But yeah, they really upped the game. And apparently they got Liv Tyler interested in doing games as well.
We’re really living through the time gaming is growing up.
BG3 is a milestone in gaming. It may be a bit unfair to compare it to games that were produced at the same time, they couldn’t hope to compete lmao.
FemV in CP2077 totally killed it. Her voice acting was one of my favorite parts of the game.
AC Odyssey didn’t have as many emotional beats, but Kassanda was still way better than her brother.
And of course Jennifer Hale as FemShep… I’m starting to see a pattern here, lol.
and mShep, and Mordin, and Liara… the ME series just had a whoooole lotta amazing voice acting.
Oh really Alan Wake 2? Haven’t played it yet but I thought Control voice acting and face expressions were well done?
Alan Wake 2 has great voice acting. I think the main character is just naturally more subdued and when compared with the theatricality of BG3 it just seems worse if you’re expecting that style.
The Alice videos in AW2 are some of the best acting I’ve seen in a video game.
I keep hearing this, but I honestly don’t like both VA & facial expressions in Control. Both are usually incredibly wooden and stiff, with the facial expressions veering hard into the uncanny valley, but without redeeming stylized highlights.
I felt this way after playing God of War 2018 and ragnarok. Everything else just felt pretty boring for a while. Currently enjoying my first play through of Red Dead Redemption 2.
You lucky bastard.
BOY
I’ve got my issues with RDR2, but definitely not with the writing and performances.
BG3 is great and all but there are other games with at least equal voice acting quality. For all its qualities I never felt like “wow, I’ve never seen voice acting like this in a game!” when I played BG3. It’s really good and really consistent but nothing earth shattering.
I know I bring up Disco Elysium a lot, but that is one game where I got repeatedly shocked at the quality and diversity of the voice acting. With the exception of one single character I think it’s acted to absolute perfection.
I also didn’t really feel the same about Alan Wake 2 like, at all. I thought it had superb acting (both voice and full video segments) and probably hold the quality of its acting above BG3 personally. Alan Wake 1 less so.
mass effect and the first few dragon age games had great acting, Kingdom come has great acting, most of the Sony exclusives have great acting, it’s out there. It’s just rare.
I second Disco Elysium’s voice acting and also all of Supergiant Games catalogue, especially Bastion, Transistor, and Hades. Portal 2 is the most hilarious video game of all time, and a major part of that is its voice acting.
The Stanley Parable, Borderlands 1/2, Prey, System Shock 1/2, the Bioshock series, SOMA, the new Doom games, Path of Exile, all elevated by their voice acting.
I’d also put Still Wakes the Deep on that list.
Agreed. BG3 is outstanding but I loved AW2, thought the acting and Mocap etc was brilliant
Disco Elysium was my first thought as well. Such great voice acting! It is easily my favorite game, and now I’m looking forward to Hopetown
Which character did you not like?
I don’t think Ruby works well but I suspect it’s a problem with direction rather than the voice actor themselves.
Now that I think about it, the marvellous thing about BG3 isn’t just the acting of the main characters but of the minor NPCs as well. It shows an unprecedented attention to detail and love and care.
I think the only “bad” acting I encountered in the game was that one kid who was apparently voiced by one of the staff’s kids. And that’s only because the model looked too old, for which I suspect that the kid chose their own model.
Agreed. Great voice acting is one thing. Quality voicing a cast that gigantic is another. I first noticed with that frog in the hag’s area. You don’t even get it if you don’t cast speak with animals and talk to this random frog hopping around, but if you bother to, you get this short, amazingly acted dialogue.
The attention to detail is just off the charts.
Well dont play The Last of Us part 1/2 or it will ruin gaming for you.
BG3 has great voice acting, but I don’t really think it’s that far beyond any other games. As a personal example, Cherami Leigh as Female V in Cyberpunk 2077 is probably my favorite voice actor in the last several years, even if BG3 is probably my favorite game in that same time.
Dude Cherami Leigh also voiced my favorite gaming character, Gaige the Mechromancer from Borderlands 2. She’s fucking phenomenal.
It’s a bummer none of the echo logs made it into the game, but they’re still great. The fact that she cuts her arm, and then instead of patching it up, she just slices her arm clean off and then builds a mecha arm WHILE she’s bleeding out is so fuckin hardcore. I love it
Honestly, for the most part I really enjoyed the voice acting in Guild Wars 2. But femme V is probably my favourite as of late.
Femme V really nails the emotional arc of V’s story in ways that the VA for masc V doesn’t, to the point that I’m truthfully less invested in my current playthrough (male street kid origin) than I was in my original (female corpo).
That said, everybody who did voice work in BG3 did fantastic in ways that have made other things I’ve touched feel hit-and-miss – I nearly dropped Avowed due to some early mid voice work making me worry about the overall quality – but Neil Newborn has been rightfully getting acclaim for Astarion, and you have to hand it to him – they gave him the character, but he was the one who decided “I’m gonna chew the scenery so hard I shit splinters” and made it work so damn well.
Legacy of Kain: Defiance. They got actual stage actors and real acting veterans to voice a lot of the major roles in that game. It feels like you’re playing through some epic dark fantasy movie because of it.
Also, it may sound weird, but some of the audio logs in Prototype 2 actually fucked me up because they did such an amazing job. The one that’s stuck with me the most is one you can find fairly early on in the game, where a mom is trying to stop a government soldier from shooting her son because he’s nonverbal (and therefore can’t “prove” he’s not infected), and it’s absolutely gut wrenching. I had to stop playing for a few minutes after I heard because it was so intense. Here’s the recording if any of you were curious.
What makes BG3 so great is that it doesn‘t just have voice acting, it has full acting. The actor of Astarion worked for 4 years on it and claimed it was the equivalent to shooting 4 seasons of a TV show. It‘s a huge scope that almost nobody can or want to afford. I mean those studios who can just don‘t take that part very seriously and are eyeing with simply opting to use AI instead. I doubt it will ever be recreated, maybe not even by Larian themselves.
Voice acting? Reject modernity, embrace Dwarf Fortress.
embrace [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected], except you mash past all the voice acting because you can read faster than the lines are acted out
BG3 is definitely one of those games with good (even great) voice acting. But there are more of them out there.
RDR2 has some of the best writing and acting performances I’ve ever encountered in a game. The Last of Us is in a similar vein. The Uncharted series has some of my favourite voice acting, especially Claudia Black (Chloe) and of course Nolan North (Nathan).
Claudia Black also voices Morrigan in Dragon Age Origins, which is chock full of stellar voice performances. I’d argue that Dragon Age 2 and even Inquisition had some memorable performances but The Veilguard sucked.