Religion is one of the themes in Starfield, and to help make the theme and the existing religions in the game feel more believable, Bethesda rehired one of its former writers who had left to become a Jesuit priest.
29.08.2023 - 20:05 / destructoid.com / Emil Pagliarulo
We’re closing in on the final days until Starfield finally arrives. By now, you’ve probably read everything about the game (maybe even filled in your own unofficial character planner). However, did you know that the game was originally going to have a voiced protagonist?
So says Emil Pagliarulo, lead designer for Starfield. In a recent interview with Polygon, Pagliarulo was asked about the fact that Fallout 4 had a main character that was given voice, yet the upcoming space faring RPG from Bethesda does not. Well, as it turns out, Starfield was initially going to follow in the same footsteps.
The team even hired a voice actor, but were unsure about whether or not it would work. Pagliarulo said there was some tinkering with the idea about having a voiced protagonist, but the team decided that a silent main character was the way forward, adding that it was “the only way to really do it and let the player be the person they want to be.”
“Early on in the game, we did have a voiced protagonist,” Pagliarulo explained. “In pre-production, the plan was to have a voiced protagonist. We hired an actor, we got the voice, we listened to him and we were like, You know what, this guy is too specific.”
Aside from 2015’s Fallout 4, Bethesda typically favors unvoiced heroes and heroines, so it’s unsurprising that Starfield took this approach. There’s something immersive about letting the player leap into the digital shoes of a game’s protagonist, and the likes of Skyrim have done well enough with a silent player-character.
As Pagliarulo says: “maybe fans will actually enjoy the game even more” if the main character is silent. After all, there’s over 200,000 lines of dialogue, and not having a voiced protagonist “allowed us to create such a big world.”
Starfield releases on September 6 for PC and Xbox Series X|S. You can also get it on Game Pass from day one, though you won’t be able to sign up for the $1 trial anymore.
Religion is one of the themes in Starfield, and to help make the theme and the existing religions in the game feel more believable, Bethesda rehired one of its former writers who had left to become a Jesuit priest.
Emil Pagliarulo, the lead designer of Bethesda’s upcoming mega-RPG Starfield, recently revealed that the developers had a Jesuit priest-in-training advise them when creating the game’s religions. Shane Liesegang, the up-and-coming priest in question, actually served as a former writer for Bethesda who specifically worked on both Skyrim and Fallout 4. That former connection combined with Liesegang’s studies helped the team at Bethesda make one of Starfield’s original religions as authentic and believable as possible.
Bethesda consulted a former Skyrim and Fallout 4 writer, who's since become a Catholic priest in training, to help build out the RPG's two in-game religions.
Bethesda’s ambitious space-exploration RPG Starfield is right around the corner, and it’s now been explained why the title features an unvoiced protagonist, despite having over 200,000 lines of voiced dialogue.
Going from Skyrim to Fallout 4 and then subsequently Starfield proved a challenge for some of Bethesda’s writers.
In Polygon's recent interview with design director Emil Pagliarulo, it was revealed that Starfield very nearly had a voiced protagonist in the style of Fallout 4's sole survivor.
Bethesda Game Studios once considered giving the playable character in Starfield a voice. In fact, they got so far as to hire a voice actor. But ultimately, they decided not to go ahead with the idea.
Bethesda games have long had silent protagonists, even counting Skyrim's Dragonborn who goes from silently muttering sentences to Fus Ro Dah-ing companions off cliffs. Fallout 4 changed that with two voice options which, along with a watered-down dialogue wheel that never laid out exactly what you were going to say, drew backlash. Starfield took note.
Starfield lead designer Emil Pagliarulo has revealed that developer Bethesda almost decided to give its protagonist a voice. Pagliarulo spoke about the game featuring a silent protagonist in an interview with Polygon leading up to the release of the sci-fi RPG.
The biggest difference between Starfield and Fallout 4 is Bethesda's decision go with a silent protagonist this time around. But that wasn't always the case.
In the five years since Bethesda Softworks first announced Starfield, much of the conversation has been focused on the endless possibilities that await players within the game’s web of planets and choices. There’s complex character and personality creation, a spectrum of geography all tricked out with the latest lighting and physics technology, customizable spaceships and space teams from highly dimensional NPCs, and loads of other bells and whistles to take advantage of the current generation of consoles.
Starfield has a New Game+ mode, ensuring you can keep playing Bethesda's enormous sci-fi RPG even after you eventually roll credits.